It was late in Cape Town and my wife was almost asleep, when, for no discernable reason, she reached over and turned her phone back on for one last look.
At that exact moment, thousands of miles away, our son Mendel was standing at a gate in Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, about to board Ethiopian Airlines and fly to South Africa to join us for Shabbos.
But when the airline clerk looked at Mendel's passport, she found a problem.
“You're not 18.”
Mendel looked at her. “Yes, I am.”
“No. You're not.”
Apparently, Ethiopian Airlines has a rule that someone under 18 cannot fly alone to prevent child trafficking and kidnappings. I have to admit, I’ve never heard of this rule before. My kids have been flying by themselves since they were very young, and we've never had a problem. Suddenly, on this particular day, on this particular flight, with a teenager just three days away from his 18th birthday, it was an issue.
His birthday is August 9, and it was August 6. According to the secular calendar, he was still 17, but according to the Hebrew calendar, his 18th birthday had already arrived and been celebrated.
So Mendel tried to explain this to the clerk. “I'm actually 18. According to the Jewish calendar, I'm already 18.”
She wasn’t impressed. Her screen showed only one calendar, and according to that calendar he was 17. She told him that the only way he could fly was with written parental consent.
Meanwhile, we had no idea this was going on, but that’s exactly when something internal prompted my wife to turn her phone back on just as she was drifting off to sleep.
Mendel called, she answered, and immediately went into action, finding the exact language required and drafting the authorization within minutes. Problem solved.
Or not quite.
Mendel doesn't carry a smartphone, so he had no way to open the email and show the airline employee the authorization. But he found a kind woman in the terminal who was willing to help him.
The airline said no. She couldn't be his guardian. She was a stranger.
“Can you speak to my mother on the phone?” Mendel tried. But they refused that too.
Then they needed a credit card. His didn't work. In desperation, and this is probably my favorite part of the whole story, he actually asked the airline employee if he could use her credit card and give her cash!
But no. The answer was still no.
So he watched the plane to South Africa leave without him, and turned around and went back to Israel alone. The Shabbos we had planned was not to be.
At that moment, it was very frustrating. But also a pivotal lesson in Hashgacha Pratis, Divine Providence.
Hashem isn’t only involved in the big things, but in all the minutia of our lives. And everything He does is for a reason. I don't know why Mendel missed his flight. But I believe with absolute certainty that there was a reason.
We believe that a leaf doesn't move on the ground without Hashem. If that's true, then surely a 17-year-old boy doesn't randomly miss a flight because his birthday happens to be three days away.
Maybe there was something Hashem was protecting him from. Maybe there was something He was leading him toward. Maybe something was supposed to happen in Israel that Shabbos. Maybe something was supposed to happen in Johannesburg that didn't happen because Mendel wasn't there. I don't know.
It’s easy to say “hashgacha pratis” when we end up seeing the reason. The real challenge—and the real blessing—is to maintain that belief even when nothing we see backs it up.
I wish Mendel had been able to join us, but what an important reminder for him, and for us, about what really matters and Who’s really in charge.