My family and I spent some time in the south of France last week. It was a beautiful trip, but like every family vacation, the journey home was … let’s just say, less than peaceful.
While we were still at the gate, announcements kept coming over the loudspeaker: “We’re looking for volunteers to give up their seats and stay an extra day with compensation.” That’s how full the flight was.
So when all nine of us boarded a packed, overbooked plane, with our seats scattered across different rows, it was a total balagan.
I asked one lady if she could switch to a different seat 10 rows ahead - actually a better seat than the one she had - but she refused because she had already stowed her luggage.
Eventually, another woman agreed to switch as long as I helped her with her bag, which I gladly did. While we were still trying to sort ourselves out, the stewardess told me I was delaying takeoff and that the pilot would not move until I sat down!
So, we all settled into whatever seats we ended up with. For me, that was a middle seat.
Now here’s the thing: I hate the middle seat. I avoid it at all costs. In fact, I can confidently say I never sit in the middle seat. Ever. But my 7-year-old daughter happily grabbed the aisle, and on the other side sat a young man. That left me squeezed into the dreaded middle seat.
And apparently, that’s exactly where G-d wanted me to be.
I’m always fidgety and anxious on flights, so I quickly struck up a conversation with the young man next to me. “What do you do? Where do you live? What brought you to Nice?” He introduced himself as Max, an engineer at a tech company, who, believe it or not, lives very close to me in Manhattan.
Of course, my next question was: “Are you Jewish?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Did you put on tefillin today?”
“No.”
“Would you like to?”
“Sure.”
I asked him when he last put on tefillin and he told me he didn’t think he ever had. That placed him in a whole different category—what’s called a karkafta, someone who has never donned tefillin - so this would be his bar mitzvah.
“As soon as we’re in the sky and the seatbelt sign is off, I’ll get my tefillin from my bag, we’ll put them on, and then I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the flight,” I told him.
And that’s exactly what we did.
At 30,000 feet in the air, I pulled my tefillin from the overhead compartment, and Max put them on for the very first time. How many people can say they celebrated their bar mitzvah in the sky, with a cabin full of passengers watching on in awe?
It was a holy, unforgettable moment of connection - two brothers in the sky, connected to G-d.
Max may have thought he was just humoring a rabbi on a plane, but in truth he created an eternal connection to his soul and to G-d.
And what did I take away from the encounter (other than the opportunity to assist a fellow Jew in doing a vital mitzvah)? G-d orchestrates every iota of our lives. Sometimes we understand why things happen and why we’re placed in certain situations, but most of the time we don’t.
Here, I was certain my middle seat was a lousy “gift” from G-d, but very quickly it became apparent that I was placed in exactly that seat on exactly that flight to do His bidding. And it reminded me that sometimes the seats we don’t want in life are exactly the ones G-d wants for us.
So next time you find yourself in an uncomfortable spot—whether in an airplane or in life - remember: G-d has a mission waiting for you - something you and only you can do - right there.
Shabbat Shalom!