It was Presidents’ Day, the Monday morning of a long weekend.
With school buses not running, instead of following my usual morning routine, I piled the kids into the car and drove them to Yeshiva Ketana, cutting through the familiar streets of the Upper West Side.
After drop-off, I headed back, determined to make our daily minyan, which had been pushed to 9 a.m. because of the holiday.
But then, flashing lights filled my rearview mirror, a siren blared, and a police officer’s voice blasted through a loudspeaker, ordering me to pull over at 96th and Amsterdam.
I can’t remember the last time I was pulled over. I try to drive very carefully, but I had been sending a voice note to someone on my team in Israel about Purim.
Nothing unusual. Just a regular, busy morning. Or not so regular, as it turned out.
“License and registration, please,” the officer requested.
I handed him my license calmly. This had happened before, albeit not recently.
He returned to his car.
Then he came back.
“Sir, your license is suspended. You are driving with a suspended license, and I need to arrest you.”
“What do you mean suspended?” I asked, completely dumbfounded. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He explained that I had accumulated six points within eighteen months, which triggered a Driver Responsibility Assessment fee - one I had never paid. The notice, he said, had been issued two years earlier.
Two years?! I tried explaining that I had never received any notification or summons. No email. No letter. No warning. Nothing.
Now, a fine I never even knew about had caught up with me, and my chances of making the minyan had slipped away entirely.
There I was, on the Upper West Side, facing the possibility of being taken into custody. My wife was out of town at a conference. All I could think was: Who is going to take care of my kids if I get arrested?
Then the officer said something unexpected: “Today is your lucky day. I won’t arrest you, but only if someone comes to get the car within ten minutes. I have to leave.”
Ten minutes is not a lot of time!
I looked around. I was at 96th and Amsterdam. Who was going to magically appear?
I scrolled through my contacts and called the first person who came to mind: the president of our synagogue, Meir Naftoli. I knew he lived two blocks away. The night before, I had even asked him to come to minyan, but he said he wasn’t planning to, which meant he would (fortunately!) probably still be nearby.
He answered the phone. Still in pajamas. “I’ll be there,” he said.
And somehow, within those exact ten minutes, he arrived.
The officer instructed him to drive. And together, we went straight to minyan.
So, what’s the lesson from my experience?
First of all, everything is recorded. Every mitzvah, every act of kindness, every moment of growth is included in the Heavenly accounting that stands in our favor. If a driving fine can turn my life upside down more than two years down the line, imagine how much power there is in the mitzvot we accumulate. So let’s go out and add more to our records. Do another mitzvah. Come to shul. Give tzedakah. Invite someone for Shabbat.
It also reminded me that it’s important to slow down sometimes. Life is hectic. We’re all busy running from place to place, commitment to commitment, convinced everything depends on our speed and efficiency. I was rushing to drop off my kids to be back in time for minyan, while planning Purim and a host of other things. But I was forced to stop and slow down. And sometimes, that’s the best thing we can do: slow down and do things with intention. Light Shabbat candles without distraction, daven without checking our phones, give someone our full attention. Judaism isn’t meant to be lived at highway speed.
And most of all, the lesson that keeps me on my toes again and again, is the ever-true: We are not in control! At 8:39 a.m., I was on my way to shul. At 8:41 a.m., I thought I might be on my way to jail.
We like to think we’re in charge. We like to think we can control the schedule. But the truth is, G-d and G-d alone is in control. When we remember that—and truly live with it—the chaos of life becomes a lot less frightening.
And needless to say, you probably won’t see me driving for a little while!