The world watched horrified this week as the tragedy of the sinking Costa Concordia seized our screens. Eleven have perished, twenty one are still unaccounted for and the blame is being laid squarely on the captain's shoulders.
Francesco Schettino, was born in 1960 in Meta Campania. In 2002, after attending the Nautical Institute at Piano, Schettino joined Costa Cruises first as an official in charge of security and then moved up to become second in command before being promoted to the rank of captain on the newly launched Costa Concordia.
Schettino had trained for years to captain a ship; his qualifications included how to take appropriate action in a time of crisis. But alas, when push came to shove, the cowardly captain did not hesitate to shirk his responsibility.
In fact, the first person to call for help was a passenger; the captain himself did not make a distress call until 49 minutes after the impact, saying, "Va bene (OK), let's declare distress." The recordings reveal a man apparently out of control, incapable of displaying the kind of decisiveness needed from a ship's captain in ordinary circumstances, let alone a disaster such as this.
His version of events involves him falling off of the ship as it listed. Whatever the case may be, he clearly abandoned his vessel and saved his own skin, making a hasty retreat by cab back to his hotel while thousands of passengers and crew remained stranded on the stricken craft. Schettino allegedly even refused to return to the ship to oversee the evacuation after being ordered to do so by the coast guard.
His years of training all amounted to this moment--the defining moment of his career-- yet when it faced him he failed miserably. Imagine the irony: you spend practically your entire life preparing for a single moment, and when it arrives it totally passes you by.
Every one of us was placed here in this world for a purpose and a mission. We spend our whole lives preparing for it, but don’t necessarily know when our moment will arrive. We attend school. We absorb the life lessons of our parents and teachers. We sit through college. Little do we know, that very mission could be one single Mitzvah. As the Baal Shem Tov says, our souls may have descended from Heaven to this world for 70 years just in order to do one favor to a fellow Jew.
Moshe Rabbeinu observes his very own sinking ship in this week’s parsha. His flock, the Jewish people, are drowning in Egypt. Pharaoh is callously throwing their newborns into the Nile. Each day sees the slaughter of 300 Jewish children in whose blood Pharaoh bathes- an apparent cure for his leprosy. Matters deteriorate further when Pharaoh withholds straw from the Jewish slaves, ordering them to find their own with which to make mortar, in addition to producing their daily quota of bricks. The exile has become unbearable, yet the captain does not abandon his vessel. He could have easily saved his own skin and returned to his own house and family. Instead Moses protests, "My G-d, why have You done evil to this people?" He begs and pleads on their behalf and eventually G-d redeems the nations.
When our pinnacle moment arrives, we can’t mess up. We must rise to the occasion. What will you do in your moment of truth?