Rav Yosef Viener, Shlit”a, was once on a plane that was almost ready to take off when a young child came on and sat down in the empty seat next to him. The boy seemed to be traveling alone and looked very relaxed and calm about it, not anxious to be alone on a plane.
Feeling a slight responsibility to look after him, Rabbi Viener asked the boy if anyone was with him. The boy simply answered, “My father is here, but you can’t see him.”
Not knowing what he had gotten himself into and thinking the worst, Rabbi Viener began to look around at the other passengers to see if he could see someone that might be this boy’s father.
The boy explained, “The reason you can’t see him is because my father is the pilot, and he’s the one who is flying the plane.”
Rabbi Viener sat back and reflected how this young child was too little to realize how powerful the words that he had just spoken were. Life is sometimes just like that, where we feel like we are on a plane, and sense that things are spinning out of control. We conclude that there must be no one flying the plane because things are in such disarray.
But, when we realize that our Father is here but we can’t see Him because He is the Pilot, we can just sit back and relax because Hashem has everything under control. When we understand that Hashem, our Father, is “flying the plane”, we will also be able to sit and be calm, without anxiety, and without feeling that we are ever alone!
Reprinted from the Parshas Re’eh 5784 email of Rabbi Yehuda Winzelberg’s Torah U’Tefillah.
