plane before sunset. The first thing I did once we were settled was to daven Minchah. I didn’t have the time to gather a minyan. I tried to have kavanah and asked Hashem for the flight to pass peacefully. While I was still davening, I heard an announcement from the stewardesses:
“Dear travelers, the plane is filled to capacity, and there are passengers who reserved places on this flight who do not have seats. Any passenger willing to get off and take the next flight instead will receive a cash bonus of one thousand dollars.”
The announcement reached my ears while I was davening, but I couldn’t refrain from thinking about it. A thousand dollars! I wasn’t traveling to an event that would take place at a specific time, and it wasn’t urgent for me to be specifically on this flight. I could wait for the next one. It would really be okay with me, and a thousand dollars for each member of my family meant we would get $5,000 – not a small sum at all, and one that could help me out a lot!
Nu, the yetzer pushed me: Get up and tell them you’re willing to get off along with your family.
Oh no, I responded. I’m davening to the King of all kings now, and I will absolutely not interrupt. Whatever will be, will be.
I continued. The steward made his announcement again, and once again my yetzer hara told me this was a matter that could not be pushed off. With the speed of light, the yetzer was able to send through my mind thoughts that this was a matter of pikuach nefesh (?!), davar ha’aved – a possibly irreplaceable loss (was it Chol Hamoed now?!) and even a type of rationalization that since I was not capable of focusing on tefillah anyway, perhaps it would be preferable to stop and inform the steward that we were prepared to get off the plane.
With siyata diShmaya, I overcame all this false reasoning and continued davening calmly, without skipping over or swallowing any words. Then, immediately after I finished, the steward’s announcement was heard once again, this time with a slight difference: They were now offering a reward of $2,500 per passenger!
I motioned to the steward, and they hurried over to me, concealing a huge sigh of relief. I gathered my whole family and told the children that our flight wasn’t cancelled but only delayed, and this was really good for us. For each one of us who got off the plane we received $2,500, amounting to a total of $12,500!
We received $5,000 for agreeing to wait for the next flight, and an additional $7,500 in the merit of the fact that I refrained from interrupting in middle of davening.
