By Rabbi Uriel Vigler
I was heading back to New York after spending a few magical days in Israel, visiting our Belev Echad team and having back-to-back meetings with all sorts of people.
Landing in Newark at 5 am, I was exhausted after my whirlwind few days. I was in Jerusalem with my daughter that night, and suddenly we found ourselves stuck in traffic. There was a protest going on, and we simply couldn’t move. The longer we sat, the more certain I became that I would miss my flight. Thankfully, the police showed up and directed us all to make a U-turn on the highway, and I made it to Ben Gurion in time.
Exhausted, I boarded the plane and tried to get some sleep. About an hour into the flight, an announcement roused me. “If there are any doctors on board, please see a stewardess.” I know my brother is a doctor, but there’s nothing I can do in these situations, so I let myself fall back asleep.
About an hour later, all the lights came on and the pilot announced that due to a medical emergency on board, we would be heading back and landing in Europe.
I realized that we were at least an hour across the Atlantic Ocean, and now we would be turning around and heading back. Oy gevalt!
I asked the stewardess where we would be landing, but they didn’t know yet. An hour later, the pilot announced we’d be landing at Charles-de-Gaulle in Paris.
Once on the ground in Paris, I was told that an elderly woman had passed out. Even after she regained consciousness, the crew were concerned and felt she needed urgent medical attention, so they made the decision to turn around and head back to Europe.
We were on the ground in Paris for about an hour. An ambulance arrived to transport the woman and her family to a local hospital, and after that we continued on our way back to Newark.
Instead of arriving at 5 am, we landed at Newark around 9 am (I missed my morning meetings!).
But here’s the thing: There were hundreds of people on board. Hundreds of people were terribly inconvenienced. Including me. I hate being stuck on a plane for even one extra minute in the air. Can't stand it. But despite the inconvenience, not a single passenger complained or protested or blew a temper. Incredible!
Why? People are so testy when traveling, why did everyone on our flight remain calm? Because it was a medical emergency with another passenger, and we all care. Deep down we all love one another. We have compassion. We know that it could be us or one of our loved ones. Everyone understood that we were in it together and there was nothing we could do but have patience and wish her the best!
What a lesson this was for me—and for all of us. We are all on one big massive plane together. It's called “the world.” And every action we take or don’t take affects everyone else.
When a Jew in Japan, or Johannesburg, or New York, or Los Angeles does a mitzvah, it sends ripples of waves across the universe, impacting all of us.
This woman hurt herself by accident and it affected everyone on the plane; imagine how much more impact we have when we do an intentional mitzvah.
So think about what you can do: ask someone to join a minyan, eat a kosher meal, extend kindness and grace to those around you. You have immense power to change the world, bringing ever closer Moshiach and redemption.
