Roy's Bar Mitzvah gift was undoubtedly a great and most expensive gift: a family trip from coast to coast in the United States, with his parents and two brothers. The preparations for the trip took a long time, and the route built by Roy's father was fascinating and interesting. They prepared to cross the United States, from Los Angeles to New York, for three consecutive weeks. According to the plan, they were supposed to arrive in New York ahead of Roy's Bar Mitzvah, where he would go up to the Torah in the synagogue where his grandfather prayed, and celebrate his becoming an adult and a full-fledged Jew.
The big trip started off on the right foot. The flight to Los Angeles went well, the rental car was waiting for them at the airport, and they began their journey towards San Francisco and California. Roy's father decided not to use electronic navigation devices and GPS devices. "Even if we make a mistake and deviate a little from the path, it's not too bad," said Roy's father. "If you want to see the real America, you have to go through the small and remote towns, and meet the ordinary Americans who don't live in the big cities." Indeed, more than once the family made a mistake along the way and entered the wrong road, and many times these mistakes led to interesting experiences such as meetings with cowboys and farmers, owners of roadside restaurants, or just nice and welcoming residents. As Roy's father said, The real America was revealed to them outside of the tourists' regular itineraries, and they enjoyed every moment immensely.
For the first two weeks of the trip, everything went well, but at the beginning of the third week, things started to get complicated. One morning, the family arrived at a large interchange from which two highways exited. They were on their way to Washington, D.C., but there was no sign for where each of the roads led at the large interchange. For a long time, Roy's father tried to wait for some driver to stop and explain to him the way to the American capital, but all the cars flew by and didn't stop. Finally, Roy's father decided to get on one of the highways and drive on it. "At most, we'll get a little wrong," he said, "I wonder where we'll end up." For a whole hour they drove on the wide highway, without having any chance of getting off it. There was no village or town along the road. There was no exit or interchange in sight. The children began to get bored and the parents were already nervous. They had been driving for more than a hundred kilometers without even a hint of an exit. Who knows how far this strange highway lasts?! Finally, After another hour of driving, everyone breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of a gas station and a small shopping center next to it designed to refresh drivers. Roy's father stopped, of course, even though his gas tank was quite full. He went up to one of the vendors in the store and asked him where this road leaded. The salesman burst out laughing. "Don't you know what this road is called?" said the seller, "It's called the 'Death Highway.' You have no exit in the next 300 kilometers. It's a road that was built in the past by the government to try to develop the area, but it didn't help and the area remained desolate and without any settlements.'
The family spent an entire day on an exhausting drive to get back on track. It turns out that getting on this highway was their worst decision since the start of the trip. In the days they had left until New York, they felt the consequences of this mistake very well. They were always in a hurry and not having fun, and they were under pressure to get to New York on time, so as not to be late for the Bar Mitzvah celebration. In the end, they arrived in New York on Thursday afternoon, exhausted and tired.
At the Bar Mitzvah celebration held on Shabbat in the synagogue, Roy's grandfather was also asked to give a speech of blessing. Surprisingly, he began to tell the public the story of Roy and his family's journey from Israel, through Los Angeles to New York, dwelling especially on their 'fashla' on the 'death highway'. "Roy, my dear grandson," the grandfather turned to his grandson. "You are beginning your journey today as a mature Jew, exactly on the Shabbat when we read in the Torah, 'See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse.' There are two ways in life: the good way, which brings blessing, and the bad way, which brings only negativity and evil. Know that all of life is a sequence of choices and decisions between these two options. Each time, a person chooses anew which path to turn, the good path or, God forbid, the bad way. There are many small and local decisions in life, but several times in a person's life he faces fateful and decisive decisions that will affect him for many years. Whoever makes a mistake in a small decision can easily correct it, but whoever makes a big mistake, whoever enters the wrong highway, can find himself on a dead end. Who knows if he will ever have a chance to correct this mistake, and even if he succeeds in correcting it - who knows how much effort and resources he will have to invest in something he could have prevented by turning to the right highway in time. This is my advice to you, my dear grandson: When you are facing big decisions in life, you must not 'miss'. There you must make the decision with great seriousness and responsibility. There, at the crossroads, you must promise yourself that you are turning to the path of truth, to the way of life, to the path of blessing. Because whoever gets on the highway of death pays a very high price for it.
