Rabbi Moshe Tuvia Lieff boarded an El Al flight and found himself seated in an aisle seat next to two middle-aged women, one Israeli and the other American. The women’s facial expressions made it obvious that they were not pleased to be seated next to a religious rabbi.
Rabbi Lieff greeted them politely and made small talk for a few minutes in both Hebrew and English. Then he said, “Ladies, I am sitting in the ‘excuse me’ seat.”
They both looked at him quizzically.
“That means,” he explained, “that it is a seat that is a privilege, but it also comes with great responsibility. If you need to get up, just ask me to excuse you, and I will be happy to let you through as many times as you need. Please feel free even to wake me up if you need to get up.”
The flight passed uneventfully. After disembarking, Rabbi Lieff was waiting in the parking lot for his rental car when a loud shriek echoed from behind him. He turned around just in time to see a car come to an abrupt halt beside him. Inside the car was his Israeli seatmate, along with a tall paratrooper who was clearly her son.
“Zeh harav! Zeh harav!” she shouted excitedly in Hebrew. “This is the rabbi I was telling you about! If more people acted like him, we would have no problems!”
Reproduced from A Life Worth Living by Rabbi Shraga Freedman with permission of the copyright holders, ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications, Ltd.
