Yakov Eckstein was a frequent traveler to China. From business expos to private meetings, he found himself there every few months. However, he always traveled with a particular condition: He wouldn’t board any flight until after Shacharis in Manchester, and his various flights must have him in China before the next day’s Shacharis. In short, his travel agent knew that he had to have Shacharis in a shul setting.
Traveling from Manchester to China is no easy feat. Yakov would fly from Manchester to Paris and then board a connecting flight to Guangzhou enroute to Shanghai. After doing it time and again, he had it down pat.
One time, after he boarded his flight to Guangzhou, he fell into a shock:
His tefillin.
He’d left them back in Manchester!
He’d always gone straight from Shacharis to the airport, and taking along his tefillin was a given. But this time, he had first returned home before going to the airport, and his tefillin had been left behind. He went running to a stewardess to be allowed to exit the plane, but he was one minute too late. The shutters were closed, and so were the attendant’s ears. There was no chance that they would open it for him.
So, all Yakov could do was reach out to the Chabad shaliach in Guangzhou and inform him of his situation. However, the time in China was 4:00 AM, so he certainly couldn’t give the shaliach a call right then. Instead, Yakov wrote him a message — how he was scheduled to land at 5 PM, an hour before shekiah, and he pleaded for the shaliach to do everything within his ability to get him a pair of tefillin. He offered to pay any sum as long as he doesn’t have to forgo a day without that special mitzvah.
“Please bear in mind that I am left-handed,” Yakov added, “and that I also wear Rabbeinu Tam’s tefillin. I understand that what I am asking for is a stretch, but please do another Yid a favor.”
He sent the message just before the plane headed to the runway and all cellular devices had to be extinguished. He would have no way of contacting the shaliach until landing.
For the entire flight, Yakov was very anxious, to say the least. He went up and down the aisles of the airplane to spot anyone that looked any bit Jewish, but he found nobody. No one had any semblance of a Yid, and they surely did not have a pair of tefillin. Throughout the trip, Yakov was saying Tehillim that he would come to fulfill that mitzvah, so anxious that his eyes found no rest the entire time.
When what seemed like a never-ending trip finished, Yakov turned his phone on and found a message from the shaliach, and so it read: “Don’t worry, I’ll be there...and with a breakfast too.” Only then could Yakov sigh from relief; tefillin were on their way!
It was 5 PM, so Yakov called the shaliach directly. “I’m sorry,” the shaliach told him, “but I won’t make it to the airport in time. I’ve sent the tefillin with somebody else who will meet you in the terminal.” The shaliach gave Yakov the deliverer’s contact information to know where they could meet up.
After several attempts, he finally got through to the delivery man, who told him that he was sitting in traffic — or, more accurately, a parking lot. Nobody was moving at all. Yakov, though, was not too worried, as he himself had half-an-hour still to get through passport control, “By that time,” Yakov thought, “I’m sure he’ll be here.”
But after passing through passport control, Yakov again contacted the delivery man to hear that he was 15 minutes away, still stuck in traffic. At this point, there was only half-an-hour before shekiah, and the chances of him getting the tefillin on time were slim.
Yakov came to a quick conclusion: “I’m going to leave the airport — something I’ve tried my hardest to avoid — and take a cab to where this delivery man is. It’s the only way I’ll get the tefillin before shekiah. It’ll mean forgoing my connecting flight, but what wouldn’t I do to put on a pair of tefillin?”
As he walked out of the terminal, he saw something shocking: A man standing in the middle of the sidewalk — in a white shirt and black jacket — davening Minchah. Astonishing! Nowhere in the entire Guangzhou airport had he seen a Jewish soul, and now, minutes before shekiah, there’s a Yid standing right in front of him. Wow!
Bottled up with twelve hours of emotions, he ran to the man and pleaded with him to wear his tefillin. Yakov knew that the tefillin might only be for a righty, but at least they’d be something. (See Biur Halachah, siman 27, seif 3.) Without uttering a word, the man pointed to the bag sitting at his side. Yakov’s excitement expanded when he saw that the man was equipped with Rabbeinu Tam’s tefillin as well. But it didn’t stop there. Yakov’s shock only deepened when he unraveled the straps and saw that they were for a lefty!
“All those twelve hours of anxiety came pouring forth in an unparalleled joy,” recalls Yakov. “At that time, I cared very little about my trip to Shanghai. I was so engulfed with the hashgachah of Hashem, and with the joy that I was able to keep this mitzvah that the flight and my meeting had very little value.”
“That was the most meaningful hanachas tefillin in my life,” Yakov tells his grandchildren. “Once my opportunity to place them was in jeopardy, the next time I wore it had that much more feeling.” He wore the set of Rashi, and then the set of Rabbeinu Tam, and he had to control himself from bursting into dance in the streets of Guangzhou.
Returning to the terminal, he headed to the desk to purchase a new ticket, without even thinking twice about the additional expense that he would endure. Yet, when he arrived at the desk, he noticed on the screen that his connecting flight had been delayed. So, instead of having to purchase another ticket to Shanghai, Hashem spared him that too.
So, not only did Yakov get to wear tefillin — both Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam, and a left-handed set as well — but Hashem also delayed his flight so that he could reach his destination without additional charge. After he boarded his final plane ride, he remembered that it was his time for his Dirshu Mishnah Berurah seder. No matter what the previous day’s adventure had drained of him, he wasn’t going to let the day’s adventure overtake that. He pulled out his sefer, learned through the amud, and after he was done, he fell into a well-needed snooze.
