Ever since I went to learn in Eretz Yisroel as a bochur a few decades ago, I have traveled back and forth many times. Still, I never had an experience on a plane like the one I had last week.
Let’s start from the beginning. This past week, I had the zechus to be in Eretz Yisroel for the wedding of a close relative.
Beginning with my first trip to Eretz Yisroel back in the 1980s, I have always felt anxious when it came to davening on a plane. Anyone who has traveled to Eretz Yisroel has experienced this at one time or another. The fact that time zones change so quickly makes tefillah a challenge. The cramped quarters of an airplane, combined with the fact that there are so many people in close proximity—including some not dressed modestly—makes davening difficult.
There are halachic difficulties such as the ones mentioned above, practical difficulties, and often chillul Hashem difficulties. If our davening b’tzibbur will deprive other passengers of sleep or inconvenience them in other ways, then we shouldn’t daven b’tzibbur. That is why, for many years now, when I must daven on a plane, I have done so sitting in my seat, b’yechidus, as per the psak of both Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rav Shmuel Wosner. Unless circumstances permitted, I have not davened with the various minyanim created ad hoc on the plane.
The Surprise
I knew that davening in the back galley more often than not aroused the wrath of the cabin crew. They would sometimes push through while the minyan was davening or force the mispallelim to return to their seats in the middle of davening, often even in the middle of Shemoneh Esrei. The minyan would also frequently block the passageway or the bathrooms. Either way, it was nearly impossible to daven with proper kavanah. I found that just staying put and davening in my seat was more acceptable b’einei Elokim v’adam—in the eyes of Hashem and man.
That is why this most recent flight took me by surprise. It happened to have been a day flight. As is customary on flights to and from Eretz Yisroel, within about an hour of takeoff, the cabin crew begins preparing to serve the main fleishige meal. I was sitting in my seat when the stewardess came with my meal. As she placed it in front of me, she pleasantly asked if I would be available to be part of a minyan for Mincha that would take place in the back galley after they completed the clean-up from the meal. She explained that there was a passenger on board who was in the year of aveilus and was very anxious about having the opportunity to say Kaddish for his departed parent. She was therefore asking religious-looking passengers if they would mind joining his minyan.
In truth, I did a double take. Was an El Al stewardess really asking me to daven tefillah b’tzibbur on a flight? In my previous decades of flying, the cabin crew was usually, at worst, outright hostile to davening b’tzibbur, and, at best, begrudgingly acquiescent. And here, a member of the cabin crew was asking me a favor—if I could help out a fellow passenger make a minyan?
A Beautiful Mosaic of Yidden
That was just the beginning. As I made my way to the galley after the meal had been cleared, I found several other Yidden already waiting. The cabin crew was putting the final touches on the clean-up when one stewardess commented, “Give us another couple of minutes and we will be done. Then you can have the whole place to yourselves.”
I pinched myself again. Was this really happening?
They were true to their word.
They left, and then the chiyuv, the baal tefillah, stepped up. He was a Religious-Zionist, wearing slacks and a short-sleeved shirt, and sporting a small kippah on his head. Although he was an Ashkenazi, he led the tefillos in havarah Sefaradit. The members of the minyan were of all stripes and sizes. There were yeshivishe-looking people wearing down-brimmed hats; chassidishe-looking people wearing biber hats and up-hats; and yeshiva bochurim, some with hats and jackets and others without. There were Sefardim, Syrians and Moroccans, a French Jew, and a Spanish-speaking Yid—all wearing different garb, all looking different, but at the same time all davening the same Mincha and directing their tefillos to Avinu Shebashomayim.
The baal tefillah davened clearly and relatively slowly, enunciating every word. We answered “Boruch Hu uvoruch shemo” and “Amein.” I even noticed behind us, out of the corner of my eye, one of the El Al stewardesses discreetly davening along with us.
Suddenly, in the middle of chazoras hashatz, as I was looking around at this beautiful mosaic of Yidden of all types who, in their own environments, would never be davening together in one minyan but were naturally melding together there on the plane, tears welled up in my eyes.
“Ribbono Shel Olam, You Have Such a Shaine Folk!”
Turning my eyes and heart upwards, I thought, “Ribbono Shel Olam, You have such a shaine folk, such a beautiful nation! We are all brothers! We wouldn’t usually cross paths, but here, thousands of feet in the sky, we are all cousins. We are all davening together, beseeching the same Tatteh in Himmel!”
I thought to myself, “Wow! Klal Yisroel is great! What better way can there be to invoke Hashem’s mercy, which we so desperately need, in advance of Shabbos Selichos and Rosh Hashanah?”
Throughout his sefer Shemiras Halashon, the Chofetz Chaim cites the words of the Zohar umpteen times that when a Yid speaks lashon hora about another Yid, he is mekatreig—he prosecutes that Yid and Yidden in general. When that happens, it invokes Hashem’s wrath. Why? Because we are all Hashem’s children. Hashem loves all of us. “Ahavti eschem amar Hashem.”When someone speaks negatively about your son or daughter, it hurts. So too, when someone speaks badly about another Yid—Hashem’s child—it hurts Hashem.
And then there is the opposite. How beloved it is when Yidden of all kinds get together and daven with each other b’ahava and achva. How much this brotherhood and unity of purpose makes Hashem happy! How much it invokes His rachamim!
This doesn’t mean that we condone every derech or think that they are all equal. What it does mean is that when Yidden want to come together to daven to Hashem, we should accept them and join them, not judge them.
Making the King Happy
The Alter of Kelm would post a sign in the bais medrash of the Kelmer Talmud Torah that said, “Ein Melech b’lo am,” meaning that it is not possible to coronate the King, Hashem, without a nation that coronates Him. He explained that this teaches us that it is imperative to behave like a nation, as one, and engage in conduct that helps our fellow Yidden.
There is no more beautiful manifestation of our Melech and our beautiful nation than that picture in the galley of all those Yidden who looked so different but were really far more alike than they seemed, coronating the King during a simple weekday Mincha.
We are now in the zeman of “Ani l’Dodi v’Dodi li.” Hashem is reaching out to us. When we embrace Hashem’s children and look at their good side—the side that so wants to come close to Him, even while they are flying on an airplane; the side that doesn’t forget Him even while traveling—we enter Rosh Hashanah with a tool that removes kitrug and brings brocha.
