From the other side of the bench

Change in plans

Issue of August 1, 2008

There is a reason. I don’t know what it is, but there is a reason. It’s 5:45 a.m. on Monday, July 21, I’m seated in seat 12F and my wife in 12G aboard my favorite airline, American Airlines. The plane is full and in about two hours we will be landing at a destination we had no intention of visiting.

We planned on traveling somewhere else, but as we were packing, I noticed a “problem” with my travel documents; a problem that could not be corrected prior to flight time. Bizarre as it might seem, I would have been able to leave this great country of ours but would not have been allowed to return. I offered my wife the option of her going without me. She declined. I was smart enough not to ask twice.

Having ruined my wife’s travel plans, I was not about to propose that we leave the country together and she return by herself. That would have been a no brainer in any event. I expect to be out of the dog house sometime in November, before the weather turns cold.

We awoke at 3:15 a.m. to catch this 5:40 a.m. flight and she seemed to have calmed down. I was feeling better about the whole thing until my wife asked that I be seated near a window that opened. In reality, my wife is fine with all that transpired. Her faith and belief in an “ultimate plan” runs much deeper than mine. Nevertheless, just in case, I will sleep with one eye open.

My eight year old saw all of this unfold and without any hesitation said, “don’t be upset. Obviously Hashem didn’t want you to go where you wanted to go. He wanted you to go where he wanted you to go.”

Sometimes the effect of the change in plans is seen immediately. Sometimes not at all.

Let me share with you two stories, not deep, not earth shattering and neither will change your life; yet, they come to mind this morning, 30,000 feet off the ground.

A young lady from our community was riding her bicycle the other day when a truck pulled up beside her. In an effort to avoid the truck, she alighted onto the sidewalk where a gaping hole in the cement awaited her and her bike. She was separated from her bicycle, landing on her head. Fortunately she was wearing a helmet. She fractured a rib though and sustained multiple lacerations to her leg for which she was prescribed antibiotics as a precautionary matter. For a few days she struggled with the

“why” of such an accident.

A few days later, while visiting a friend’s pool, she was bitten by a rare insect, causing a severe reaction. The doctor she visited for that bite told her that had she not been on antibiotics when she was bitten, the bite could have led to a grave situation.

Story number two. There is a proprietor of a store in Brooklyn who is very dear to my wife and I. A friend of ours was laid off from his job in computers and decided to become an insurance salesman. He approached this proprietor in an attempt to sell him a life insurance policy. The proprietor was already adequately insured and needed another life insurance policy like I need updated travel documents. O.K., maybe that was a bad analogy. At any rate, the store owner politely declined to purchase a policy.

The store owner’s wife told her husband that even though he already had life insurance, it would be a Mitzvah to help this young family man out by purchasing a policy. To please his wife, and to help out a fellow Jew, Mr. Store Owner agreed to purchase the policy. To do so, however, he had to undergo a physical which was the last thing this man had time to do or desired.

Long story short, it was at the exam that his cancer was discovered. He was treated and cured and 15 years later he greets every customer with the same warm hug and smile. He swears that if not for that insurance exam, he would not be here today.

The reason we become frustrated at times is because we only see what happens to us. Most of the time we have no idea what our prayers or the mere presence of righteous leaders of our generation, prevent from happening to us. We see the forest. We see the trees. Some of us even see the forest from the trees but we don’t see the dangers that lurk in the forests hidden amongst the trees that never made its way to our doorstep.

So I don’t know if our detour and the reason for the change in plans will be revealed sooner or later, in my lifetime or in the lifetime of my descendants. Rest assured that if it is revealed in this lifetime, I’ll write an article about it. In the meantime, I think I’ll get some sleep, albeit with one eye open.