By Sori Baumann

 

 

All of you lucky young mothers out there whose parents and in-laws live in Lakewood, I’m just a little bit envious.

To me, the Yom Tov season means a lot of things, but since I’ve had kids, it means flying.

With kids.

On an airplane.

It’s an occasion that requires every ounce of grit and energy to make it out with my sanity intact and clean clothing—and that’s when everything goes smoothly! Which is a fairly rare occurence in airport land.

Last year’s post-Pesach flight was a particular disaster.

Since Shevy was born about a week before Pesach, we hung out at my parents for several days after Yom Tov, flying back when she was three weeks old.

Tova was 15 months old at the time, just starting to toddle and very uninterested in sitting for long periods of time. My biggest hope before boarding the plane was that nothing would go wrong.

Now here’s the secret you should know about flying. Airplanes are the last remnants of absolute monarchy in the civilized world. Once you step onto a plane, you relinquish your rights, your sense of equality, and the unassailable Amerian philosophy that the customer is always right.

When you’re sitting on that runway, it can be five minutes or an hour until you take off—you can’t see anything and they’ll only grudgingly update you. You can’t get up out of turn, you can’t complain, and you can’t ask for anything extra because the flight attendants hold all the power as you sit crammed uncomfortably in the tiny seats.

So when we were just sitting still all buckled up for 15 minutes, I wasn’t surprised. This happened a lot.

Then the flight attendant got on the mic. “Sorry, folks. We have a medical problem here, and we’re just waiting for information from the terminal about whether we should go back to the gate or not. It will be around another 10 minutes or so.”

I raised my eyebrows.

See, I’ve been through a lot on planes.  I’ve been unable to disembark because the gate was frozen over and unable to land because of bad weather. I’ve been through an emergency landing because something was wrong with the plane, and I’ve even been herded off the plane shortly after boarding because…I don’t even remember why. Remember, airplanes don’t really need to give reasons.

But this was a first.

But what made it more historic was that this time, people started fighting back.

I saw a woman stand up and head to the restroom.

“Ma’am, please return to your seat,” the flight attendant said wearily. “We’re on an active runway.”

Very active. We hadn’t moved in the last 20 minutes, but that’s protocol.

Instead of returning meekly to her seat the way I would, she thrust out her chin. “Too bad. You can’t force me to sit.”

The flight attendant raised her voice. “You’re not allowed to get up!”

The woman stared back, unmoving. “Well, I have to!”

The flight attendant sighed. “I’m required to tell you that it’s not safe to walk.” But she stepped aside, and the first rebellion had been won.

Once she did it, a whole group of people followed suit.

I was bemused. On the one hand, I got it. The rule didn’t make a lot of sense. On the other hand…I knew I would never have talked like that. Did that make me a pushover?

It took another 20 minutes before we were graciously informed that we would need to return to the gate and another 15 before the passenger was dropped off and we were given clearance to leave.

“We’re ready to roll, folks,” came the flight attendant’s voice over the microphone. “Just give us a few more minutes wile we display the safety instructions.”

Safety instructions? Really?

I mean, come on. We had just seen them less than an hour ago. Nobody had listened the first time; why on earth did we need to do it again?

But apparently, protocol dictated that any time a plane leaves the gate, the flight attendants need to demonstrate the safety instructions, even if the entire plan already saw it.

“Fasten your seatbelt by pulling the strap…” The typical, pleasant, professional flight attendant voice was gone. Instead, the flight attendant rattled off the words as quickly as possible. The one standing near me demonstrating the instructions was also demonstrating her proficiency in rolling her eyes.

I was tempted to laugh. We all knew it was ridiculous, but we had no choice.

Finally, the plane took off. Shevi politely nodded off in my arms, sleeping for most of the flight while my husband took Tova on endless walks up and down the aisles.

Then the next bit of news came.

“So I’m really sorry to have to tell you this, folks,” came the flight attendants voice. I tensed. What now? “There was a power outage in Newark, and the airports are all backed up with planes trying to get in. We don’t have clearance to land yet.”

Shevi stirred in my arms and Tova bounced up and down. I couldn’t do this. I needed to get home.

“We have about a half hour of fuel left in the tank. We’re going to fly around for a bit, but if we can’t land after that, we’ll have to land in Atlantic City.”

This time my husband and I started to laugh. It was just too absurd, too crazy. We were traveling with two tiny children, and we had already been delayed. What else could go wrong?

Around us though, the reaction was more heated. A few people chuckled but most groaned loudly.

It was a little unexpected. Usually, no matter the delays, everyone sits quietly in their seats afraid to upset the regime. Today’s flight was surprising.

I davened very hard that we should land in Newark, but Hashem had other plans.

Forty-five minutes later, the plane landed in Atlantic City.

As a good, well-trained Bais Yaakov girl, I said gam zu l’tovah. This was the ultimate example, right?

Feeling it was another matter. I’m not perfect yet, but at least I said the words. For some reason, I didn’t know why, we had to be stuck in a tiny airport before we got onto another plane.

Long story short, we waited in that airport for two hours until they finally released our luggage. They kept promising to fly us back to Newark, but the airport wasn’t available.

What really shocked me was the passengers’ reactions during the wait. Some people just took their little carry-ons and left, but the families with small children lost it. They couldn’t leave without their strollers and car seats, and they were furious.

They crowded around the desk at the gate yelling and screaming. “You’re terrible,” a lady hollered. “We’re going to sue!”

“Give us back our stuff!”

Shouts and insults flew from the angry mob, It was ugly.

I clutched Shevy a little tighter. No one else on board had a three-week-old baby, but we weren’t complaining.

We finally got our things, ordered a car service with a car seat, and arrived home, bone-weary and shaken, hours after we were supposed to.

And I kept wondering, what’s the moral here? What am I taking out from this? Was it a lesson in emunah and bitachon, that even though so many things go wrong, Hashem’s in charge? A message of gam zeh ya’avor, that the hardest days eventually come to an end? Or a powerful example of how small things matter, of how a 45-second power outage led to hours and hours of wasted time?

But as I watched the people around me lose themselves to fury, I felt something different. I felt pride.

Here in our Lakewood bubble, it can be easy to focus on the negative. Read any batch of letters to the Coffee Room and see how many areas we need to improve in. We’re too this and too that, and we need to work on this and change that.

But sitting in that airport, all I could think was, Thank You, Hashem, that you sanctified us and separated us.

Those passengers got frustrated because of the pointless rules, because of protocols that were made by humans, unbreakable but senseless.

But me, I was lucky.

Lucky because  I know—like I know that the sky is blue and water is wet—that the life I lead, which teaches me that everything is for the best and difficult situations are here to test us and getting angry enough to kick a desk is losing yourself in the worst way, is not a list of meaningless doctrines.

Everything I do, everything that happens, every hardship and blessing that occurs, has a purpose.