One of the great aspects of my job is the opportunity to travel around this great country of ours during the course of filling the responsibilities of my job. Whenever possible, I try and direct my travel through or near Wilmington, Delaware so I can spend time at Chabad of Delaware, learn with the Vogels, doven with my friends and eat some of the best Kugel this side of Jerusalem.
Sometimes it takes some creative planning by my travel agent, but one way or another I usually find my way to Delaware for Yom Tov. Maybe I have been spoiled, but when I need a spiritual recharge, the only place to go is Chabad of Delaware.
Recently I faced a daunting challenge. I had to take care of some important business and still find a way to get to Delaware in time for the last two days of Pesach. The only way to do so was to schedule a flight through Kansas City, Missouri, a place I had never been too before.
The trip from Oregon to the Kansas City airport was uneventful, which is just the way I like it. My Southwest Airlines flight arrived promptly at 10:30 a.m. If everything went as planned I’d arrive in Baltimore at 4:30 p.m., take the 5:00 p.m. Metroliner to Wilmington and slide into my chair at Chabad by 6:30 p.m.
My plane pulled into the gate and I had to leave the terminal and walk to the other side of the airport. When I entered the new terminal I had to stand in line at the security entrance and pass through the metal detectors like everyone else. Since this was a busy time of day, the line was quite long and the wait to pass through the detector was somewhat tedious. As I stood in the line my mind began to drift off with thoughts of Smura Matzo and the Rebbetzin's Kugel. Just as my mouth began to water I found myself at the front of the line. I put my travel bag on the conveyor belt and stepped through the detector.
When I went to the end of the conveyor belt a nice, middle-aged woman from the “Heartland” asked me if she could look through my bag. I smiled and told her “No problem.” She opened all of the zippers, felt the contents of my bag and got ready to give it back to me, when she suddenly got a concerned look on her face. I leaned in and asked if something was wrong and she politely but sternly said, “Please step back form the bag sir!”
I began to wonder what I could have possibly put in my bag that could have generated this unsettling response. As I stood there looking somewhat bewildered, the line of people behind me began to increase. Not only couldn’t I get my bag, but security wouldn’t let anyone else get their’s either. It was a busy airport, so the crowd got bigger by the moment. Much to my chagrin, everyone was trying to get a peek at the “perpetrator” as well!
I asked again, “Excuse me but is something wrong?” Looking a little more agitated and sounding a little less polite, the inspector said, “Sir, I am not going to tell you again, please step away from the bag!” She then called her supervisor over and he looked in the bag. He looked at me, then he looked at the bag and then he looked at me again and said, “Sir would you please open the boxes?”
“Open the boxes? What boxes?” I asked somewhat perplexed. “These boxes sir,” he said without a bit of humor in his voice. As I looked down at his hands I began to smile. He was gingerly holding my Teffilin looking as if he thought they’d blow up at any moment!
This whole event had taken about three minutes and by now the crowd was extremely large. Everyone was trying to get a good look at the “gun toting terrorist” they had obviously corralled at the security station.
Doing my best not to laugh out loud, I slowly unwrapped the Teffilin that goes on my head and showed the supervisor, the original security agent and the disappointed throng around me, what was in the “box.” I explained for one and all that these are called Teffilin and observant Jewish men put them on during their morning prayers. A relieved security team thanked me for the information and told me I could proceed to my gate.
During the remainder of my journey to Wilmington I had an opportunity to ponder the whole experience. One thing became very clear, I now know there are at least two security agents in Kansas City who know more about two little boxes called Teffilin than they ever probably wanted to know. That thought alone was fun to think about. What I really wonder is whether or not there were any Jewish men in the crowd around me, who during the course of a mundane travel day, received a reminder from Hashem about the Mitzvah of Teffilin.
It made me think that you never know who might be watching when you eat a kosher meal on an airplane, buy a box of Shabbos candles in a grocery store or unwrap a pair of Teffilin for a security team. What seems like a minor act for you may be a life altering experience for someone observing your actions. I am not sure if this experience changed anyone’s life. But one thing is for sure; it made an otherwise mundane trip to see my Delaware family one I will always remember.
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