The morning sun was just moments away from making its spectacular debut over the silver-crested mountains surrounding my home of Reno, Nevada, as my wife Linda and I made our way through the cavernous walkway of the B terminal at the Reno-Tahoe International airport. On this particular morning we were getting ready to begin the daylong journey to Linda’s hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. Our ambitious travel schedule called for a 6:00 a.m. flight, giving us plenty of time to arrive in time for dinner with her family.
The day before the trip I had opened my newspaper and turned to the weather page to check out the next days’ weather forecast for Reno and Pittsburgh. As I scanned the page I was chagrined to discover that sunrise the next day wasn’t scheduled until 5:45 a.m. Feeling somewhat concerned I immediately picked up the phone and called my local Chabad Rabbi Mendel Cunin and asked him the Halacha governing how early in the morning one can start davening. He informed me that Jewish law dictates one cannot start davening until 52 minutes before sunrise. As I hung up and pondered his words, panic enveloped me. I did a quick calculation and realized our early morning departure would preclude me from davening within the comfortable confines of my home before leaving for the airport.
The realization that I might have to put my tallis and Teffilin on in front of hundreds if not thousands of strangers was almost more than I could endure. Concerned, I called Rabbi Cunnin again, pleading for some sort of special dispensation. He told me if I was going to do it right, I couldn’t begin davening until after I arrived at the airport. He said if I was uncomfortable doing so, I could always wait and daven on the plane. With sarcasm emanating from every pore of my body I thought, “Thanks Rabbi, that suggestion is a whole lot better.”
Now I am not a shy person by nature, but oy veh, I had a hard time coming to grips with this situation. As I sat in my home the night before the journey, wondering what I was going to do, the words of my good friend and mentor Rabbi Chuni Vogel of Chabad of Delaware sprang into my mind. On many, many occasions he has reminded me, “Shlomo Yakov, no one ever said a mitzvah HAD to be easy!” My mind screamed out, “Yea but no one ever said you had to do it in front of a thousand stressed out business travelers, tired vacationers, screaming kids and no nonsense flight crews either.”
When we arrived at the airport the next morning we were greeted by what looked like a never-ending line of travelers waiting to check in at the front counter. By the time we finally made our way through security I had convinced myself that I’d just have to wait to daven until I arrived that afternoon at my Father-in-laws home in Pittsburgh. As I sat down in the crowded terminal to read my USA Today, Linda looked at me and said, “We’ve got about 90 minutes before we board the plane, aren’t you going to find a place to daven?”
Frankly, I didn’t know what to say. There she was looking at me with inquiring eyes, and all I wanted to do was run screaming from the airport because I was afraid of looking foolish in front of strangers. Once again Rabbi Vogel’s sagacious advice popped into my mind, “Shlomo Yakov, no one ever said a mitzvah had to be easy.” I looked at my wife, I contemplated the Rabbi’s words once again, and after a deep sigh I reluctantly picked up my tallis bag and went to find a “quiet” spot in the airport. As I walked around the terminal I calculated that I was surrounded by more than 100,000 square feet of space. Yet as I gazed off into the distance there wasn’t a single area that wasn’t filled to the brim with people.
Walking on, I noticed that the terminal coffee shop hadn’t yet opened. To my astonishment and joy there was a large area adjacent to the shop that was totally unoccupied. Like a thirsty man sighting a cool stream, I bolted over to the vacant area. I said the morning brachas, put on my tallis, placed my Teffilin on my arm and head, and with a smile on my face and a prayer of thanks to Hashem for providing this spiritual oasis in the heart of the milling crowds, I started davening.
As I swayed back and forth with my tallis covering my head, I literally forgot where I was. I was no longer cognizant of what was going on around me and my self-consciousness had quickly dissipated. I kept turning the pages, reciting the familiar words and reveled in the opportunity to properly fulfill the mitzvah. “What was I so afraid of” I asked myself. This, as we like to say in the Hyatt household, was a piece of Kugel!
As I concluded my davening and lowered my tallis from my head I was shocked and surprised by what I saw. Apparently I was so focused on what I was doing, I had failed to notice that the coffee shop had opened for business and I was now completely surrounded by at least 100 early-morning pastry-munching, coffee-drinking, newspaper-reading patrons. Not only had I failed to find a quiet spot in the airport, I had somehow managed to find the busiest place, other than the security gate, in which to conduct my business.
As I stood there feeling like a statue in a museum, I couldn’t help noticing that not one of the patrons was paying the slightest bit of attention to me. While they probably had taken a quick glance when they first strolled in, it was immediately apparent that they were more interested in the morning’s headlines and the taste of their French-roast coffee than they were in me. Realizing that it was almost time to board the plane to Pittsburgh, I took off my tallis and Teffilin and made my way back to the gate.
As I walked through the crowded terminal, I couldn’t help but marvel that I had found the little vacant area when I did. I was convinced that if I had arrived even ten minutes later, I would have seen the huge coffee crowd and moved on. I probably would have given into my fears, never dovened that morning and felt guilty for the rest of the day. Instead, Hashem presented me with an opportunity to face my fears, overcome them, learn an important lesson and complete the mitzvah. I discovered that the only thing standing between me and my desire to live a more observant Jewish life was me. Since discovering Chabad I’ve had countless first-time spiritual experiences. Some were easy and others were more challenging. Yet in each case, the joy and satisfaction I felt after accomplishing something, that I had never dreamed I could do, was extraordinary. Obviously, davening in an airport is not easy. No one gets up in the morning and purposely looks for ways to make themselves feel uncomfortable. However, my experience in the coffee shop taught me that the joy of fulfilling the mitzvah far out distanced the momentary discomfort of the challenge.
With a smile on my face and a song in my heart I strolled up to the gate. Linda looked up from her newspaper and asked, “So did you have any trouble finding a quiet place to daven?” With grin and a wink I said, “No problem at all, it was a piece of Kugel. Now what time does that plane leave for Pittsburgh.”
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