THE LONG ROAD HOME

This is the fascinating account of a young shlucha to the Ukraine, who finds herself stuck all alone in an airport in Warsaw, Poland on her way to 770 for Tishrei. Her flight is canceled and taking the next flight would entail desecrating the Shabbos… What will she do? How will she make it to the Rebbe for Tishrei? Read on…

By Esti Frank, Akko

SHLUCHA IN POLAND

Wednesday, Motzaei Yom Kippur 5773. Mariupol, Ukraine. It is late at night and I cannot sleep. I am overcome by excitement for tomorrow; I will be on my way to 770!

Here, in my bed in the Ukraine, I think about the events of the months so far. I was on shlichus for five months in a city in the Ukraine. As a veteran Tishrei-goer, I had arranged with the shluchim, the Cohens, that I would be spending Sukkos in 770. The ticket I bought had me making a two hour stopover in Warsaw, Poland. My lack of fluency in Russian and Polish and the length of the trip did not bother me, in light of the fact that I was finally going home, to 770.

When I arrived at the airport in Warsaw, I easily found the right terminal and the gate and it looked as though everything was just fine. The doors would be opening in another half an hour. The flight attendants were already going inside and all I had to do was make myself comfortable and wait for the boarding announcement. A quick glance around told me that I was the only Jew in the area and that I would be making my way to New York without a Jewish companion. Meanwhile, I used the time to study a sicha about the importance of going to Beis Moshiach. I was thrilled to be going!

I was so deeply immersed in my learning that I did not notice the quickly passing time. I saw that the flight time had come and gone but the doors of the plane were still closed. “It’s probably a delay typical of the Poles,” I thought with a smile, and returned to the sicha. However, after another half an hour of waiting, I began to worry. I went over to the clerk and asked what was going on. When would we be flying? She calmly said there was a delay and they would have more information in another hour.

It was Thursday and almost evening. I would arrive at 770 in the middle of the night and would not have a chance to rest before Shabbos. I went back to my seat, somewhat concerned. After another two hours of waiting, I began to seriously worry. Something was amiss!

Wait! I’m a shlucha. Hashem must be delaying me here because there is some spark I need to elevate. Someone here needs to know that the Rebbe is Moshiach, and until I tell her the plane will simply not take off. At the end of the passenger terminal I noticed an old, sad-looking woman sitting alone in a wheelchair. I went over to her and asked her name. She said Maria. I concluded she was not Jewish but I remained to talk a bit.

“Why are you sad?” I asked.

“I am sick and find it hard to manage on my own. And I am very old, 91 already. I don’t have much more time …” She went on to tell me that she was traveling in order to support her sick cousin. “The doctors don’t give her any hope,” she cried.

One minute! Maybe this is my shlichus. I took out a card with the Rebbe’s picture and the Sheva Mitzvos B’nei Noach in English. “This is the Messiah,” I said as I pointed at the picture. “He is the leader of our generation. He will come and redeem us. He loves each one of us.”

“But … I am not Jewish,” said Maria. “Why would he care about me?”

I told her stories about the Rebbe’s greatness and said I was on my way to him. He would surely pray for her and her cousin, simply because he is the Moshiach. She nodded and asked me for another card with the Sheva Mitzvos for her cousin, so that the Rebbe would bless her with a complete recovery.

She asked me, “Why did you, a young girl, come over to sit next to an old, boring woman like me? I have been sitting here for hours and dozens of people have passed by and not one of them stopped to even glance at me. And you – you came over deliberately to sit here. Of your own free will! Why?”

What could I tell her? That this is the greatness of the Jewish people, that we are compassionate?

“Because I saw that you are sad and I am happy, and I wanted to cheer you up …”

CANCELED FLIGHT

I looked worriedly at the time. Nearly five hours had gone by since the time the flight was supposed to take off. Suddenly, an announcement broke the silence among the waiting passengers: The flight is canceled, the flight is canceled.

I knew what this meant. I rushed over to the clerk and asked, almost in tears, “When is the next flight?” She casually said, “Tonight you will be put up in a hotel at our expense and tomorrow, at 5:00 in the afternoon, you will board a flight to New York.”

I croaked, “Tomorrow? Tomorrow is Friday, and the flight will not arrive till that night. I am Jewish! I don’t fly on Saturday.”

“I understand,” she said, “but I can’t help you. Your luggage is coming out of the plane now. Go take it and maybe over there they can help you.”

I felt tears choking my throat. I instantly forgot about Maria and her cousin. I knew I could not start thinking what would happen if I remained in the airport overnight. I walked slowly, dragging my big suitcase in the huge airport. One Jew among millions of gentiles, going from clerk to clerk, explaining, and pleading for help. I wanted to shake them and yell that they could not be so indifferent to my plight. But it was enough for them to see how I was dressed and to look at my Israeli passport for them to sneer and send me to the next clerk. I did not cry in front of them. They probably wondered how their grandfathers did not finish the job in Auschwitz. How were there still religious Jews in the world?

I stood there in the middle of the airport as thousands of people passed by, each one immersed in his own world. I held the dollar from the Rebbe that I owned and wrote to the Rebbe in my mind. That was all I could do. I am on my way to you. Please Rebbe; help me get out of here!

It was nearly 10:00 at night. I had eaten up the kosher food I had brought along. My cell phone battery had been used up and whoever tried to call me went straight to voice mail. They would conclude that I was on the flight and there was no reason to worry. A quick calculation told me that if I did not find a way to get help soon, I was in trouble. In Eretz Yisroel it was already late at night and people would be going to sleep, and in New York they were expecting me in the middle of the night. That meant that only in the morning would someone realize that something went wrong and then it would be too late. Even worse, Sunday night would be Sukkos and the first days would be over Tuesday night! In that second I realized that I simply could not remain there.

After a lot of nerve-wracking wandering around, one clerk was kind enough to give me a calling card. I found a public phone and dialed the number. My father answered. He was exhausted after a day of preparations for Sukkos. I couldn’t stop myself from crying and I said, “I am stuck in Poland. There is no flight. They want me to fly on Shabbos …” And our conversation was cut off.

With a new calling card: “The conversation will be cut off again.”

“What about the shluchim in Poland? They’re not answering! Write to the Rebbe through the Igros that he should save me.” Click. I was so frustrated. What now? All that went through my head in those seconds were, “Hashem, help me! Ana Hashem, Hoshia Na.”

A young couple who were supposed to be on my flight, came over to me and said, “Don’t cry. Come with us. We will watch over you. Tomorrow there will be a flight and you’ll see, it will work out.”

“But I’m Jewish,” I tried to explain. “I can’t travel on Saturday.”

“I’m sure G-d will forgive you,” said the woman. “I am sure He doesn’t want you to wander around on the street. Travel and He will forgive you. Maybe this is His way of saving us from a crash or something like that.”

“No, I’m not flying,” I declared. At this point, I no longer cared what people thought of me. They thought me crazy in any case. A flight with 300 people is canceled. 299 of them accept the cancellation and only one person makes a commotion. The situation only grew more complicated. I was sent to a long line, at the end of which I would have to tell the clerk which day I wanted to fly. I would be put up in a hotel for just one night. That is all they were willing to do.

The line moved and I could see the doors of the airport opening and closing in the distance. I could see the cold streets of Warsaw outside and I knew that the moment I put those doors behind me, I would lose my chance of getting home. And anyway, who would want to spend the night on the streets of a country whose earth was saturated with so much Jewish blood?

THE MIRACLE

Any attempt to make contact with home or with the local shluchim failed. The situation was really dire. I knew that the only thing that could extricate me was a miracle. It is a terrible and frightening feeling to need a miracle. And yet, I felt I had an open channel with Hashem. “You chose us from all the nations and gave us the Shabbos to observe. And You promised. You promised that one who keeps Shabbos, Shabbos will protect him. So please, protect me and save me. All I want is to go to the Rebbe.”

Then, a moment before everything seemed hopeless, a frum couple walked into the airport! It was a couple with five children. It looked as though there was a flight that night to Israel and they were going to be on it.

I rushed over to them and told them my story. “Whatever help you can provide me with, even if it’s to help me contact the local shliach, would be a tremendous help.”

The father said I should go with them. He asked his wife to watch my things and then he ran with me from clerk to clerk and manager to manager. He yelled, demanded, and asked that they help me. As I followed him, I tried to understand. How did he know how to help me? It seemed he was used to helping people who were stuck Erev Shabbos in the middle of nowhere, or someone had told him precisely what he needed to do. In any case, I felt it was help from Heaven; literally Eliyahu HaNavi in the guise of this Jew.

We were running from one place to another, but nobody wanted to help. It was midnight already and they all wanted to close for the night and go home. To go to New York or back to the Ukraine would entail chilul Shabbos. I called home a third time. I had 12 seconds before the conversation would be cut off. “Abba, someone is helping me. He said something about a flight to Israel …” Cut off.

Then the Jewish man faced the supervisor and simply informed her, “She is flying to Israel today. There is a flight to Israel tonight and she will be on it.”

The supervisor scowled and said, “She came here from the Ukraine and is supposed to fly to New York. That she is an Israeli citizen is lovely but that won’t help her here. It’s not what her ticket says. In order to fly to Israel, she needs a new ticket and that costs 2214 zlotys (about $700). Decide quickly because the flight is leaving soon.”

When I heard the amount, my heart sank. I thought salvation had arrived, but now I had a new problem. I nervously told the man that I didn’t have enough money. He simply took out his credit card and said, “You are Jewish and I rely on you. When you return to Israel, pay me back the money.” Then he gave his credit card to the supervisor.

I hadn’t yet recovered from the shock when the supervisor intoned, “It’s too late. The flight is full and closed; there is no room.”

This was already too much, but the man did not lose his cool. He demanded that she check again, and believe it or not, there was another place. They reopened the luggage conveyor belt. “Okay, now run,” she ordered. “The flight is about to take off!”

We ran like crazy and on the way, the couple from the canceled flight stopped me and said, “Hey, you’re flying to Israel? You worked it out? Yes!” I could see they were genuinely happy for me.

It was only when the plane took off and I was on my way to Israel that I could think. It was only then that I realized what I had gone through. I was on my way home, but not to the home I had intended. Months of work and weeks of anticipation and spiritual preparation exploded in one instant. I felt defeated. I remembered all the displays of hatred I had experienced in the past hours, the apathy the Poles had felt for my situation. My dear rescuers shared their kosher food with me since a kosher meal had not been ordered for me at that late point. Amidst all the sorrow and bad feelings, I knew one thing. I would be going to 770 no matter what. I was going there if I had to walk! I did not go through all this for nothing! I knew this wasn’t very realistic, but if the Rebbe wanted me there, I would be there!

WELCOME TO ISRAEL

The plane landed in Eretz Yisroel early Friday morning. Even before it finished rolling down the runway, I had opened my Israeli cell phone and called my mother. At home, they knew something about a flight to Israel but no more than that. “Ima, I’m in Eretz Yisroel …”

An unpleasant surprise awaited me. “Esti, I’m in 770.”

My mother and two brothers wanted to surprise me. They had flown to the Rebbe without telling me and planned to welcome me at the airport. Picture how I felt after such an unpleasant experience, to arrive at a nearly empty house.

I said goodbye to my rescuers and took down their information. “Thanks once again …”

Then a Jewish girl on the flight, who had heard my story, stopped me and said, “I don’t know you, but one thing I know. If G-d chose you for this test, you are special.”

Then I understood that I had not been defeated by the Poles. I had won. These words she said stay with me till today. If Hashem gives you the test, He gives you the ability to overcome it.

All those hours in distant Ukraine, the shluchim did not sleep. When they found out what my problem was, they and my family tried everything to help me. When I landed in Eretz Yisroel, they were finally able to rest.

The first thing I said to my father when I saw him in the train station was, “Abba, I am not giving up on 770. I’m going!”

He looked at me in surprise and said, “It isn’t possible. Right after Yom Tov you are going back to the Ukraine to continue working there …”

But I did not give up. I got home after an entire night without sleep. I put my things down and went straight to the travel agency where I had bought my ticket. They cheered for my rescue from Poland and we sat down to look for a new ticket to New York. I insisted that I had not used my ticket and I wanted to use it! On Tuesday, the first day of Chol HaMoed, I boarded a plane for 770.

IT WAS WORTH IT

I flew to New York and arrived safely. I met my family and spent Simchas Torah and Shabbos B’Reishis with the Rebbe. It was the most special Tishrei in my life because I acquired it with blood, sweat, and tears.

To conclude my story, that same week, my father met with “Eliyahu HaNavi” to repay him the money. He asked the man, “What made you lend such a large amount of money? How could you know you would get it back?”

The man said, “You have no idea what a lesson your daughter taught my children – to see the mesirus nefesh of a young girl, alone among thousands of gentiles, and to withstand the test of Shabbos. There is no greater lesson in life than that and that was worth taking a chance on losing $700.”

May we merit to meet again in 770 together with the Rebbe MH”M, and he will redeem us!

HASHEM RUNS THE WORLD

Before the happy ending, I spent nearly a week at home. It was a week that I could not sleep at night. I could not figure out why I had to go through this. What did I have to rectify in Poland? Then I heard a story that seemed to fit my situation.

The Alter Rebbe gave his students an explanation on the verse, “You know the secrets of the world.” Hashem gave the secrets of the Torah to the Torah scholars, but the secrets of the world, how the world is run, only Hashem knows. Then the Alter Rebbe told a story. There once lived a man whose job it was to take money from the town merchants and to buy their merchandise for them at the fair. As their agent, he got a commission for this work.

One day, he was returning from the city when his wagon got stuck in the mud and began sinking. He tried extricating it and called for help. A wealthy man appeared who began helping him, but being pampered and weak, he wasn’t much of a help. The wagon sank and the man cried over the merchandise he had lost. The wealthy man said, “Master of the universe, if it had been a matter of money, You know I would have given what I could, but this was a matter of strength which I do not have.”

Not far off walked a man who was poor but very strong. He heard sounds of weeping and he ran to see what the problem was. He saw policemen leading a poor family to jail. He began fighting the policemen so they would leave the poor family alone. The policemen shouted, “Don’t hit us! It’s not our fault. They did not pay the rent and the governor ordered us to throw them in jail.”

The poor strong man said, “Master of the universe, if it was a matter of strength, You know I would do everything to help them, but it’s a matter of money and I don’t have any.”

The Alter Rebbe concluded, it would seem to us that Hashem should have reversed the two men and have the wealthy man rescue the poor family and have the strong man help the merchant, but that is Hashem’s business. He runs the world.