Assigned Seating

My wife and I had booked our return trip from Eretz Yisrael ages ago and reserved aisle seats next to each other. Arriving at the check-in desk, we learned that our seats had been switched. To my chagrin, I was now in a middle seat and my wife was seated a few seats away. The agent had no explanation and told us the flight was full. There was no point in arguing, so we boarded the plane and bid each other good night.

Once I was safely compressed into my middle seat, I noticed some commotion to my side. It seemed like a few other people were irritated that their seats had been switched too, including husbands and wives separated from each other and scattered to different parts of the plane. One irate man began questioning other passengers to see if they would move so he could sit with his wife. Meanwhile, an elderly rebbetzin was agitated that her aged husband, a prominent rabbi, was stuck next to another man who refused to budge and would not give her his seat in exchange for another. Pandemonium broke out, but I remained quiet, intent on catching up on my sleep after ten working days on a Jerusalem beis din.

But the circus was in progress. The irate man asked me to move, saying that if I didn’t, his wife would not be near him. Frustrated, he finally told the rebbetzin that she could have his seat, only a few rows away from her husband. But she said she didn’t want to sit next to me because I was a man. I was getting too sleepy to notice by that time, but when she asked me if I would move to another row, I told her that so far, there was no other row to move to.

Finally, my wife asked the man sitting to my right if she could change with him, as if echoing the Biblical adage “an aisle for an aisle.” He acquiesced. Then in a stroke of sleepy brilliance, I asked her if she would take the middle seat, give me the aisle seat, then the elderly rebbetzin could sit in the other aisle seat next to her, which would put her in eyesight of her husband three rows forward. By this time, both my wife and I were becoming wide awake because of all the negotiating going on. I took out my sefer and she took out her laptop to do some work.

My wife is the founder and creator of the Safety Kid program, an organization devoted to creating a safer world for our community’s youngest members. As such, she presents workshops around the world for schools, camps, and communities on how to protect children. She is almost constantly working on her slide presentation, which has been translated into several languages so Jewish schools can benefit from her program. She got to work on her latest program, which has been adapted for Chassidic schools. Generally, the two of us are engrossed in our work while traveling, and other than courteous greetings, we avoid talking to the other passengers, especially when it is after midnight. However, I saw that my wife and the rebbetzin were speaking intensely in Hebrew. I nodded off to sleep and the next morning, when we landed and waited in line at Passport Control, she explained it to me.

The rebbetzin was the principal of a school in Bnei Brak with over 1,000 students. When she saw my wife’s program, she was enthralled. She had been looking for a program suitable for her students and had dismissed each program for one reason or another. However, she was fascinated by the Safety Kid model. Apparently, as I was slumbering, the two of them spent hours discussing her school’s needs, and how the program could work for them. She asked if my wife would offer the program in Bnei Brak, and the next day, she emailed my wife asking her to arrange this. The fascinating detail, which she and I had both agreed to, was that had we remained in our original seats, she never would have met the rebbetzin. It seems that the seating disarray had been orchestrated by Hashem so they could meet. When we leave all the orchestrations to Hashem, there are no mistakes, no coincidences. And as a result of this meeting, perhaps some needy students will get the help they need. In the eyes of Heaven, even the inconveniences serve a greater purpose. 

Rabbi Dr. Dovid Fox is a forensic and clinical psychologist, and director of Chai Lifeline Crisis Services. To contact Chai Lifeline’s 24-hour crisis helpline, call 855-3-CRISIS or email [email protected]. Learn more at ChaiLifeline.org/crisis.