I t never gets old. There is a quickening of the pace a small feeling of excitement tinged perhaps with some annoyance followed by the inevitable frenzy of inactivity. There’s the quick goodbye to the wife and kids and off you go.
Your business requires you to go to some G-d forsaken place to meet with clients to network or to attend a conference so off you are to the all-too-commonplace business trip.
But is any place truly G-d forsaken? Perhaps a more correct term would be “a place which man forsakes G-d.” For if ever there was a minefield this is it. Business travel is a nisayon that does not garner nearly the amount of attention it truly deserves. Because for someone out there alone without the ordinary safeguards in place the tests crop up on every possible level.
The anchors we are accustomed to — a schedule acquaintances a wife a home — do not automatically transport themselves to the new set of circumstances. There is often no minyan in the morning at least in the immediate vicinity of the hotel no daf yomi and ditto for Minchah and Maariv. You can easily choose to daven while puttering around in your hotel room trying to have a modicum of kavanah — but is this davening?
