T here’s great value in being able to bring a fresh pair of eyes to life situations to observe a scene you’ve beheld so many times before yet look at it anew from a different perspective. That’s an experience I had just last week upon taking a plane trip to Eretz Yisrael.
Not long after takeoff we were served dinner and then with the cabin having quieted down and the lights dimmed most passengers settled in for an attempt at getting some sleep or at least something approximating it.
Fast-forward a few hours of fitful sleep later and I awoke to the scene I’ve witnessed and taken part in so often before. This being an overnight flight large numbers of religious travelers onboard had to daven Shacharis in-flight surely a less-than-ideal circumstance. Here and there throughout the plane frum men like myself had begun to rise from their seats retrieve tallis and tefillin from overhead compartments and don them in preparation for davening the morning tefillah. Within minutes dozens were engaged in this predawn ritual in every corner of the aircraft.
If we think of that experience as conventional it’s only because we’re so used to it that we’re inured to its novelty. But conventional it surely isn’t. For one thing many of these men deserve the equivalent of Olympic bronze in gymnastics. Economy class is cramped enough well beyond what on terra firma we consider humane not affording a spare inch in which to enjoy even the most minimal creature comforts. Add to that the variety of contorted positions in which human beings in various states of consciousness are lying in these wee hours legs stretched out in aisles arms dangling off the sides of seats and more.
