The LOT Airways Miracle

LIVE WITH THE TIMES!

By Rabbi Gershon Overlander, Director Chabad of Hendon

It was a remarkable – if not miraculous landing. A Polish airplane whose landing gear had refused to open and was thus forced to land on its belly with no wheels. A hair-raising and incredibly dangerous thing to attempt – everyone was expecting the worst. Nevertheless the plane’s captain Tadeusz Wrona (an expert glider) managed to pull it off and all 230 passengers were saved. He was later rightly crowned a hero by the passengers and the airline for having saved the lives of all those people.

Can we learn anything from this event?

Well, over 200 years ago – by a leading orthodox Jewish leader – Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who founded and headed the “Chabad” Chassidic group in White Russia – and whose descendents and disciples now comprise the largest,most famous chassidic group in the world – Chabad/Lubavitch – sent word to the main synagogue one day that his followers should “live with the times.” When they first heard this unusual request from their rabbinic mentor, they were – to say the least – somewhat perplexed! Is this what Judaism preaches? Surely the opposite is true: we need to live by our religious principles, regardless of changing times and fashions.

It soon became clear, that the rabbi was not advocating changing time-honoured Jewish principles and ideals. Rather, he had merely meant to urge his followers to live their lives with spiritual inspiration derived from studying the Torah portion associated with that week.

Sounds quite nice in theory, but putting it into practice is surely much harder. Well, consider the following: the Torah portion which was read in synagogues all over the world, during the week when the miracle of the Polish airplane occurred is called “Lech Lecha” – This portion includes a detailed account of the capture and liberation of Abraham’s nephew Lot. Somewhat of a “naughty boy” (he liked the night life in Soddom) Lot and his whole city had been led away in captivity after a failed rebellion against the ruling kings at that time. Avraham with a tiny force chased the captors and miraculously defeated them and restored all the captives together with their families and property(see Genesis chapter 14 for the whole story).

Let’s go back to the amazing story of the miraculous landing in Poland. What is quite fascinating however in this story is that the name of the Polish National Airline is called “LOT” (one of the world’s oldest airlines) which of course is a “bit of a coincidence” bearing in mind that the name of Abraham’s nephew is only mentioned in the Bible at this point. It becomes even more astonishing to note that the flight number of the saved aircraft was flight 16. If you look in the chapter 14 which deals with the whole incident you will notice that verse 16 reads as follows: “And he (Abraham) brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.” So in the same week that we read about Lot and all his family and all the people of his town being saved, we also saw a real live liberation of a crippled airline called LOT and the saving of its entire crew and passengers (and their luggage to boot!).

One more point; the pilot’s name? Tadeusz – a Polish derivative of Thaddeus and which is widely translated as “praised” or “heart”.

Most people identify Abraham as the quintessence of kindness – the ‘Patriarch with the heart’. Hospitality and love for all!

Coincidences? maybe. I prefer to think that G-d is hinting to us that the kind of miracles we read in the Torah can still be found in today’s secular and apparently unmiraculous world. It can even give us inspiration to continue in our mission to make the world a better and more G-dly place to live in – just by “living with the times!”