The Torah Must Travel First Class

By Dovi Begun

This last Friday on my flight from JFK to Miami I brought with me a special Sefer Torah from the Aliya Institute in New York which will be used for our upcoming Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur davening.

As you can understand, flying with a Torah is a huge honor and a great responsibility.

Thursday night I tried calling Delta as I wanted to make sure they would allow me to take a (very big) Torah on the overhead compartment. I wasn’t comfortable sending the Torah under the plane where its proper honor wouldn’t be under my control.

Unfortunately, after waiting for a full hour I couldn’t get a hold of anybody and decided I will figure it out at the airport. At the worst case, I had a friend ready to take the Torah back to Brooklyn if the airline wouldn’t allow it.

As I come to JFK and do my mobile check-in I get a notification asking me if I would like to be upgraded to Comfort.

I was never upgraded before in my life and I graciously accept.

And indeed soon after my seat was changed from 26B to 11C in the Comfort Section.

“Interesting, is it the Torah?” I ask myself?

With the boarding pass in hand, I go straight to security hoping nobody would create problems with my big Torah. And so it happens. B”H not one single comment, only a screening checkup, and I am at the gate.

At this point I tell myself, I’m at the last point. From the gate to the airplane and a done story.

As I was seated in Comfort I was able to do Priority Boarding. When I’m holding my phone to screen my Bar Code I realize the Bar Code had disappeared. So I ask the lady what happened. She says you have to reprint your boarding pass. They reprint it and to my surprise, a new seat was selected this time. Seat 1B in first. This is the very first seat of the airplane. And there it was – the second upgrade in the same flight for the man who was never upgraded before.

At this point it was obvious. It wasn’t me. It was indeed the Torah. I realized the message at that moment: The Torah must travel and must travel first.

We all have a First Class ticket – our Torah. Her worth to us is immeasurable. It gives us our life. Our purpose and our meaning!