Alcholic Airlines

Last week my wife and I flew across to Antwerp where I was scheduled to give a couple of talks. We had been looking forward to this trip for ages, particularly because there is a Kosher Chinese restaurant there, which dishes up noodles and duck in about as perfect a state as you could possibly imagine. Let me pause here and give you a piece of advice. Never switch on the radio around news time just before you’re about to get on to a flight. I did… just as I was driving into the Airport.

I looked at my wife and asked her, "What airline are we flying on?" Yes, you’ve guessed it. I couldn’t get this story out of my mind and when I saw a plane parked next to us on the runway, with the large letters "AA" painted on the tail. My imagination went into overdrive. I started to imagine what might happen next on our flight.

"Ladies and gentlemen we will now run through the safety procedures on this Boeing Aircraft. We would ask you to watch your Cabin Crew closely during this demonstration." A stewardess sways toward the locker containing the Dummy life jacket and oxygen mask and opens it up. The contents come tumbling down on top of her and she goes into hysterical laughing and can’t stop giggling. Eventually she composes her self and tries to catch up to the briefing, which is way ahead of her. "Tie the Life Jacket in a double bow at the side." The Stewardess can’t seem to manage a double bow, swears and accidentally inflates the jacket. This provokes her to another fit of giggles. Off she staggers, still wearing the Life Jacket and the Oxygen mask on top of her head. Then I imagined the Captain addressing the passengers.

"Hello ladies and gentlemen this is your Captain speaking, (hic!) Welcome on board this flight to…to…John, where are we going to…. John doesn’t know either. Oh well, somewhere. No John! not too much ice in the Martini. I thought I’d tell you about some near misses we’ve been involved in Pfew."

Of course everything went fine and the flights there and back were perfect. But three years ago, I was on another flight between Johannesburg and Durban. This time the Captain’s announcement was for real and he told us that we would have to prepare for a crash landing as the front tires had burst on take off.

It was one of those moments when everything gets very serious and the future hangs in the balance. For Jews, another one of those moments starts tonight, Yom Kippur, The Day Of Atonement. We believe the fate of the whole world is decided then and our prayers beseech heaven for forgiveness and beg to be believed when we promise to change for the better.

This year with the Middle East peace process in… "pieces" and Jewish and Palestinian blood spilt again. We’ll need to make sure those prayers are as sincere, as very sincere as we can make them.