In Israel for Dani's Bar-Mitzvah

Travelling to Israel

We're in Jerusalem now, but getting here was quite an eventful experience.

Flying EL-AL to Israel just days before Rosh Hashana is quite an experience. It is safe to say that there were about 250 Chasidim onboard, of every possible denomination, beard length, “kapote” colour, “shtreimel” size, “gartel” style and “peyes” look. But there is one thing they all had in common: they all travel with a full set of “shas” in their hand-luggage (no doubt to avoid overweight in case they check the stuff in). You would think that in an age where you can fit the entire “Talmud” on an iPod, they would find easier way to travel with their libraries, but for some reason these guys need to have their stuff with them, onboard. I know that only because I helped a few of these guys get their gear into the overhead compartments. Let’s just say that every one of their bags weighed more than me. It’s a miracle that the overhead compartment didn’t come crashing down on people during the flight. Divine providence indeed.

The other interesting hand-luggage are the bags of “chalot” making their way to Israel from New York. Some of these guys probably had advance notice of a nationwide baker’s strike in Israel, so they came prepared. I can just imagine the scene, Moishe coming into the house in “Me’a She’arim” with a big smile on his face to worried looks in the family. Finally somebody has the guts to announce that they are facing a crisis: there are no chalot available in Israel for Shabat. Moishe smiles, and slowly takes out his plastic bag, and as soon as the family recognizes the logo of the famous Williamsburg baker, they are all relieved. Moishe came through: he brought chalot from Brooklyn.

The main concern about getting the chalot settled in the overhead compartments, was the same one as the concern for the hundreds of hats which had to be stowed safely: how not to get them “kvetched”, to quote one of the travelers next to us. Let’s just say that a significant percentage of cubic capacity went wasted while talmudic minds calculated how much space can be considered “safe” around a challah or a hat taking into account speed, velocity, air pressure and the weight of an entire set of talmud books.

The crew seemed happy we were only one hour late due to all this stowing activity. Apparently that is quite a speed record.
As soon as we reached 10,000 feet, the action really kicked-in to high gear. The one hundred chasidim sitting on the front left of the plane decided at that moment they absolutely needed to be at the back right of the plane. At that exact moment the one hundred chasidim sitting at the back left of the place realised they were late for something going on in the front right of the aircraft. For the next 10 hours (turbulence or no turbulence, pilot requests or no, no matter what) we witnessed a level of activity which would have appeared normal in a scene from Koyaanisqatsi on speed.

But here is something I still haven’t been able to figure out. At the exact moment the crew got to work on serving dinner, within one tenths of a second EVERY chasid onboard decided this was the time to convene in the kitchen to daven Ma’ariv. Either the chasidim had an “inside” guy among the crew members, or else they have some sort of secret signal, beeper or BlackBerry controlled message system, but they ALL got up at the exact second that the first food-cart was taken out of its parking bay. The same thing took place in the morning with Shacharit. A mystery indeed. Let's just say the crew did not enjoy any of this all that much.

One other intriguing thing was the line to the bathrooms. Under normal circumstances standing in line for the toilets on a plane is a “first come - first serve” type of arrangement. Not on this flight. After studying the scene for a couple of hours I came to the conclusion that chasidim must apply some sort of complicated equation to the order in which people enter the bathroom. It must look something like this:



(blog could not present the equation I created properly)

Or else it’s just whoever pushes their way in with more vigour.

I'll pick this up a little later and will add some pictures to spice up the blog.

posted by jsaar @ 11:00 PM