The Wandering Jews
Last week Ruchi and I flew to New York for a wedding. We had a voucher for a free night's hotel stay on hotels.com, but it was only for a hotel room within a fixed price point. So we needed a hotel that was both relatively close to the wedding hall in Brooklyn, as well as to La Guardia airport. We settled on a Best Western 20 minutes from the airport in the Bronx.
It was conveniently located, boasted free parking and most importantly, it was within our price point for our free room. Being true out-of-towners, we did not realize that this was the South Bronx, which isn't exactly, shall we say, the safest neighborhood in the tri-state area - at least not the part of the South Bronx that the hotel was in.
This was readily apparent as we approached the neighborhood in our rental car, clearly not the re-gentrified part of town. The parking lot (all 4 spaces, besides for another 10 around the block in the back) was full.
"Don't worry. There's a 24-hour lot a half mile away," we were told. So much for the free parking. Well, the lot ended up being an "almost 24-hour" lot, except for the hours that we needed it. So, with no choice, I dropped Ruchi off at the hotel, and began circling through the neighborhood, hoping to find some street-side parking. But after a full hour I gave up, and we realized that we would have to try and find somewhere else to stay.
We told the hotel clerk that we were stuck without a place to park, and he offered to try and help us find a way to squeeze us into the 4-car parking lot. At the exact moment that I pulled into the tiny lot, one of the drivers of the four cars "just happened" to exit the hotel and unlock his car. He had come to retrieve something that he left in the car. We explained our predicament to, and he (very reluctantly) agreed to move the car over in order to make room for us. So we stayed. Finally!
The next morning we returned to the airport, returned the rental car, checked in a suitcase, and went to wait in the security line, when I noticed that my photo ID was missing. We retraced our steps, ran down to the United luggage depot, searched in vain through the already checked-in suitcase and then remembered that I had shown my driver's license to the hotel clerk when we checked in the previous evening. Perhaps we never got it back?!
A quick call to the hotel confirmed this suspicion. Lo and behold, my license was sitting right there next to their computer. (Why didn't they notify us??) With one hour before departure, we ordered an Uber to go the hotel, pick up the license and rush it over to the hotel. We prayed that Omar the driver would be the right divine messenger and reach us in time: I could not afford to miss the flight, because I had a bris scheduled for later that afternoon back in Cleveland.
Thank G-d, all's well that ends well. We ended up staying at the hotel, making the flight, and experiencing a most memorable scenic tour of the South Bronx along the way. Additionally, we were reminded of some all-important Jewish lessons, like relinquishing control and letting Hashem take care of the details. As JRR Tolkien famously wrote, "Not all those who wander are lost."
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Koval
