Don’t mess with God

In December of 1988, a delegation of 33 and traveled from Brooklyn to London to attend the wedding of their Reba's son. And after spending several days in the enclave of Stanford Hill, learning and dancing and singing with the Reba, they packed their bags ready to board their flight back home the following day. And the next morning, although short on time, the decided to say one last goodbye to their Reb and get one last brah to bring back with them to America. And they walked into the house and the Reb was staying. And the Reb's secretary asked what they could do for them. They said they wanted to wish the Reb farewell and were wondering if the Reb had a minute or two for them to do so. And the secretary said, "Of course, the Reb has nothing scheduled for this morning. Let me go and tell him that you're here." And a minute later, the secretary returns and says, "The Reb is free now, but he would like you to wait a few minutes before seeing you." And the said, "No problem." And they took a seat. After a few minutes pass, theim asked the secretary again if they can go and ask if they could see the Reba now being that they needed to catch a flight. And the secretary went to the Reb and came back and said, "The Rebba said that you should wait several more minutes and that there's no need to worry about missing the plane." 10 minutes passed and there was no word from the Reb. And the began getting nervous. They were running out of time to make their flight. Should they leave despite the Reba telling them to stay? They had families and jobs to return to and businesses to attend. How could they miss their flight? But then again, how could they disobey their Reb? So, they decided, you know, we're going to stay. 10 nerve-wracking minutes later, the Reb called them in and he looked up at them with tremendous warmth and he told them that he understood that he had made them wait, but he assured them that it would all work out. And he shook their hands, giving them warm brahas and he walked them out to their waiting chartered bus. Anxiously tried to just jump on the bus and still make their flight, wanting to just jump in and speed off, but the Reb didn't allow it. He calmly walked them to their car and almost deliberately slowly gave each one another lengthly and time-consuming brh. When the rebel was finally finished, they hopped onto the bus and sped to the airport and ran through the terminal directly to their gate only to learn that their plane had left without them. The last flight to New York had lifted off and left, leaving them stranded behind. and flustered and aggravated, they sat down in the airport wondering what to do next. A few minutes later, there was a commotion in the airport and hundreds of passengers began running to the small TV screens that were broadcasting horrific breaking news. A Pan airplane flying from Heathrow airport had just blown up over Lockerby, Scotland, killing all the passengers on board, as well as 11 people on the street at the sight of the crash. And the Mans get a closer glimpse of the screen and they squinted to make out what the flight number was. And what they saw made their hearts stop beating. The flight number of that flight was Panama 103, the exact plane the were supposed to be on. The same plane that the 33 were supposed to be in at that very moment, but had missed merely by a few minutes. A terrorist convinced an unwitting passenger to carry a suitcase onto the plane, and in it was a bomb. The plane had 243 passengers. All of them died. Yet in the back of the plane, there were 33 seats that had remained empty. Empty because their wouldbe occupants chose to listen to their reb. Empty because the people who should have been sitting in them bowed to the greatness of their leader. Empty because theim who had reserved those seats humbled themselves to the link in their chain that connected them to Sinai. The word rabbi, reba, rav, and reba all share the same root ra. The word rav means to increase or to make great. Our rabban and our rebas are rabbim take with their holy hands the heritage their teachers gave them and delicately give it to us and with it they make us great and with it they increase our sacredness and with it they give us the gift of life. They give us tyra. Those who disparage them live with a heavenly target on their backs. But those that rever them with the respect they properly deserve have heavenly angels protecting them. To the people who respect God's word and those that disseminate it, Hashem is watching out for you. But to those who don't, watch out because the earth might just swallow you alive.