It was break time. I entered the elevator from my office at The Jerusalem Post building, anxious to head down to the lobby. Instead, the elevator went up, and exasperation immediately kicked in.
Then the doors opened on the eighth floor to a gaggle of blue suits. Standing on the side, there he was, looking just like his pictures. “You’re Mike Pence!” I exclaimed.
In another breath, my mantra started. “You saved America! You saved America!” – referring to the way he stood up to the unrelenting pressure former president Donald Trump put on him to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
I was never a fan of Pence, who parroted and loyally stood by Trump for four years. But January 6 was Pence’s own “Esther-Mordechai Moment,” as the mob surged at the Capitol Building seeking to hang him. It reminded me of the verse in the scroll of Esther, “Who knows whether this was why you were brought to the palace at this time.”
The blue suit closest to the door asked very politely if I would vacate the elevator so that the former vice president’s entourage could enter.
As the blue suits crowded into the elevator, I kept on repeating in the hallway, “You saved America!” in my now shaky, over-emotional voice (verklempt, as my mother would say in Yiddish).
Departing from his familiar stoic manner, the former VP put his hand over his heart and responded, “Thank you. God bless you. Thank you. God bless you.” The doors shut.
Of course, what I also wanted to say was, “Thank you for standing up to that big bully!” Maybe I’ll have a chance on another elevator ride.