In Portland, Maine, a man walked into our shul and announced, “Did you hear what happened? We attacked Iran and killed the Ayatollah.” It was Shabbat Zachor (the Shabbat before Purim), and we were about to read: “Remember what Amalek did to you when you were on your way out of Egypt …” The news was momentous. I took a deep breath and resolved to return immediately to my family in Israel.
I had flown from Tel Aviv to JFK via Arkia Israeli Airlines. Arkia did have a flight back from JFK, but it went to Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt, and not really close to where I wanted to be. I booked the first ticket that I saw, anyway.
The flight was scheduled to leave at 1:40 a.m., but it was delayed. While I waited, I looked around at the other travelers on this flight to Israel/Egypt. A group of volunteer firefighters were waiting around with big smiles on their faces. They had crewcuts and tattoos and had come from all over the US on a volunteer mission to help Israel extinguish fires in wartime. I met a Chabadnik from Kiryat Malachi, a woman with two teenage kids who were busy on their iPhones, and also a young hassidic couple with noisy toddlers.
There were only 40 of us, and the airplane had 248 seats. We had only one goal that united us: getting to Israel.
We landed in Sharm el Sheikh in the middle of the night. Nobody clapped. The airline said there would be a bus, but there was no bus. Someone spotted a bus, but the driver said, “Canada.” After an hour of negotiating with Arabic-speaking taxi drivers at the airport, someone realized the bus driver was actually saying, “Kennedy” (i.e., JFK) and not “Canahdah”! We were nervous, but we all got on the bus.
The drive from Sharm to the Taba Border Crossing took about four hours. It was dark. We passed four security checkpoints. Our driver, Ashraf, and our security guard, Wa’il, waved to the guards, and there were no problems. The bus driver and the guard asked me my name. “I am Aqaba,” I said. My name is Akiva, so that was pretty close. They were delighted by my name and pointed excitedly east. Our winding road, the Nuweiba-Taba Route, hugged the coast along the Gulf of Aqaba.
At Taba, I was the first to jump off the bus. The guard at the border crossing said to me, “Deeep,” and stuck out his hand. “Huh?” I asked. Oh, he meant “tip,” or baksheesh. I was more than happy to give him a ten-dollar “deeep,” and skipped, or rather dragged, my suitcase and a bunch of bags with me across the border and into Israel.
Modern Exodus from Egypt
The Torah says that in ancient times, God did not take us out of Egypt on the most direct route by way of the Philistines. God said, “Lest they get scared if they should see war,” and then we return to Pharaoh.
But we went straight through the desert into a war. We made only one stop, a bathroom break at the gas station “Take 5 – Camp Bet Sandos.” My trip was 40 hours long and not 40 years, and that was “enough.” Dayenu.
I feel that I have experienced an exodus even greater than the Exodus of old. I traveled to Israel with the modern Hebrews (and the US firemen), and we all had faith on our journey.
The ancient prophet Jeremiah predicted this.
Jeremiah announced that in the future, we would no longer recall the redemption of old because the miracles of the present would be even greater than the Exodus from Egypt. We have tasted and seen this miraculous vision of God’s outstretched and mighty hand in each one of our lives.
The writer lives in Modi’in and is the rabbi of Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh in Portland, Maine.