An Embarrassing Encounter
Throughout the course of a flight abroad, a fellow Jewish passenger watched my every move. When mealtime came, I removed a sandwich from my satchel, washed my hands, and began eating. The man ate the non-kosher meal he was given. But as the food entered his innards, justification for this act came tumbling out. “What can I do?” he asked, in self-defense, “A man’s gotta eat. There’s no other choice.”
“Why do I have another choice, but you don’t?” I asked in wonder. “If I were to offer you some of my kosher food, would you eat it instead of the non-kosher plane food?”
“I’ll think about it,” he replied, non-committally.
We continued talking amiably, until the man heard I was from France.
“Do you by any chance know Rav Pinto? My mother told me a lot about him. I would love to meet him.”
“I certainly do! And as far as I know, he is meant to arrive at the same city where we are headed.”
The man became extremely excited and proclaimed that as soon as he came to that city, he would look up Rav Pinto.
We finally landed. The heads of the community were at the airport to welcome me on account of my holy ancestors, zy”a. When my seat-mate discovered that the white-bearded man who had talked with him throughout the flight was none other than Rav Pinto, he was in a state of shock. He shamefully apologized for eating treif food in front of me.
I replied that he had no reason to feel ashamed before me. The next day he would forget about me already as we would part ways. But he had every reason to be ashamed before Hashem, Whose Shechinah fills the world. He sees each and every deed of ours, for better or for worse.
The time will come when we will be given a bill for all we ate in this establishment called Olam Hazeh, and we will have to pay the price for every bite.
