Advice from a Tow Truck Driver

It’s amazing how quickly all of your carefully laid out plans can fall apart.

As I headed back from Chicago on Sunday following a very inspiring weekend at the Midwest Agudah Convention, I was expecting to spend Monday in Indianapolis and the next two days in DC. Well, it didn’t exactly turn out that way.

On Monday morning as I was about to head to the inauguration of Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and State Superintendent Jennifer McCormick, my car had a flat tire. When the tow truck showed up an hour late, the driver told me not worry since “everything happens for a reason. Clearly you weren’t meant to go to Indianapolis today.”

I didn’t make it to the inauguration in person, but I did get to watch Rabbi Yisroel Gettinger deliver the invocation online while waiting for my tire to be fixed. He wasn’t the only Orthodox rabbi to speak at an inauguration this week. Rabbi Shmuel Schuman of the Hebrew Theological College delivered the benediction at the 100th General Assembly, but dozens of people mistakenly congratulated Agudath Israel Illinois director of government affairs, Rabbi Shlomo Soroka, who also attended the event.

Continuing my travel saga, late Monday night, I was forced to cancel my trip to DC when the Senate decided to push off the confirmation hearing of Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos by a week. I remembered the tow truck driver’s words the next morning when I got up with a fever that kept me home for the next three days. Clearly, I wasn’t meant to go to DC this week!

One positive aspect of the delayed confirmation hearing is that it gives more time for you to contact your senators and ask them to support the nomination of Mrs. DeVos. I plan to be at Tuesday’s hearing (you can watch it live at 5 pm Eastern here).

-Rabbi A. D. Motzen