The Escape Room

The Escape Room

This past week, I gave talks in England. I arrived in London on Thursday and on Friday led a workshop for 20 rabbis and cantors, then gave an evening sermon in synagogue. On Shabbat, I led a class before services, gave a sermon during services, did a session in the children’s program, and that was followed by a 4-hour workshop that lasted all afternoon.

By the time we had made Havdalah and the program was over, I was exhausted. My hosts offered to drive me back to the AirBnB where I was staying but I preferred to walk, to stretch a bit and get some fresh air.

It took only 20 minutes to get to the door of the apartment. I punched the code into the keypad and it flashed green. I turned the doorlatch, but the door would not open. I tried again. And again. I then looked closely and could see that the door was secured by a mechanical deadbolt. I had no way of getting in. A resident of another apartment in the building must have inexplicably set the deadbolt.

I was standing on a dark street in London banging on a door with absolutely no Plan B. And because it was just after Shabbat, I did not have a cell phone nor even a wallet in my pocket.

And no one answered the door. I banged so loudly and insistently that people passing on the sidewalk asked me if I needed help.

I’m being tested, I thought. But what’s the test?

Now what? I didn’t know a soul the people I had met at shul, and I didn’t know where any of them lived. Well, except for one, maybe. I had had dinner Friday evening with a couple who lived nearby. I had walked over to their flat with the rabbi and so I had paid little attention to where we were going; I just followed him. But I had no better idea.

I could easily find their street because the rabbi had commented on a construction project going on where that street met the main one. The plastic sheeting cued me to turn up that street. And I also remembered the side of the street where their building was located, but there were four apartment buildings on that side of the street.

I knew the people’s names and went up to the first building hoping there was a directory I could scroll through to find them. No such luck. The directory listed only suite numbers. I wracked my brain. The only one thing to fall out was: #53

That building did not have a suite 53 and I actually thought that might be hopeful. What if all 4 of the buildings had a #53? I went to the second one, scrolled through the suite listing, and found that this one did have a 53. I buzzed. After a moment, the lock on the door to the building clicked open and as I grabbed and pulled, I heard a woman’s voice over the intercom saying, “It’s the rabbi!” Meaning me.

I couldn’t believe it. I was saved. I was off the street and with friendly people who had cell phones. Let’s call the rabbi, I said. We don’t know his number, they replied. Well, actually, not saved quite yet.

The couple that had hosted me were being visited by a cousin and his wife, and at that point the wife piped up to ask which synagogue the rabbi in question was at. When we answered, she said that she knew the former rabbi from that synagogue. She got out her phone and texted that person. He replied immediately and, sure enough, he had the rabbi’s cell number!

This was all happening on Saturday night. At every step, the people who held the key to the next step might have been out for the evening, or gone to bed early, or been on holiday, or ….

My host called the rabbi. It rang a few times … and then went to voicemail. Oh no!

I was about to ask for a whisky when he called back. He said he would phone the owner of the flat. Now I was praying that the owner wasn’t having a nice Saturday evening down at the pub.

After a short while, the rabbi called back to say that he had spoken to the owner who told him that there was a key in a lockbox outside the flat that would open the deadbolt. Thank God! The landlord gave him the code, which the rabbi passed along to me.

I thanked my hosts profusely and the man of the couple insisted on walking back to the Air BnB with me so we (meaning, I) would have a cell phone in case something else came up. Unlikely, I said. Anyway, he said.

He was right. When we got back the locked door, we found three lockboxes on the door post. We tried the code in one, then the next, then the third and none opened. He tried. I tried. We tried.

He got out his phone and called the rabbi who called the owner who just repeated what he had told us before. No help. My companion said, “This is like being in an escape room!”

We searched high and low on the face of the building, and it is good thing we searched low because at the foot of the wall, at the farthest corner away from the door, was another small box. My saviour got down on his hands and knees and identified that it was, indeed, a lockbox! He tried the code. It opened. It contained a key. Why had the landlord not been more specific?

We quickly fished out the key, fit it into the lock, turned, and the door opened. I was reunited with my luggage, my wallet and my cell phone. Halleluyah! What a relief!

OK, I asked myself (once I started breathing again), what was the Mussar lesson? Patience? Not really. Resourcefulness? Is that a middah? Persistence (a branch of zerizut)? What choice did I have? Bitachon(trust)? Not really; if you had asked me if I trusted that I would get through the locked door eventually, I would have said, who knows? I definitely felt tested but couldn’t easily see the middah.

Then I read something by Rabbi Reuven Leuchter, an influential contemporary Mussar teacher, in a recent newsletter from his organization, Mei HaDa’as. He wrote:

We have noted more than once a principle that applies to nearly every endeavor: it is the process itself that builds a person’s stature, not the end result. Along the way, a person encounters many obstacles and variables that compel him to think differently and adjust his course. Once the end result is attained, however, resistance disappears and nothing further needs to change.

Through that lens, I could see that, in reality, this whole episode had been addressing the middah of bitachonafter all. The point was not to evaluate how strong or weak my bitachon had been while in the midst of that whole experience. It is that the experience compelled me “to think differently and adjust my course.” And having had that experience, the next time I encounter a situation with that “many obstacles and variables,” it is inevitable that I will remember this situation, and my bitachon will be stronger.

That’s the Mussar lesson I draw. But I’ll admit that it is provisional. Do you see anything different to highlight? I’d love to hear.