A best-seller came out years ago titled, “When God Winks: How the Power of Coincidence Guides Your Life.” Written by TV executive-turned-motivational speaker Squire Rushnell, the book contends that life’s coincidences or random acts are not happenstance but by design of the Almighty.
This notion is in keeping with the school of thought promoted by rabbis throughout the centuries, including the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Chasidism. “By me, there is no such thing as coincidence,” the Ba’al Shem Tov said. “Every person should believe that everything comes by Divine Providence and he should not attribute it to coincidence, God forbid.”
All due respect to the sages, but I tend to play it cautiously when attributing anything to divine intervention. After all, none of us can truly claim to know exactly what’s on God’s mind, even though many individuals say they possess that gift.
Also, there’s a certain amount of hubris built into one thinking the divine plan is tailored to their existence or particular needs and actions. With so much strife in the world, is God really focused more on whether I run into my first grade teacher than a monsoon in Southeast Asia displacing millions? But at the same time, there are moments in one’s life when things happen that simply make you think, “Hmmm ….”
More often than not, those moments occur while traveling. They could be deemed “God winks,” the “universe at work,” synchronicity, serendipity or even beshert, whatever term you’d like. But they happen from time to time, and usually when you’re on the road and left scratching your head.
For me, some of those moments have taken place while visiting Israel. For instance, the first time I went to the Kotel, Jerusalem’s Western Wall, I was on a group tour. This was a moment I’d dreamed of since my earliest Hebrew school days, and approaching Judaism’s holiest site —someplace my late father was unable to visit because he traveled to Israel before the Six Day War — I could feel my heart pounding.
Shortly before reaching the Kotel plaza, I suddenly heard someone call out my name, like I was in a Pikesville supermarket aisle. It was an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in years. We attempted to chat but found ourselves at a loss for words, considering the surreal nature of running into each other by chance nearly 7,000 miles from home.
Another time, while at a bus stop outside of Haifa years later, a young guy was standing near me, checking his watch frequently while reading a newspaper. I figured he was an Israeli, possibly on his way to work. The bus was late, so we started schmoozing. It turned out he was an American Jew from Baltimore. We knew several people in common, and I’d even once gone out on a date with his sister.
These are wonderful, inexplicable moments that occasionally arise in life, and they contribute to making the process of traveling so rewarding, meaningful and memorable. Over the past year, that’s something we’ve largely been denied due to the pandemic. But with the world beginning to reopen, perhaps we’ll start enjoying those experiences again.
As you’ll see in our Travel Issue this month, not every adventure has to involve schlepping thousands of miles away. Some can even be found in our own neck of the woods.
“The world is a book,” observed St. Augustine, “and those who do not travel read only one page.” Theological differences aside, we couldn’t agree more.
Sincerely,
Alan Feiler, Editor-in-Chief
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