My Speech from the NCSY Staff Leadership Conference
During my trek to this conference there were a great deal of thoughts, ideas, and memories racing through my mind; however there was one memory that particularly struck me. I began to think about my very first NCSY staff conference when I was an Associate Regional Director to Rabbi Tzali Freedman in the Central East Region. The Lily Foundation had just completed its study of NCSY and proceeded to have the totally novel idea of gathering all the regional directors from coast to coast to discuss the results of the study and to also simply communicate and connect with one another.
As soon as I heard about the conference I told Rabbi Freedman that I desperately wanted to go. I continued to bother him until he finally caved on the Thursday before the conference began. Rabbi Freedman said I was allowed to attend the conference on the condition that I found a cheap flight. Well, these were the days before Priceline and Orbitz.com and I just could not find an inexpensive flight.
On Saturday night G-d decided to smile upon me and I found a flight with Spirit Airlines (anyone out there ever heard of Spirit?) that would take me from Detroit to Atlantic City. Just to give you some background information, 99% of Spirit customers are people a good seventy years my senior heading to Atlantic City to gamble for the weekend and the other 1% are composed of frum Jews looking for a cheap way to get to New York or Lakewood. But all of this was fine because I was overcome with excitement and anticipation for the directors’ conference and so grateful that I could attend.
Bright and early Sunday morning I arrived at the airport to get on my flight. Being that is was so early I had to daven in the airport where, thank G-d, I found a frum guy heading to Lakewood. After we davened we sat around waiting for our flight, and waited, and waited some more. At first I was pretty cool about things, figuring I would be a half an hour off schedule, then an hour off schedule, and by the time I realized I would be two hours late I began calculating in my head, trying to devise the fastest possible route to New York from Atlantic City.
Finally I boarded the plane and set off for Atlantic City. When the plane reached Atlantic City it had to circle due to heavy fog. The plane proceeded to circle for about an hour, eventually running low on fuel with the possibility it would have to divert and land in Philadelphia. As the plane circled endlessly I checked my watch every ten seconds and decided that if I rented a car in Philadelphia I could still get to the conference, albeit fashionably NCSY late. Then, thank G-d, like a sign from heaven the clouds parted, the mist evaporated and the plane belatedly landed in Atlantic City.
At this point, I was overwhelmed with joy as I dashed off the plane and rushed to rent a car to drive to New York. There were three car rental windows at the airport- Dollar, Avis, and Hertz. As Dollar was the first window I saw, I went there to rent my car and get on my way. I was the first one on line, bristling with importance as I had a big conference to attend. At the time I was twenty four and three quarters, married, and a professional on my way to a conference, but according to the guy at the Dollar window that made no difference because I was not twenty five years old and I could not rent a car from him. My attitude was ‘Fine, whatever, I’ll move onto the next window’. Well, the next window had the same policy as the first window, so I was left with the third window, Hertz- my last shot and I was unsure what I was going to do. Hertz had the same policy as the other companies, but the lady behind the counter tried to work with me and explained that if I had a corporate card they often allow drivers twenty one and up to rent cars. I quickly dove into my wallet for my OU/NCSY business card and BINGO, the OU had a corporate account with Hertz and I was set.
The woman then looked up from her computer sheepishly and explained that she was sorry to inform me that you had to be 25 in the OU to rent a car. At this point I was completely stranded in the Northeast’s gambling capital with no available flights and no other car agencies to approach or plead with. What do you do in a situation like this?
You hightail it over to the closest frum person you can find.
I rushed over to my frum, bearded friend from the plane and gave him my story; explaining how I had a conference to get to and I couldn’t and I needed his help. My frum friend replied it was not a problem and he would take me as far as he could. Relieved, I got into the car as my new friend put on a Torah Tape. Everything was fine, we were smiling, we were schmoozing, and all of a sudden, we were on the New Jersey Turnpike and he pulled into a rest stop and said, ‘take care’.
Baffled, I asked ‘What!?’ My friend responded, ‘I’m going to Lakewood and you’re going to Newark. This is as far as I can get you’. Feeling utterly deflated, I got out of his car and walked out into this rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike totally stranded yet again.
At this point it was already the afternoon, most of the day was gone and I had no clue what to do. Then IT happened, like a scene from a movie. The light shined down, I heard a song, and I saw a bunch of Ner Yisroel guys, my knights in shining armor, playing video games.
I walked over to them and began detailing my Odysseus like saga- how I have an important conference to get to and could they please help me, etc. Unimpressed, my ‘knights’ explained they had dates, but they would make some phone calls. Finally it was decided they would take me to Newark airport and I was quickly shoved between two huge guys and given a box of donuts to sit on my lap as we made our way to Newark.
The Ner bochurs drove me up to the airport where I took the shuttle, and came just in time to totally miss the whole day’s conference. By the next day I had to leave at ten am to make the bus back to Atlantic City. Essentially I made it to the conference for the night.
At this point you are probably wondering why I am thinking about that first conference. The reason I conjured this memory, with all of its mishaps, is because I felt such intense fervor and exhilaration just being at that conference. Surrounded by my chaverim (even for a few short hours) energized my passion for what I do and inspired me. I recall sitting on the bus back to Atlantic City strategizing and churning out fresh ideas and new visions.
People fail to realize that our work can be very lonely. WE ARE IT. We are the only Orthodox teen outreach organization and sometimes the task can seem overwhelming and it is important that we utilize each other and one another’s resources. At the moment, as creative as we are, there are so many other ideas, programs, and tactics. The fact that we are sitting here together with the opportunity to focus and communicate with other people in the field- exchange numbers and emails, truly talk and learn from each other’s success and failures- it is such an amazing and inspiring atmosphere.