It was 8 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8.
I was at a shuttle stop at a parking lot, waiting for the bus to pick me up and take me to Los Angeles International Airport. I was going to New York for a ghostwriting conference I’d been looking forward to all year.
I left my home right after Shabbat ended, hugging my husband and children tight, knowing it was going to be tough to be away from them for a few days.
I made sure to arrive extra early to LAX due to government shutdowns, which were causing massive delays, especially at large airports.
There was one other man waiting for the shuttle. He turned to me and asked, “When is the bus coming?”
I said, “Every 15 minutes.”
We started chatting, and he asked me, “Where are you going?”
“New York,” I said. “How about you?”
He replied: “Israel.”
“You are so lucky. I miss Israel so much. It’s just expensive to fly there.”
“This is my first time. I can’t wait. I look at pictures of Israel all the time. I always dreamed of going.”
“Are you Jewish?”
“Yes.”
We continued our conversation on the shuttle, and eventually he told me, “I’m a convert.”
“No way!” I said. “Me too.”
I asked him his story. He grew up going to his grandparents’ Jewish neighborhood all the time and loved it. He was a Lutheran, but never connected with JC, their messiah. He did always have a connection to God, though.
After learning about Judaism, he began going to synagogue and eventually pursued conversion.
“I always felt like I was Jewish,” he said.
“Me too,” I said.
I told him my story, and about how I went to Israel to study in seminary before I converted. Just weeks later, I got engaged at the Kotel in the snow. He was smiling from cheek to cheek telling me about how he had been taking Hebrew classes with an Israeli on Zoom and was going on a trip with a delegation from Michigan. One day, he said, he might make aliyah.
As the shuttle pulled up to my terminal, I wished him luck, telling him, “Israel will change your life. You won’t want to leave!”
I proceeded to go through security and get to my gate in record time. I waited and waited, and after boarding time, my flight was … canceled.
No other flights would get me out in time, so I missed a conference I was looking forward to all year. I was disappointed, but what could I do? As someone who believes in God, I said to myself, “Gam zu l’tova” which means, “This, too, is for the best.”
I went home and cuddled my children and husband, grateful that at the very least, I wouldn’t have to miss them terribly for the next two days.
I also thought, “How special was it that God connected this man and me?”
Of all the people at all the shuttle stops, in all of LA, in all the world, we met.
What a pleasant and inspiring way to start off my week.
Kylie Ora Lobell is the author of the forthcoming Jewish conversion memoir, “Choosing to Be Chosen,” (Wicked Son), available for pre-order on Amazon.
