It’s often said that when you are traveling and want an immediate feel for the mood of a country, then as soon as you pull out of the airport, strike up a conversation with the driver of your cab. It helps, of course, if you speak the local language. My wife, Rabbi Deborah Zecher and I, just back from Israel, were part of something like this as we were leaving Ben Gurion airport for the hour long cab ride to Jerusalem.

We shared the cab with another couple, strangers to us, yet traveling to the same Jerusalem neighborhood as we. The other couple opened a conversation, which led to the driver’s lament about the tremendous drop in tourism and the negative impact on his work. The driver, living in the mixed Jewish-Arab town of Lod, right near the airport, went on in Hebrew, with a heavy Arabic accent, which led me to assume that he was Muslim. So, it startled me that when one of the other passengers asked the driver if he expected to pick up a fare back to the airport, the driver responded in Hebrew, im yirtseh Hashem, “If God wants.” That is, if the God of our people — not his — decides this cab will be hailed for a ride from someone flying out of the country, it will be a night of good fortune for this Arabic speaking driver.

You could write a book, maybe even several books, that would analyze the economic, social, political, theological, and historic factors that would bring a Muslim driver to speak to us, as Jewish passengers, as he did. Yet, I could sum it up in little more than a sentence or two, to say that when Arabs and Jews can share a small space and conversation like that in a time of war, even for only an hour, then we have a basis for hope.

In the cab back to the airport just this Tuesday night, another driver warmly and proudly identified himself as a Muslim, and spoke to us about his family, his business and his life. And I will share this part of the story at Shabbat services Friday night, as I offer up some reflections on this most recent of the three trips we have been to Israel since the war began. I hope you can join us,

With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Dennis Ross