I don’t think I need to translate this well known proverb which we Jews hear hundreds of times throughout our lives.

But these days it feels especially true.

Chaos reigns at Ben Gurion Airport. I watched in horror as a passenger yelled at the El Al ground personnel. He had purchased a seat on a flight, only to be told that the regulations had changed and he would not be able to proceed with his plans.

And that is exactly the problem. Plans.

Every minute of the day Israel’s Homeland Security changes the rules for flights. What was possible an hour ago may no longer be possible the next.

As a result, desperate family members are trying to get to weddings and simchas. Seminary girls and yeshiva students long to reunite with their families for Pesach.

And sometimes it is not even about celebrations.

Sometimes it is about funerals.

Friends of ours attended a close family levaya and the very next day rockets were flying over their heads.

Like so many others, we too had our plans. We hoped to be in Yerushalayim Ir HaKodesh with our entire family for Pesach. In addition, we wanted to celebrate a family gathering in honor of our granddaughter Orly’s Bat Mitzvah.

This time we were actually proud of ourselves for being so organized. Usually we are not. We tend to purchase tickets at the last minute.

At first we waited and thought perhaps this would be a Sheshet Yamim kind of war. In and out as quickly as Israeli and American fighter jets can fly.

But after a few days we realized that these good men, our pilots, might have to do Bedikat Chametz in Iran, and as every good housewife knows, that process can take a little longer.

Meanwhile life inside Israel continues in ways that the outside world can barely comprehend.

We see videos of Israelis calmly walking into their assigned underground safe rooms. Of course tempers sometimes run high. After all, when people are forced underground again and again, there will be frustration and complaints.

But when push comes to shove, we are there for one another.

A little chaos once in a while is simply a normal human reaction.

That is why I cannot blame anyone for losing control over their emotions.

Yesterday I received a picture from our son Chaimi.

One son is in the third year of his army service in the Air Force. Our granddaughter is away at college. And so in the safe room there is the dog curled up beside the youngest child, who sleeps on a makeshift mattress on the floor. Blankets are spread out, pillows appear wherever they can find space, and the parents sit nearby, keeping watch through another long night underground.

It is such a calm image.

For a moment it feels as if the world has stood still. No missiles streaking across the sky above them. No sirens piercing the silence.

Just a Jewish family gathered together beneath the ground, waiting for the night to pass.

And looking at that picture, I suddenly understood something.

All our plans, our tickets, our carefully arranged journeys suddenly seem very small.

So when travel agents are bombarded with frantic people trying to get into Israel or trying to leave, we simply remind ourselves:

Der Mensch tracht und G-tt lacht.

We make plans for flights and celebrations.

But the real journey is learning, again and again, that while we plan our lives, it is the Ribbono Shel Olam who writes the itinerary.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)