Simcha Shain is a Hatzolah paramedic who also runs a business that coordinates private jets for business executives and medical purposes, including organ transplants, air ambulances, and other emergency medical needs.

In 2024, Simcha was preparing to launch a new technology platform for his private-jet business at the NBAA, a major aviation conference. He had booked a costly prime booth nearly a year in advance and spent months preparing for the event.

Then, just a few weeks before the conference, Simcha realized that he had made a terrible mistake. He had accidentally checked the previous year’s calendar when looking up the date of the conference.

The conference was scheduled for Shavuos.

Simcha immediately contacted his staff.

“We’re not doing it,” he told them. “Shavuos is a Jewish holiday. We’re not going.”

Several members of his team were not Jewish and offered to attend the conference and run the booth without him.

“No,” Simcha replied. “We’re not doing that.”

The conference organizers would not refund his payment, offering only a 50% credit toward the following year’s conference.

Simcha decided to keep the booth but simply not attend. He wanted to turn the situation into a Kiddush Hashem.

He asked the organizers to place a simple sign at the booth explaining why it was empty. The sign stated that the company was not present because it was observing the Jewish holiday of Shavuos.

There was no apology and no embarrassment. Simcha simply stood proudly for his values.

A year later, Simcha returned to the conference and was shocked by what happened next.

During the event, a pilot who operated a charter company approached him. Simcha knew him from previous business dealings. The pilot had once been religious but had stopped practicing Judaism many years earlier.

“I came to this conference to see you,” he told Simcha.

He explained that he had happened to attend the previous year and noticed Simcha’s booth and the sign.

The pilot was deeply shaken.

“How could I have fallen so far,” he said, “that I didn’t even know it was a Jewish holiday?”

The simple sign awakened something inside him. He made a personal commitment that he would no longer fly on Shabbos or Yom Tov.

A year later, he came back specifically to tell Simcha that he had kept that commitment and had not flown since the previous conference.

Simcha then remembered that he had his tallis and tefillin in his car.

“How about putting on tallis and tefillin?” he asked.

“Of course!” the pilot replied.

Right there at the conference, the pilot put on tefillin.

All because one Jew had stood proudly for his values, without apology.

Let’s remember that Kiddush Hashem is all about putting Hashem’s ratzon first, whether in private or in public. It means reflecting His kedusha and His middos no matter what.

Have a wonderful shabbos,
Rabbi Shraga Freedman