Sunday, October 19, 2008

Airport - Don't do favors for chareidim!

Hasidic leader Rabbi Simcha Ashlag will return this weekend to the partial detention he and his personal assistant received in February, in which the two are forbidden to leave Paris. The reason: 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of drugs found in their suitcases. [...]

The rabbi is the grandson of the famous Yehuda Leib Ha-Levi Ashlag, otherwise known as Baal Ha-Sulam (Author of the Ladder) and the only interpreter of the Zohar (the mystical commentary on the Torah). In February, before leaving Israel, an ultra-Orthodox man who presented himself as a clothing manufacturer from Turkey approached Ashlag. The man claimed that he heard that prior to his trip to the United States the rabbi was expected to fly to Turkey and therefore requested that he take four suitcases packed with clothing with him to his needy family in the United States.

“We would like to emphasize that the public needs to know that a small favor they ask from someone may cause them to pay the price of a heavy and unnecessary legal case,” said Osbicher.

The Hassidic leader agreed but when the local customs official at the Paris airport asked him and his assistant to open their luggage, it turned out that aside from clothing, there were 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of drugs hidden and folded at the bottom. [...]

1 comment :

  1. This is the sort of trap that any of us could fall into, if the events are as they were described. None the less, I think I should point out that passengers are almost always asked if they packed their own bags - precisely because they may be unknowingly carrying illegal items for someone else. If you are carrying a suitcase and you answer falsely to this question then you've committed a small sin with a very large consequence.

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