Thursday evening we were invited to a home for a roundtable Torah discussion. We wanted to find a topic that would be interesting for all of the participants—from the most learned scholar to the Jew who knows next to nothing about his heritage.

After tossing around ideas we settled on, “Whose business is it if I choose to sin?”

We drew a lesson that was both timely and very close to home for me. Here is the nugget of wisdom that was a central point of our discussion:

The space shuttle has been in the news lately. After 30 years, it is retiring.

Going back in history, soon after man’s first trip around the moon, Rabbi Zalman Posner (my great-uncle) was a guest on a popular Jewish radio talk show. The discussion focused on why and how Judaism dares to interfere with the private lives of individual human beings. Is it right for the Torah to choose how a person may act, and even punish him for lighting a match on Shabbat or eating unkosher food?

Uncle Zalman had some good points, explaining how the seemingly cruel punishments were very rarely, if ever, carried out.

The following Shabbat, the Rebbe discussed the same issue and pointed out that the answer can be found in the events of the day.

Man had just been around the moon. The astronauts on board had a long list of dos and don’ts. They were told how to sit, which buttons to press, and exactly when to press them. “Now what would happen,” asked the Rebbe, “if one of the fellows on board would choose to smoke a cigarette on board? Is it not his right to smoke if he wants to?” Of course it is out of the question, as doing so would jeopardize the mission and the lives of their fellow travelers. But even more than that, the astronauts are not on board as tourists or as private individuals. They represent their nation and humanity. To paraphrase a famous astronaut, “one misstep for man is a giant misstep for mankind.”

In the same way, each of us is an astronaut on a mission. Or job is to bring the universe to a state of universal perfection. Our actions have universal implications, and we must be aware of this fact and act accordingly.

For a more detailed transcript of the Rebbe’s talk, check out this article on Chabad.org.

The topic was a hit, and a long and meaningful conversation ensued.

Rabbi Pelman, The Chabad representative to Guatemala, told us that a few years ago a woman came from Quetzaltenango to Guatamala City in order to celebrate her son’s Bar Mitzvah. He gave us the number of a relative of hers in Guatemala City to see if maybe he had more info on how to find her.

He told us that he does not have her address or number but that there is a non-Jewish relative who lives in Quetzaltenango and would know how to contact this Jewish woman and her brother – a doctor who also lives in Quetzaltenango. He gave us the name of the non-Jewish relative and told us that she works in an electronics store which is next to a bank near the center of the city.

Armed with this valuable information, we hopped onto a bus to Quetzaltenango.

Six hours later, we got to the city and started looking for stores. Unfortunately, there are dozens of banks and hundreds of electronics stores!

After trudging around with no luck, we stepped into a travel agency to buy return bus tickets for that afternoon. After purchasing the said tickets, we asked the travel agent if he had ever heard of the store in question. He did, and even told us how to get there.

We walked into the store, found the saleslady and asked her for her relative’s phone number. She was uncomfortable giving numbers to two funny-looking Americans but did agree to call her relative for us. The phone rang and rang but no one answered. We then asked if she knew how we could find this woman’s brother, the doctor. She said that while she had no number or address, she did know how to get to the clinic where he works.

We went to the clinic but did not see his name on the list of doctors displayed on the wall.

After the receptionist figured out who we were looking for (she had a hard time with our American accent), she told us that he was on vacation. She did, however, offer to call him for us.

We got on the phone and told him that we just got off a six hour bus ride just to meet him! He told us not to go anywhere and that he would drive over to pick us up.

He invited us into his home and we started talking. During the course of the conversation, he mentioned that while he would love to don tefillin every day, he unfortunately did not have a pair. He was smiling from ear to ear when we told him that we actually had a pair on us which we could sell him!

The hours flew by, and all too soon we got back on the bus for a six hour bus ride back to Antigua, sans one pair of tefillin.