No matter how much I tried, I couldn't retain the haftorah melody. Six months before, on Simchas Torah, I had made a mitzvah pledge to learn ro chant the haftorah that I should have really done at my bar mitzvah 33 years earlier.

Unfortunately, back then, I was a poor Hebrew school student, so my merciful teacher wisely limited my role to a morning Aliyah -that is haftora-free. Even that had been a challenge. Life has changed since I discovered Chabad, and now reciting the haftorah seemed like a great idea while I was celebrating on Simchas Torah. But now it was almost "game time" and I simply wasn't ready.

Even as I was practicing, I was subconsciously trying to find an excuse to get me off the hook, to avoid looking foolish in front of friends and family. As I sat in my seat wallowing in self-doubt an elderly woman strolled past, looked at my open Chumash, looked at me and then kept walking. Repeating this several times, she finally stopped and motioned for me to remove my headphones. She said, "It isn't often you see someone reading a Hebrew book on an airplane. What are you reading?" I explained I was practicing my haftorah. She smiled, and then uninvited, sat down in the seat next to mine and proceeded to tell me her life story.

She pulled an old newspaper article from her pocketbook and gave it to me to read, explaining that the photo in the article was of her cousin's school class in Hungary during World War II. Her cousin was the only member of the class who escaped the Nazis.

She thought that since I was studying for my haftorah I would appreciate reading the article. The story moved me but I was mystified how it connected to my haftorah.

After picking up my luggage, I jumped into a rental car and pointed it toward the Vogel Bar Mitzvah celebration I was to attend.

What a magnificent Bar Mitzvah! Friday evening got off to a joyous start as friends and family from all over joined in prayers, Kiddush, joyous singing and laughing. Shabbos morning the bar-mitzvah did a magnificent job.

Midway through the festivities Rabbi Vogel asked his father, Reb Noson Vogel, to recount his miraculous escape on the last boat out of Calais, France, before the Nazis overran the country.

Reb Vogel described how on that fateful day, 'coincidentally' exactly 61 years to the day of this bar mitzvah, his sister convinced a guard to let her family secretly scale the wall of the ship and board before it sailed out of port. In the end they were the only four out of the seven hundred souls to escape Hitler's clutches that day. He told of the anguish of leaving port, as thousands stood on the docks, their hope of survival slowly disappearing below the horizon.

Since then, Reb Vogel had dedicated his life to foiling Hitler's plan to eradicate Judaism by promoting and supporting Jewish education. Years after departing Calais, Reb Vogel established the Lubavitch Boys High School and eventually the Lubavitch Yeshiva in London, ultimately sending hundreds of boys to spread Yiddishkeit to Jewish communities around the world. He declared that every mitzvah performed, every bar mitzvah celebrated, and every Jewish boy or girl educated, ensured that not only would the Jewish people survive, but thrive in the post Hitler world.

When Shabbos was over and it was time to return to Oregon, I returned with a new passion in my heart. At the start of this journey I was fearful of 'looking foolish' because my haftorah tune was less than perfect. After meeting the woman on the plane and then hearing Reb Vogel's story, that haftorah was more important than I realized. Every note of my haftorah helps us triumph over the evil Pharaohs, Hamans and Hitlers, as the Jewish spirit still burns brightly throughout the world.

As I sat back in my seat I couldn't help but marvel at hearing two such painful, yet inspiring stories over the course of a few days. I thanked G-d for these wondrous blessings picked up my haftorah, slapped on my headphones and went back to work.