Parashat Vayelech for Kids: The Bus Driver’s Clever Trick

The esteemed Rabbi Elimelech Biderman, told the following story:

It happened on the night after Rosh Hashanah. The clock already showed 1:30 in the morning. At a bus stop on one of the main streets of Bnei Brak, about 60 Jerusalem residents had been waiting for more than two hours for the No. 402 bus to Jerusalem.

As a bus finally approached, they were disappointed to see the number 318 displayed at the front, the route headed to Rehovot.

A few of the people decided to stop the driver and pleaded with him: “Please, have mercy on us. Take us to Jerusalem!”

But the driver firmly refused. “I was sent by the company to travel to Rehovot,” he said. “How can you ask me to go to Jerusalem?!”

The passengers continued urging and pleading with him until, finally, the driver graciously agreed to their request.

They quickly boarded and filled the bus, sitting and standing until there was barely an inch of space left. The driver changed the route number from 318 to 402 and began driving toward Jerusalem.

The passengers praised the driver and thanked him from the bottom of their hearts for risking his job on their behalf. One passenger felt the need to thank him personally for the special ride, but he also had a question.

“How are you not afraid to change the route and risk your job with the company?!”

At that point, the driver smiled and jokingly replied:

“The truth is, my route was never 318 at all. It was 402. Since I was afraid of harsh reactions from the passengers, I came up with an original strategy: I simply changed the number to 318 before arriving at the stop... And sure enough, instead of all the curses, I received endless blessings...”

Was the Driver Allowed to Do This?

The unusual story raises two fascinating halachic questions:

1. Was there any falsehood or deception in what the driver did, or was he permitted to act this way?

2. Given the circumstances, were the people waiting permitted to persuade the driver to change his route from Rehovot, where very few passengers were expected, to Jerusalem, where many people urgently needed transportation?

The Halachic Answer

1. The driver’s actions

The driver acted according to halacha, and under the circumstances, this is how he should have acted.

Through his actions, he prevented the passengers from becoming angry and resentful toward someone who was not responsible for the difficult situation they were facing. Had they cursed the driver, they would have stumbled by cursing an innocent person who had done them no harm.

Through his clever strategy, the driver therefore saved them from sin.

The Meiri explains in Beitzah (20) that a person may depart from the truth in order to prevent others from unfairly provoking him.

2. The passengers’ request

The bus company is obligated to provide the public with the routes it needs. Therefore, this would not be considered as though the passengers had “stolen” the bus, since it exists for public use.

It is also quite possible that, given the circumstances, the supervisor responsible for overseeing the bus routes would have agreed that the bus should be redirected to the route traveling to Jerusalem.

In Summary

Both the driver and the passengers were permitted to act as they did.

What initially looked like a driver risking his job to perform an extraordinary favor turned out to be something very different. By briefly changing the number on his bus, he transformed the passengers’ potential anger into gratitude and, more importantly, prevented them from directing their anger toward someone who was not to blame.

This story is from the book One Request 2, from the treasury of the brilliant Rabbi Yitzchak Zilberstein.