Shabbat Shuva: LaGuardia Is An Unforgiving Airport But LaGuardia Was A Forgiving Jew

Description

Some say when sinners die they go to LaGuardia Airport.

New York City’s 99^th mayor, Fiorello Henry LaGuardia, initiated New York’s first commercial airport.

LaGuardia was Jewish. Indeed, his mother, Irene Coen, was the daughter of Fiorina Luzzatto Coen, a member of the prestigious Luzzatto family, an Italian-Jewish family of scholars, kabbalists, and poets, including R’ Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, the Ramchal, author of the Mussar classic Messilat Yesharim.

LaGuardia was also a fervent Zionist. Today, if you walk in Tel Aviv, you may very well be walking on LaGuardia Street or through the LaGuardia Interchange.

Very nice piece of trivia, but what does it have to do with Shabbat Shuva?

A tear-jerking story of LaGuardia as the least judgmental judge you’ve ever seen, reveals to us a profound and awesome lesson about return, repentance, guilt, innocence and forgiveness.