Was It Staged in Plane Sight?

Why are there so many conspiracy theories about this attempted hijacking? Why are people insisting that it was staged, or that perhaps there was merely some kind of fight between the pilots, an emergency landing, and then an elaborate story constructed afterward?

I think I understand what is feeding it. The story requires you to accept an almost ridiculous number of extraordinary things happening on the same airplane. The co-pilot attacks the captain and tries to destroy the aircraft. The plane plunges more than 16,000 feet in roughly half a minute and somehow remains intact. The captain is stabbed and bleeding, yet manages to unlock the cockpit before losing consciousness. Passengers get inside and subdue the attacker. Yaniv, a plumber with no flight training, knows enough from watching Air Crash Investigation to help pull the plane out of its dive. Then it turns out that two off-duty Flydubai pilots happen to be sitting among the passengers and can take over the aircraft. An Israeli dentist is on board and helps keep the captain alive. Even a little girl needing the bathroom places her mother near the cockpit at exactly the moment something is going wrong.

At some point the conspiracy mind says: Hold on. You expect me to believe all of this happened on one flight? Every person who was needed happened to be there? Every link in the chain held? How many coincidences are we supposed to swallow before we conclude that somebody arranged the whole thing?

And that question sounded strangely familiar.

There are roughly fifteen million Jews in the world. Fifteen million among more than eight billion human beings. Statistically, we are almost invisible. Historically, we should probably be invisible too. Egypt enslaved us. Babylon destroyed the First Temple. Rome destroyed the Second and scattered us. Then came Crusades, expulsions, inquisitions, pogroms, the Holocaust, Soviet Communism, terrorism and October 7. Nations far larger and more powerful disappeared. Somehow, we did not.

Then there is the matter of influence. How does a people this small leave such an enormous mark on religion, morality, medicine, science, technology, law, literature, music and human thought? Mark Twain wrestled with exactly that puzzle more than a century ago. Great civilizations had risen and vanished while the Jew remained. His question was simple: “What is the secret of his immortality?”

That may help explain why fantasies about Jewish control have such staying power. People look at a tiny people with an astonishing history and say: Fifteen million? That’s all? And you are still here? You have survived all of that? You have had that much influence? There must be somebody pulling strings somewhere.

There is an old joke about a Jew sitting on a bench reading Der Stürmer, the vicious Nazi newspaper. His friend is horrified. “How can you read that garbage?” The man answers, “When I read the Jewish newspapers, what do I read? Pogroms. Antisemitism. Jews are suffering. Jews are in danger. Then I read Der Stürmer. Jews control the banks. Jews control the government. Jews control the courts. Jews control the press. Jews control the world. Ah! Finally some good news!”

The joke works because the accusation is absurd. But underneath it sits a real question: How do you explain the Jewish story?

A Jew has an answer. Hashem.

We call it hashgacha pratis, Divine Providence. Human beings act, make choices, take risks and bear responsibility, while Hashem puts the pieces together in ways we often recognize only afterward.

That plane is a perfect example. Nobody sat back waiting for a miracle. The captain fought. Passengers ran forward. Yaniv grabbed the controls. The other pilots flew the plane. The dentist treated the captain. Every person had to do what he could.

Only afterward can you stand back and ask: How did all those pieces happen to be there?

That question has followed the Jewish people for thousands of years. We work. We defend ourselves. We build. We teach. We give tzedakah. We put on tefillin. We light Shabbat candles. We raise Jewish children. We help people. We do whatever Hashem puts in front of us, and somehow this tiny people continues walking through history.

That is also what we celebrate on Simchat Torah: our relationship with Hashem and the Torah He gave us as the blueprint for how to live and what kind of world we are here to build.

So perhaps there really is a Jewish plot to change the world.

We have been working on it for more than three thousand years.

Through Torah, mitzvahs, goodness and kindness, we are trying to bring G-dliness, meaning and purpose into every corner of life until this world becomes what Hashem intended it to be.

The plot even has a name.

Moshiach.

Chag Sameach!