I recently bought AirPods. If you are over 75, or have just returned from being shipwrecked on a Pacific atoll, these are the small, white earphones that everyone wears.

This week, I traveled by train to New York for a two-day meeting of rabbis. On the train back, as I walked through the aisle with the earbuds in my ears, I noticed that I could not hear others and that almost everyone else on the train had them in their ears. A decade ago, trains included the possibility of conversation. We said things like, “Excuse me,” with words instead of hand motions, and some even said, “Do you like that book?” and such, but today, no more.

The introvert that I am, I was enjoying the trip in solitude, reading and not thinking at all about the isolation, when something happened to change the tenor of things. I ordered a cup of tea in the cafe car and touched my credit card to the reader in order to pay. The cashier became a bit flustered and exclaimed to the person next to me – who had just paid for his Coca-Cola – that his payment had not gone through. The cashier, further flustered, said that I had accidentally paid for the man’s drink. I offered to absorb the cost of his Coke and pay for my tea also, and chalk it up to an inexpensive act of graciousness. But the young Coke drinker refused my offer and said he would just pay for my tea, even though it was 50 cents more expensive than his soda.

Suddenly, there was a mild giddiness in the space as the three of us engaged in communication and mutual assistance between strangers. There was a sweet thickness in the air that seemed to connect us. The uncommon nature of this interaction was palpable. As he paid for my tea I declared out loud: “Imagine if we all paid for each other’s drinks, what a world it would be. Brotherhood and unity for the price of 50 cents!” They both chuckled. The cashier with a big smile was moved, and said something to the effect. The young Coke drinker put out his hand to me and said, “Kishan”. I shook his, and replied, “Hyim”. He hesitatingly repeated “Hyim,” asking me with his eyes whether he had pronounced my strange name correctly. I nodded.

For a second I fantasized that perhaps he was a Muslim from the Levant and this impromptu connection would prove to be a pivotal, hand of God, peace moment. But I was quite sure the origin of his name was Indian, and this was not a place to have conversation but for us all to chuckle, feel good, and go back to our seats.

But make no mistake, something happened there, and as a spiritual person I believe it was something important. We Jews believe every act, every human interaction, not only impacts us as individuals but the universe as a whole, since we dwell in the midst of the matrix of an infinite God and so all things have resonance and make some difference, for good or bad.

Perhaps the positive feeling the three of us shared and the inspiration it offered me for this email is all that comes from it. Or maybe the cashier, tired from the hundreds of burgers and beers he served up that day, the endless array of faces and credit cards, felt his 4 cubits last night to be not only a space to satisfy the desires of travelers for over priced empty calories, but something bigger, a place which provided the possibility, that in a world dampened by isolation there could be kindness and connection.

These Torah portions involve much debate and criticism about who can speak and who will hear. God heard, Pharaoh does not listen, the Jewish people may not listen but do, Moses will not speak until Aaron does, etc. Perhaps as my small story tells, hearing and being heard, using our voices to interact with others in this world can bring something good and perhaps enable us all in small ways to be part of a larger redemptive era.