The Taxi Driver Who Just Wanted to Be Seen

It was late at night when Rabbi Aharon Taussig stood on the sidewalk, waving his hand at passing taxis. He had just finished a long meeting that stretched into the early hours, and he was eager to get home. After a few minutes, a taxi pulled over and stopped beside him.

"Good evening, kind driver!" Rabbi Taussig greeted warmly as he got in. "Would you be willing to take me to Bnei Brak?"

The driver motioned for him to sit, and then suddenly burst into joyful cries: "Ribbono Shel Olam! Thank You, Hashem! You’ve answered my prayer!" Again and again, he thanked G-d aloud.

The Rabbi was surprised. “My friend, I’m so glad your prayer was answered—but what happened? What are you celebrating?”

"Rabbi!" the driver exclaimed, "I was praying to meet someone like you. I wanted to go home already, but I couldn’t..."

"Why not? Didn’t you have enough passengers today? Didn’t you make what you needed?" the Rabbi asked with concern.

"There were plenty! From eight in the morning, it was nonstop. Take me here, drop me there—from Herzliya to Ramat Gan, then to Tel Aviv and back again. But I made a decision—I wouldn’t leave this taxi until..."

The driver paused, wiping a tear from his cheek.

"...until someone saved me. All day, people got in, gave an address, paid, and got out. It was like I didn’t exist. No ‘good morning,’ no ‘thank you,’ not even eye contact. I felt like air. Like I wasn’t a person anymore. So I prayed to Hashem—please, just send me one person, someone who will say a kind word. That’s all. And then you got in and said, ‘Good evening.’ Thank You, Father in Heaven. You sent me exactly what I needed.”

His tears of pain turned into tears of joy as he drove.

When they reached Bnei Brak, the driver turned to Rabbi Taussig. "I want to give you a gift, in thanks for that one kind word. Tomorrow morning, I’ll put on tefillin—for the first time since my bar mitzvah."

This happened at the beginning of the month of Adar. A month and a half later, the evening after the first day of Passover, the phone rang in Rabbi Taussig’s home.

“Rabbi, do you remember me? I’m Alon, the taxi driver!”

“Of course!” said Rabbi Taussig warmly. “Good evening to the kind driver. You’re the one who was so happy your prayer was answered, right?”

  "Yes, that’s me," the driver said, clearly moved. "And I had to call to tell you—since the day after our ride, I’ve been putting on tefillin every day. Every single day. I do it because I want to make you happy, like you made me happy. Two days ago, right before the Passover Seder, I thought to myself: someone who puts on tefillin can’t skip the Seder. It doesn’t go together. So this year—for the first time in my life—I led a Passover Seder. I just wanted you to know."

"That’s amazing," Rabbi Taussig said, deeply touched. "Is that why you called?"

"Not exactly,” the driver replied. “I called because… I wanted to hear it again. Just once more. That warm ‘Good evening, kind driver.’”

One kind word—spoken from the heart—can change a person’s life. It can open up the soul and spark a transformation.

Caring for someone else, truly noticing them, is the key to so much: between a father and son, between a teacher and student, and even between total strangers.

We walk the streets surrounded by people. With just a little thought, we can smile at someone who’s hurting, say a kind word to someone who’s waiting for it like water in the desert, and offer strength to a broken heart. We never know how far that impact will reach.

We can all do it. All it takes is to care—really care.