IN-DEPTH FEATURES
Back to the Future

From the time Motty was born, he was considered lazy.

He developed a fundamental and even ideological resistance to every activity which required any effort on his part. He never put the toys in his room in order, and firmly refrained from helping out with household chores. When he began school, he tried to evade various duty turns, and to "forgo" these assignments and pass them on to his friends.

Homeroom teachers who insisted that Motty assume a particular responsibility would soon be quite sorry. Motty would do his job in so phlegmatic and infuriating a manner, that in the end the teacher would prefer to accept Motty's waiving of that and other jobs, and actually to view his bailing out as a genuine act of chessed, not only to himself, but also to the teacher.

Motty was a master in making himself loathsome. Of course, making himself loathsome was not his purpose, but rather a means of forcing his social environment to stop requiring his services, and finding someone else to do the work. Motty was not at all partial, and he avoided all jobs, no matter what they entailed.

Truth to tell, Motty's dodging did not make him more respected or liked by his close surroundings. His behavior even caused his social environment to develop a certain aversion to him, which Motty did not notice until it became very evident.

And so, no matter how one looked at things, Motty's behavior was obnoxious. The kid simply refused to cooperate. He refused to undertake simple tasks at home, or to help his friends straighten up the classroom, or even to collect the rubbish he himself had thrown on the floor. This last shortcoming really caused his family and many of his friends to become fed up with him.

In schoolwork too, Motty's sloth was quite apparent. One of the teachers wryly told Motty's parents that this apparently stemmed from Motty's being too lazy to wrinkle his forehead.

His parents looked at the teacher in astonishment, and the teacher calmly explained that when a person focuses on thinking, he generally wrinkles his forehead. However, he thought that since Motty was too lazy to do this, he didn't think, and surely never concentrated on thinking. That was why he failed on tests, especially when he didn't write a thing except for his name.

Obviously hearing such things makes parents quite angry and exasperated, and when they come home, they sharply admonish their son.

In time, Motty became the most difficult and disliked kid in his home. And at that point, he saw no reason to try and improve his shattered image.

It is interesting, though, that where things which pertained to him or interested him were concerned, Motty promptly shed his laziness, and behaved like a modern gadget which knows no rest. Everyone could see that from the pile of wood collected by the neighborhood kids for the Lag Ba'omer bonfire -- at least half of which had been collected by Motty. This was also the case in games and various collections, in which Motty excelled and was as industrious as a busy bee.

The years passed. Motty grew older and reached eighth grade. His knowledge in gemora was that of a fifth grader, and his abysmal level integration in the learning system didn't suit any class -- if we leave out the recess periods in which Motty blended famously and even better than that.

During that year, the negative attitude of his environment began to seep into his soul. It wasn't that he pitied his surroundings. Motty pitied himself. During those rare moments when he took stock of his ways, he discovered that his standing in his family was far inferior to that of his smaller brothers. He admitted that his mother didn't think much of him, and that his father even less.

Actually, his father would often tongue-lash him, and tell him how dissatisfied he was with him, and how fearful and concerned he was about Motty's future. His father would say, in a direct and sometimes painful manner, all that the others -- the teachers and the various advisors -- tried to tell Motty gently. His father's words were like darts which went straight into his heart. Motty would be offended again and again, but his scholastic performance would only grow worse, until it was possible to say that it couldn't be worse.

The period of entrance exams into yeshivas caught Motty totally unprepared -- as he had been for the past eight years. He looked about and saw his tense classmates arranging chavrusas with each other, while he remained totally outside of everything. He had no chavrusas, and no yeshiva which he wanted to attend. Shame of shames: He didn't even know on how many pages they had to be tested, or on which pages.

Motty despaired, and that too was nothing new. His entire life was one long saga of despair. The truth is that because Motty had never in his life experienced hope, the feeling of despair which enveloped him was also vague to him, and he interpreted it as a continuing sorrow about which he couldn't do a thing.

While the members of his class grew serious, Motty remained behind. Until then, he hadn't felt the difference between him and his classmates because he was basically a gregarious kid, and was always socially accepted. But now he felt his worthlessness. He would spend hours in the hallway of the talmud Torah, without a purpose and without friends to join him. He saw the various teachers passing by, and sensed the pity in their eyes.

Throughout that period his teacher turned to Motty many times and asked him to find an avreich who would study with him, so that he could at least approach the test. Motty at first didn't react. But now he was willing.

And so, the next time that the teacher made this suggestion, Motty agreed, and he was soon assigned an avreich to teach him.

It was too late.

There were only two weeks left, and Motty was learning everything for the first time. He managed to study the material once, and that was all he had to go with. Of course he failed to get in to most of yeshivos to which he applied. In the end, one yeshiva agreed to accept him, and that was mainly because of his father's connections and not because of Motty's performance.

The vacation before the beginning of yeshiva was very unpleasant for Motty. After all, he was a teenager, nearly 14, perhaps a bit at odds with his parents and a bit friendly with seamy characters, but it was clear that his heart was devoid of all ambition. He didn't want to fail, but had no desire to succeed -- not even the slightest. He wasn't the least bit interested in the institution he was about to attend for the next three years. He took no interest in anything in his life.

When rosh chodesh Elul arrived, Motty took the packages and suitcases which his mother had prepared, and cheerlessly set out for his yeshiva. He mumbled a feeble Sholom, and left the house with faltering footsteps.

A moment later, he returned home and burst into tears. His parents tried to calm him, but that was difficult for them too because of their own tears. An oppressing feeling of having missed the boat filled them all. They had a foreboding feeling about their son, the feeling that he would return home very soon, and refuse to continue to study in the yeshiva, and dump himself and his problems on them. They did not know what to do for the youngster who was leaving their home. He had caused them so much bitterness and so much trouble during all those years, that they had no more strength for him.

Their fears weren't in vain. Motty indeed entered yeshiva ketana on his left foot. The first phone call from the yeshiva, which his parents so dreaded, was received the first week. "Motty comes late to davening and to the sedorim," the mashgiach said. "I warned him, but it seems to me that my warnings weren't very helpful. Perhaps you should speak with him."

Months passed. Motty rose and fell alternately. Somehow he managed to stick to the yeshiva's schedules, more or less. What that meant was that he managed to come to them, but not necessarily to learn in them. He swapped chavrusas at the rate that they swapped him, which meant that there was a constant turnover.

From a social standpoint, Motty acclimated more or less. He had relatively good relationships with most of the boys. Although they didn't respect him scholastically, they enjoyed talking with him, and mainly laughing with him. Motty developed a sharp tongue, and one would never find him without a joke.

As a clown, Motty succeeded pretty well. That was how he passed two years in the yeshiva, even if one doesn't take into account the many long hours he spent in deep sleep in his room while the rest of the yeshiva was studying; nor the weeks he spent at home after he had been sent there by the administration due to inappropriate behavior.

Actually, sleep was a source of comfort for Motty. Although as a child he had no idea what it meant to sleep during the day, in yeshiva he discovered the value of a hearty snooze. Rumor had it that Motty would, every now and then, bake kosher lemehadrin bagels in his sleep -- in other words he would sleep for 12 consecutive hours. His roommates knew quite well that Motty even sometimes sprinkled his bagels with sesame seeds, meaning that he slept for an extra hour after completing his 12 hour quota.

Some students were a bit jealous of Motty due to the liberties he permitted himself, and were surprised that the administration did not bother him more. But they surely didn't know how awful he felt when he got up after a long sleep, looked at his watch and knew that he was going to miss another seder because it wasn't respectable to arrive any more, especially when his eyes, his hair, and the marks on his cheeks indicated that he had just awoken. And so he would get up, daven, and remain alone in the dark room, listening to the sounds of Torah study emanating from the beis medrash -- and feeling so lonely, so out of things. He wanted to be there, but also knew that when he was there, he would want to be here.

Motty was already 16, and he didn't know what would become of him. He felt like his 92-year old grandfather, who spent many hours asleep.

The yeshiva's administration, for its part, did not rest on its laurels. The yeshiva's administration decided to expel him at the end of the year, feeling that they had done all they could. The mashgiach ruchani was asked to inform Motty of this decision.

The mashgiach correctly assumed that Motty was in bed, and went to Motty's room, where he found him preparing for an afternoon snooze at the expense of seder sheini. As soon as he entered, he bumped into the door of Motty's closet, which was wide open, and couldn't help noticing the large poster which Motty had pasted on the inside of the door: "Time's on fire -- so what's burning?"

"That's your closet," the mashgiach determined. "The slogan's yours too. Actually its the catch phrase of all loafers the world over, wherever they are."

Motty smiled in bewilderment.

"One day you'll be sorry about this laziness," the mashgiach said. "You'll find yourself regretting every moment you wasted. But why should I repeat again and again what I've already told you many times. I came to tell you that the administration has decided to terminate your studies here at the end of this zman. Your place is not in our yeshiva, and in our opinion, with your behavior, you won't find a place in any yeshiva. By the end of the zman, find yourself another place to study or to sleep. You're through here, and may Hashem have pity on you."

The mashgiach turned around and left the room.

Motty lay down on his bed, confused. He had already heard such discussions in the past. He had already been thrown out of the yeshiva a number of times and had gotten back in after various pressures had been exerted. Deep down, he knew that one can't always find a way out, and that this might be the last time. But Motty was in a situation where nothing seemed to affect him. "So I'll leave the yeshiva and find another place. Big deal," he thought to himself.

He stretched himself out on his bed. Exhaustion, which had actually gained control of him long ago, overcame him. He tried to fall asleep but the mashgiach's words disturbed him. He tried to banish the thought from his mind and to fall asleep.

*

But when he couldn't, he got dressed quickly, went outside and rushed toward the bus stop opposite the yeshiva. He crossed the street in a rush, and didn't notice the van coming down the street. All he heard was an irritating screech, and then he felt a mighty blow. His final thought was, `Ima'le. . . He ran me over. . . it hurts so much.'

Then darkness engulfed him.

"The doctor has already examined him. Now you have to change his intravenous and turn him over," the nurse told the male student-nurse.

"To turn him over?"

"Yes, turn him over. He's in a coma -- nothing more than a vegetable -- if you don't turn them over they develop sores . . ."

"I know," the trainee cut her short. "But he doesn't look like a vegetable to me."

"He doesn't look to you," the nurse jeered. "I've been working here for six years, and when I arrived he was already like this. What does he look like to you?"

"He's blinking."

"No he isn't."

"Yes he is. Look."

The nurse neared the patient's bed. "You're right. I'm stunned. But they're probably involuntary muscular reactions. Wait a minute! He's moving! Do you hear me?"

The patient nodded.

"Do you know your name?"

"Motty. Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital."

"Yes, of course, the van ran me over, but. . ." Motty felt his hands and his feet. "What? No broken bones?"

"I don't know. Perhaps some did break. But that was a long time ago. By now everything has healed."

"A long time ago? How long ago?"

"I don't know. Let me check your records."

The nurse ran out of the room, and screamed: "The vegetable woke up. Come!"

Within moments, the room filled with nurses and senior doctors.

"What's going on here?" Motty said as he stretched and sat in bed.

"I don't believe it," said the neurological expert who had been brought in from abroad.

"Where are my mother and father?" Motty asked. "Maybe you'll explain what's going on here?"

The situation was saved by the department head, who quickly took command. "Ruthy," he turned to a nurse. "Go and call his parents. I'll explain to him what has happened. I ask all of you to please leave."

The room emptied. People went outside, excited, and chatting with each other about the great wonder.

"You were brought here in critical condition -- a serious head injury. Your liver was damaged. Both your arms and legs were broken, and you had many, many other problems. For ten days, you hovered between life and death.

"We managed to drain the fluids from your brain. We succeeded in limiting the damage to your liver. We saved you, be'ezras Hashem from a dangerous situation. But then it became clear that the damage to the brain was irreversible. You were written off as a vegetable. Do you know what we mean by a vegetable?"

Motty nodded.

"We took care of you just like one takes care of a small plant. We fed you. We gave you to drink. We connected you to a breathing apparatus when necessary. We repaired your broken limbs. But since then you have been lying here, motionless."

A ring was heard. The doctor took a plastic lump from his pocket and began to speak into it. Motty looked at him in amazement. "Yes. He's right here. It's better not to excite him too much." Then he turned to Motty and asked. "Do you want to speak with your parents?"

"What's that?" he asked.

"It's a cell phone," the doctor said. "I forgot that you're a little behind things."

Motty took the device and turned it over a number of times, until the doctor placed it on his ear and mouth. "Motty, make a sound. Do you hear me?" he heard his mother say.

"I hear. Come. I don't know how to talk into this contraption."

"Motty," his mother burst into tears.

"Motty. . ."

Motty returned the phone to the doctor.

Motty looked about. Everything seemed strange.

"Tell me," Motty said to the doctor. "How long have I been like this?"

"Let me look," the doctor said. "You're here since 5647."

"What year is it now?"

"5659."

"12 years!"

"12 years," the doctor agreed.

Motty shuddered. "I slept for 12 years?"

The doctor nodded.

"And what happened in the world in the meantime?" Motty asked.

"Many things,' the doctor said. "Let's see. Iraq shot missiles at Israel during the Gulf War. Russia became a democratic country. More than a half a million Russians came here. The Labor party took over. A peace agreement was made with Arafat. He came to Israel, and is now the head of the Palestinian Authority. Don't look at me like that. That's what happened. Wait, that's nothing. Prime Minister Rabin was murdered. Then Likud gained control of the government. Binyamin Netanyahu is the Prime Minister -- you know, the brother of Yoni Netanyahu from the Entebbe Campaign."

"Does that mean that I'm still 16?"

"Was that how old you were at the time of the accident?"

"Yes."

"Then you're 28, son."

That finally hit Motty like a bolt of lightening out of a clear blue sky. "Me? 28? What will I do with this hole in my life?"

Motty broke out into bitter tears, but just then his parents came in and fell on him with hugs and kisses.

"Let him be," the doctor said. "He's agitated enough. He's confused. You have to discuss things with him."

His parents sat down beside him. He looked at his father, whose beard had grown white. He looked at his mother whose face was more wrinkled than it had been the last time he had seen her.

"How's Chani?" Motty asked about his formerly eighteen-year old sister.

"Boruch Hashem. She gave birth to her first girl two weeks ago, after four boys."

"What four? How old is she?"

"About thirty."

"And Dov?" He asked about his brother who was two years younger than himself.

"Two girls and a boy."

An alarm bell rang in his head.

"What's with Yossi? He was eleven and a half . . ."

"Today, he's 23 and a half. A fine avreich with a one- year-old boy. They're all on their way here."

For some reason, Motty didn't look forward to this encounter. He was finally beginning to understand it all. The wagon had gone ahead, and had left him behind.

Two men and a woman with a carriage entered the room. Motty barely recognized his eighteen-year-old sister and his two younger brothers. They appeared confident, happy and content.

"Hello Motty. You slept a lot," Dovi tried to break the ice. They began to update him on what was going on in the world and in the family. Soon more unfamiliar people, who were introduced as brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, parents of brothers-in-law, and even cousins who had suddenly become bochurim and men, crowded around him.

"It's mammesh a miracle," they whispered to each other. "Who would have believed that he would have gotten up?"

They didn't realize that their words of encouragement only frightened Motty. In essence, with every passing second, Motty's situation became clearer to him, and he felt more miserable from moment to moment.

After a battery of tests from the top experts, and a small party which the medical staff held for him, Motty was released from the hospital. After all, it wasn't every day that a real miracle took place before their eyes.

Motty emerged from the hospital into a world he had left 12 years before, and he was overwhelmed. The first things which caught his eye were the cars on the road. Motty had always been interested in cars. Suddenly he saw that everything had changed. Everything seemed different. The large signs on the streets startled him. They advertised products which he had never heard of.

When he reached home, it only got worse. The house, which he remembered as bustling with life and filled with brothers and sisters, was now deserted. Only his parents, who suddenly looked old, lived there. It was only at that moment that the awareness that he, too, was old according to his ideas, finally penetrated. He had been 16 -- a carefree, happy-go- lucky kid. Now he was suddenly 28 and a half. That was nearly 30! How scary! In his mind, his father was always 30, and now he, Motty, was nearly that age.

It took him two days until he asked the question which seemed to have hung in the air from the time he woke up: "Ma, what am I to do now?"

Even though his parents and family had thought about that for a long time, they had no answer. What does one do with a child who is suddenly a man? Should they send him to yeshiva? Should they find work for him? What would become of him?

Having received no answer, Motty told his mother: "I'm going to meet my friends."

He had made a number of telephone calls to the homes of friends, forgetting that they already had homes of their own. Within half an hour, it became clear to him that most of his friends were married avreichim with lots of children, and a few held jobs. He arrived in the kollel where Eli, one of his old friends, studied, and encountered a young man, who seemed happy with his lot. Eli clasped Motty's hand warmly, and said: "Boruch Hashem, Boruch Hashem. Don't ask how happy we were when we heard about you. Maybe you'll visit us?"

Motty smiled the broadest smile he managed so far, but in his heart he felt a twinge of great disappointment, whose meaning he still didn't understand.

"So how are things?" Eli asked.

"Fine," Motty replied.

"And what's new?"

"Nothing's new," Motty replied.

Silence.

"What's new with you?"

"Nothing new. Actually, over the past 12 years a few things have happened."

"Ha, ha, ha," they both say, and don't even try to pretend that they are laughing. The conversation continues, and quite quickly Motty perceives that the man seated in front of him has nothing in common with him. He's bored, and Motty senses Eli's feeling. Eli had spoken to him in second person plural, "Mah shlomchem? Eich atem margishim?" He sounded just like the president of the yeshiva when he speaks to students on the rare occasions he visits the yeshiva. That meant that Eli, his friend from the shiur, considered him a stranger. And really, why not? 12 years is such a long time. People forget.

The next week, he met a few of his other friends, and discovered that in essence, they were speaking to him only out of pity. True, they behaved cordially, but he understood that he was no longer part of their lives, and that he was basically a nuisance.

He still had one hope. Michoel, his roommate, his partner in many long soul-talks, and in many escapades, too. He knew that with Michoel things would be different. After all they knew each better than anyone else.

In order to meet Michoel, he had to travel to a different city -- actually a small settlement in the south. Motty arrived there full of expectations. He knocked on the door and it was opened by his good friend Michoel. He davka looked like himself, and had barely changed. This caused Motty to fall on Michael's neck with joy. But immediately he was sorry, because he felt the instantaneous flinch, and then saw Michoel's surprised look.

"This is the bochur I told you about yesterday," Michoel told his wife.

"Yesterday?" Motty asked.

"Yes, I told her the entire story yesterday. I told her how you had been my roommate, and about the accident and about the great miracle."

"You only found time yesterday to tell her about your very best friend?" Motty heard himself say.

Michoel turned red. "I'm sorry," he finally said. "Think about it yourself. When I got married five years ago, you had already been in the hospital for seven years!"

Motty felt that his world was falling apart. He collapsed onto a chair, and began wailing: "What will be with me? What will I do now? I have nowhere to go. My friends barely remember me. They have nothing in common with me. Everyone sees me as a thirty-year-old adult. I withdrew from the world for 12 years, and now I have no way back. I feel as if I got off a moving train, which went on without me. Am I doomed to spend my life on the sidelines?"

Michoel and his wife looked at each other in silence, startled by Motty's outburst, and feeling his pain.

Motty apologized for his outburst, and left the house with a heart which was broken to bits. He got on the bus, and quite soon he was drenched with his tears. He felt like the most unfortunate person in the world. Lost forever. He looked about and felt that he didn't belong. "Ribono Shel Olom, why did you return me?" he asked in his heart. "So that I should suffer my entire life? I have no place in the world. I have no friends, and even my family finds it hard to adjust to me. I'm the loneliest person in the world, without friends, without family, without a future and without a past. What will become of me, Ribono Shel Olom?" he sobbed.

The bus reached the city in which he lived. He found himself wandering about aimlessly. Suddenly, his feet seemed to lead him to the building of the yeshiva ketana from which he had exited 12 years beforehand. He was soon standing precisely where the van had run him over.

Motty crossed the street carefully, and entered the yeshiva's building. Everything seemed so familiar. He walked over to his room. His heart beat quickly with excitement. The room was open. He entered it. Everything seemed so familiar. An old memory impelled him to open the door to his closet, and yes. . . he encountered the large poster: "Time's on fire. So what's burning?"

That phrase reminded him of what his life had been like before the accident, and only completed the picture of his misery. He began to cry bitterly over his life, and about what remained of it.

*

Motty opened his eyes, and saw that he was surrounded by bochurim. He understood that he had fainted. But something was strange. The boys seemed familiar to him. Eli was there, and so was Michoel, his friend from his shiur. Suddenly the mashgiach appeared -- the very same mashgiach-- as if not a single thing had changed in 12 years.

He looked at himself, and saw that he was wearing pajamas. He pinched himself.

"What happening to me? Where am I?"

"You're in the yeshiva," he heard Michoel say. "You slept and suddenly you began to scream, to cry and to go wild. So we called the mashgiach."

"Wait a minute. I don't understand. How old am I? What about the accident? What's going on here?"

There were giggles. The mashgiach, who didn't want to bewilder Motty too much, shooed the boys out of the room, and sat down beside Motty's bed.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Wait a minute. I don't understand. Didn't you speak to me 12 years ago?"

"No," the mashgiach said. "I spoke to you half an hour ago. I returned to the beis medrash, and was called to the room now, because the boys told me that you were screaming."

"Then it was all a dream. It didn't happen."

"I guess so."

Motty burst into tears, for real this time.

"What happened?" the mashgiach asked. "What did you dream?"

Motty breathed deeply, and told the mashgiach the terrible dream he had. He told him about the accident, about awakening after 12 years, and about the feelings of loneliness and doom. "Never in my life was I so sad," he cried. "I never knew that one could feel so desperate, so helpless. I still don't believe that it was only a dream."

"Do you know," the mashgiach said, "that every dream has a bit of reality? The truth is that I suggest that you be careful. Don't be so relieved, because the feelings which you felt during your dream may well be with you the rest of your life."

Motty looked at him.

"In that dream, you saw your future. At the end of this zman, you'll have to leave the yeshiva. You'll surely find another yeshiva, but just as surely you'll be thrown out of there after a while. In the end, you'll find yourself outside of the yeshiva world. Your friends will continue along the regular track, and you will be alone. You won't know what to do with yourself. Time will go on, and you will be left behind, watching your friends as they travel onward.

"Soon it will be time for shidduchim. No one will want to marry someone who isn't a ben yeshiva and who has no other inner content. Your friends will get married one after the other. You'll go to their weddings, if they invite you, but you will see how you are an outsider -- outside the social group, outside the fold, without a purpose in your life, without any aim, without hope."

"Enough, enough, I don't want to hear any more," Motty wailed.

"12 years will pass anyway, and you'll be 28 years old, just like in your frightening dream -- an old bachelor, and worst of all, without a base, without friends. You won't be comfortable in your home either. You'll just feel lost, lost forever.

"It isn't a dream, Motty. It's reality. It's the reality toward which you are striding -- and not only you. There are lots of boys who, at a certain stage in their lives, withdraw from the regular course, maybe due to a lack of will or a lack of ability, but all too often due simply to a lack of seichel. In the beginning they like the freedom -- until the years pass and they feel that this freedom is the most oppressing prison in the world. The passing of time goes against them. At a certain point, every tick of the clock is like Chinese water torture, reminding them of their lives which are being wasted.

"They fall into a depression, and wish that it were only a dream. But it isn't. Unlike them, you have been there and it was only a dream. You felt the terrible suffering of one who doesn't go with everyone else. You felt the pain of the destroyed life of one who yields to his inclinations toward momentary pleasures. Do you know that you should thank Hashem for sending you this terrible dream? It wasn't just a dream. It was a vision.

"The future passed before your eyes in a split second, and now you know what many your age and in your situation learn only too late. I trust you to draw the correct conclusions.

"In my opinion, you don't need any more prodding from me. All that you must do is to return to your future, to remember that terrible dream. It should help you to avoid the fate which awaited you."

The mashgiach turned around to leave the room. "The truth is that I'm not authorized to give you another chance," he said. "But Shomayim sent you this chance. It will be interesting to see if you will take advantage of it," he said and left the room.

Motty remained in his bed for another moment, fingering his belongings to make certain that the dream wasn't reality. Then he dressed as quickly as possible, and ran toward the door. Suddenly, he remembered, turned around, opened the door to the closet in his room and, with a decisive motion, ripped up the slogan which had accompanied him for too along: "Time's on fire. So what's burning?"

He tore up only half of it, and when he went to rip up the other half, he thought for a moment. "Time's on fire," it said. Motty decided to leave that part, so it would serve as a warning sign.

Then he opened the door, and headed toward the beis medrash -- back to the future.

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