Ezzes of Estis: Motele, the Chalojmes Malochner

Shabbos is a day of rest and it is forbidden to work on Shabbos. But on the other hand, it is not forbidden to not work on the other days.

Motele also knew that, although he didn’t know much else, almost nothing at all, not even that his name was Morduch or maybe even Mordecaj and that he could have been called that if he had wanted to; But you can’t want something you don’t know. Furthermore, if people had respected him, they would probably have just called him Morduch – and even more so Mordecai – but to do that he would have had to accomplish something, or at least achieve something, which he did not do, precisely because he knew that it was not forbidden, either not to work on days other than Shabbos.

However, for the fact that he managed to persistently and unwaveringly put this knowledge into action – or rather, into inaction – he was shown a certain respect for that, although not the kind or amount of respect that was necessary would be to call him Morduch, let alone Mordecai. And so he continued to be called simply Motele, sometimes even more simply Motel, and sometimes, when he worked even less than not at all, namely by preventing others from working, simply Motke. »Motke, wake up like a zibele: with a head in the ground! (Motke, you should grow like an onion: with your head in the ground!)«

Although this saying may not have been meant so seriously as said lightly, it actually had some truth, for Motel worked so little that he really seemed to grow in – only not with his head, and not with the ground, but with his lazy toches into the rotten mattress. He raised his hands so rarely that one might have thought the bony, gnarled fingers had become roots; his clothes, half unbuttoned, ragged, full of holes, poorly patched and stained, withered and overgrown, resembled fallen layers of leaves, and between them his beard grew over his body like untrodden moss.

Perhaps the work of his body consisted precisely in this growth, which in turn could rather have been called decomposition. But, I ask you, isn’t extinction always included in coming into being and, conversely, coming into being in extinction? For it is said: “And the sinking occurs for the sake of the rising.” Yes, isn’t becoming, in which what is becoming becomes what has become, itself in the process of passing away? So doesn’t being, in becoming, form a unity with nothingness, as Rabbi Ge’Hel explains?

Motke – like so many others – didn’t know the answer to that, nor did Motele, nor even Morduch, regardless of the fact that they were one and the same person; On the other hand, if the person had known, they might have called him Mordecai and not scolded him the way he was scolded, namely: “Motke-Cholempeter!”

By cholem they meant the dream because Motele was so sleepy, and by Peter they meant Motele itself, although of course his name wasn’t Peter and so it would have been better to call him Cholemmotel. But on the other hand, perhaps he was called Cholempeter and not Cholemmotel precisely because he was so sleepy that he hardly knew what his name was – which is how this story began and now almost ends, which, by the way, it has done from the beginning, in that while it comes into being, it is constantly in the process of ceasing, like all things.

So Motele was called “Cholempeter,” and although this insult may have been intended less lovingly than thrown carelessly, there was actually something insightful about it, for while Motke did not seem to be working on the outside, it was clear that on the inside he was He wasn’t working either, just daydreaming. But for him, dreaming was perhaps the real work, just as for his daughter it was growing into the mattress, for his fingers it was rooting, for his beard it was growing, for his clothes it was withering.

»Listen, Motele, maloche is broken! (Listen, Motele, work is a blessing!),” his parents said. But he replied: “Chalojmes senen ojch maloches! (Dreaming is work too!)« So, willy-nilly, they had to accept that the motel was useless and left him alone. That’s why he would have lain around on a couch, endlessly, for all eternity, if something hadn’t happened at a certain moment when everyone around not only understood, but almost without respect acknowledged that Motke was a real one Chalojmes-Malochner was – and in his purposelessness – part of creation, insofar as the insignificant is always contained in the important, the meaningless is a prerequisite for development. For it is written: “He created radiant colors that shone into empty space.”

Of course Motel didn’t know that either, but at that very moment the unclean rags fell away from him like husks, a light filled his body from within, and from them, above the base of his beard, rose seeds and trees, rich in grain of unknown fat fruits, which from now on fed the entire house and the country and almost the entire earth, without anyone having to work, neither on Shabbos nor at any other time, and especially not Motele, whom no one Motke, not even Morduch, anymore , but everyone just called him Mordecai.

At least that’s what Motele, the Chalojmes-Malochner, dreamed.