His eyes focus unsteadily, slowly, on me. Brighten. He greets me with a slurred, slow “A Guten“. He’s a nice guy, this yungerman. A little on the slow side, but nice. Typical yeshivish kuk for a forty year old; his black eyebrows are a bit whitened from the flecks of dandruff that spot it, and his ruddy complexion has been reddened prematurely by one too many l’chaims. I schmooze with him for a few minutes. We don’t have too much to talk about; after all, twenty plus years, in addition to somewhat different upbringings, separate us. Not someone I’d term as being particularly intellectual either, the schmooze mainly revolves around my Bein Hazmanim plans. He wants to know when I’m going back, what I’m doing, chasunas, trips, etc. I tell him, not making any effort to embellish or even dramatize the details. There isn’t all that much to tell in the first place, to be honest. His listless expression tells me all I need to know- he has the same level of interest in being mamshich (continuing) the schmooze as I do. I finish off a little abruptly with a cursory “Hatzlacha“, and turn away.

Walking back to my seat and chavrusa, I pause, then resume walking, slightly slower. I’m trying to figure out exactly why it is I continue this little friendship/schmoozing partnership with a fellow I don’t have anything in common with, and truthfully, don’t particularly like. Well, don’t like might be harsh. But it’s apparent to me that he doesn’t enjoy what he does. He takes no pride in what should be and is the most amazing, joyous job in the world. True, “Al tachazik atzmecha, etc.”, but that shouldn’t suck all the joie de vivre out of his visage, right? He seems as if he’s laboring to fulfill a task that he isn’t required to perform. He’s done his fair share, certainly… “Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor“, and all that. Is it out of some perverted sense of noblesse oblige? (Yeah, I know, this one is heavy on the Avos and the French ma’amorim. Tough noogies, I’m in the mood).
I don’t know. Whatever it is, though, he’s gotta do something about it…I’m starting to get tired of his mournful face. But getting back to our question…

Do I speak with him out of pity? I think not. It’s more than I don’t consider myself to be such a major ba’al chessed; I know that I don’t suffer people that I don’t relate to at all very well. So what is it?

I reach my seat and chavrusa, and slide onto the hard oak seat. Leaning back, I leaf to the relevant section where the acharon is discussing the sugya we’ve been learning. And then, just as I’m about to dive back into the yam shel Torah, I figure it out.

It isn’t that I pity him. Halevai I should be so magnamious to spend time schmoozing with uninteresting people. Nope…the pshat is pashut.

I pity me.

I’m worried that I’ll wind up one day like this guy; an uninteresting fellow in a dead-end yeshiva who’s lost the chiyus he used to have for life and learning. Who knows no other way than the mehalech hachayim he’s used to and is too lazy or helpless to find another. I pity the me that might become him. So I spend time speaking with him now, as a sort of subconsious insurance policy against being that guy.

Amatuer psychoanalyzation over, I return to the yellow pages in front of me. At least for now, for me, I can find chiyus in them. Baruch Hashem. And Baruch Hashem I can take pride in that, and in the work I do, the most important work in the world. At least for now.