this morning i awoke from a dream so remembering the dream i realized that it described the FRUSTRATIONS in my years of life.
in the dream i opened my eyes to see the large shared room that WE slept in. i was facing a corner of the room. i knew i was in a summer camp where we boys slept one per bed, together in a large shared room. the ceiling was very high and i knew higher than the room i rememberd usually slept in. i was near the ground and would later see the bed was low and lower than the bed i rememberd i usualy slept in. facing the corner i knew my head toward the door behind me. in the corner 2 blank painted walls joined, thay had no shelves nor wardrobes. in the corner, on the left wall was a square window about one meter by one meter looking out to a tree that had dark green leaves.
i pushed the thin blanket off myself and stood from the bed. i saw a low bed only a few inches from the floor. the bed was simply pale yellow wood slats supporting a soft mattress with no sheet.
i knew i should dress in day clothing insted of the pyjamas i had slept so i looked for clothing. i saw no shelves nor cupboards. the only clothing was a net filled with laundry, i knew used clothing already worn and sweaty. on the floor was a boy panty gray fabric clearly on the floor due to being worn and belonged in the laundry net. i knew it was not mine because the fabric was gray and differed from my briefs.
unable to change clothing i turned away from the window and laundry net to the door behind me i saw a few beds around the room all "regular" height only mine was DIFFERENT lower near the floor. they also had white bed sheets over their mattresses but i differed only a bare mattress. a second window mirrored in the opposite corner from the window near my bed.
by the door was a low book shelf with books. i saw other boys around age 11 walking out the door wearing day pants like dark blue pants or grey trousers.
i was wearing a gray pyjama shirt and did not see which pyjama pants.
i walked toward the door and as i neared it... i was entering a room with "work stations" along all the walls and an empty center.
i was facing the back wall, away from the door behind me, it was entirely a long window looking out to rows of trees with green leaves. to my right i passed the full work stations. each had a simple flat writing surface covered in grayish-blue coating. above the desk were more shelves cluttered with papers and books in piles that were uneven and not smooth just poking randomly. each work station that i passed was already used a boy sat in each one that i passed until i found an empty table on the right side.
a lady was our leader she handed each boy a paper with lines. she handed me two wax crayons one orinj and one purple and a pen with the paper. our mission was to "write letters to hang on the fence".
the clutter of papers and books on the shelves of my work station disturbed me so i focussed on the lines of paper. i decided to make the letters large since the instruction "hang on the fence" they needed to be easily readable as people pass same as signs and ads.
i started with the orinj wax crayon and wrote a letter as she had instructed the letter l.
i regretted my choice it looked like a simple line not any letter so beside it i made a capital l. then i switched crayons so my letters would be colorful.
i wrote a column of letters. often the shape was ugly or not accurate shape for the letter that i had tryd to write. my hands were sloppy and clumsy as i wrote more and more purple letters in a column. each large letter filled three lines of the lined paper. however i knew 26 letters so i made another column of letters and wrote the letters that i could remember repeating some since i could not remember all 26 different letters. when i had reached the bottom of the page and second column i flipd the paper and thought "the leader said to hang on a fence" like a gate of woven wires, i must write letters on the back too so that people both inside and outside the fence could see the letters.
i thought this whole time that i was obeying the leader.
i felt like half the time of the meeting past as i had slowly written many large letters in four columns, repeating some due to errors and ugliness, and on both sides of the paper due to the instruction to write letters.
when i accomplished the assignment i walked to the leader to give her the paper and ask how to hang it on the fence? kuz she said the purpose was to hang the letters on the fence. however a line of boys was waiting to talk to her so i needed to wait in line.
i noticed the brat was talking about stuff OTHER than the project so i said "about the project, what do i do next?" as i showed the many letters i wrote. she said in hebrew "go to the printer and print them." i knew that printers work differently and how printers work. i cant use a printer for crayon letters. i argued with her in frustration "i cant use a printer like that" and she used a tone of ridicule asking "you dont know how a printer works?" i knew and that it differed from her instructions.
in order to accomplish the goal i asked another student how he obeyed the instructions? he hid the information and said he would not show his paper and insted turned away from me. my frustration grew and intensified. i walked around the room searching for a clue how to complete the mission and assignment. finally a saw a boy that seemed less nasty so i asked how he did the instructions? he showed me in the center of the lined page, rows of sentences with a message which i read about trees.
i argued "you did it wrong the leader said to write letters to hang" and i showed him the letters. he argued that he had also written "letters" each word of the sentence had letters. he understood to write "letters" in words and sentences.
i argued your sentences are normal size which does not match the purpose to "hang on a fence" where posters must use huge letters.
he explained that he had went to the office and MAGNIFIED the message using the copy machine. that was the meaning of using the printer.
suddenly i realized the bad instructions had caused me to ruin the paper with big ugly letters that had no message. due to my clumsy hands were not even neat letters. my columns filled the length of each line [during the dream i did not think of the option to write on the length between the column of letters due to the perpindicular lines]. and i could not even write on the back since i had already written columns of letters on the BOTH sides.
i felt an emotion of mourning that i had killed my paper without doing what this kid had done and only due to obeying the leader "to write letters to hang."
now i had no room to write a story about trees and i realized that EVEN if i used the narrow space between the big colored letters still i did not have any story about trees to write.
i knew that only ten minutes remained so i must for the purpose of the mission find a new paper and instead of "letters to hang" as the leader said to write letters of words in a sentence and then enlarge them on the copy machine not the "printer" which is for typing in a computer.
but i was mourning for my lost effort fruitless and for my paper that HAD the obeyed instruction but was not a story about trees... well who said it should be?
as the remaining time passed i searched the cluttered shelves of the work station i knew they each had papers and started with my own shelves and the papers there were each already filled with writing i flipped through many pages and no new blank ones to do the mission... as time passed and my search for papers found only papers that already had words i knew that time remained only to take my letters to the copy machine wrongly called "midpeset"... i showed the colored letters to the rabbi in the office and he pointed out the copy machine would be BLACK so the COLORS that i had chosen some letters orinj and some purple would all be the same gray... i was horrified that i had been given the wrong instructions and the wrong TOOLS for the mission! i mourned that all my effort and selection of colors would be fruitless i even noticed that using a copy machine only one side would get scanned for the copy so the added letters on both sides that i had made due to the instruction of fence, was truly wasting effort on BOTH sides since the copy machine only saw one side... and as i mourned for my wasted time and effort... i awoke and realized this was a dream and realized that this dream SYMBOLIZED my years of life.
every attempt was fruitlless. in the dream i knew i must wear day clothing instead of pyjama but no shelves nor cupboards with clothing same as i went to twelve years of school to get a diploma which i got but it was worthless paper that led to NO next step like unable to wear the day clothing.
similalry i had followed the instructions of the leaders doing many ceremonies same as i had heard "write letters to hang on the fence" but those instructions did not ACCURATELY describe final product to enlarge a story to hang on the fence.
even the tools given me colored crayons were fruitless for a copy machine that was not color... that described the frustration of my wasted life in which every project i did obeying bad instructions was not what the other boys knew to do... and i can find no OTHER paper for the mission that other boys knew to do. i lacked even tape to hang the letters on the fence so my effort was a waste unable to complete the mission... so i mourned for all the waste and that is how i feel even when i am awake due to the bad instructions of orthodox rabbis who refuse to accurately represent tradition and insted say words that cause errors that differ from any traditional goal.