The Doll Factory ~ a story

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The following story was told to my nine year old daughter by her Hebrew School teacher. I am retelling it because its filled with wonderful metaphors that help explain what living by the Torah accomplishes.

There was a man who was hired by a doll factory to do a peculiar job. Every morning at 9:00 AM, he had to walk up a flight of stairs. Then at 5:00 PM in the afternoon, he had to walk down the same flight, concluding his workday.

During the early days of his employment, he fully expected that in exchange for the handsome paycheck he was receiving, he’d be assigned a series of projects. He waited day after day bored, but, no projects were forthcoming. So to occupy his time, he brought along a book. Pretty soon he re-examined his situation and reasoned, “Nobody is giving me projects anyways. Why not leave an hour early?”

Soon one hour early led to two hours early and then three hours early... It wasn’t long before his daily presence in the factory had chiseled down to a few hours. The boss took notice and called him in for a meeting.

After listening to why the employee was present fewer and fewer hours daily, the boss spoke, “I see you don’t understand the true nature of your job. How could you? It’s a secret. However, in order to help you along, I’ll let you in on the secret. There were some mischief makers who were trying to sabotage our operations by playing around with the buttons that activate the factory. I was compelled to hide these buttons from them in order to continue operations. So where did I hide them? Right under the steps!

“Everyday, when you sprint up the steps, you start up the factory and when you climb down, you shut down the operations. By cooperating with my disguised mechanism, you are doing us an invaluable service. However, when you started leaving early, not only did we produce less dolls, but, some dolls were left incomplete right in the middle of their assembly. So please be more careful going forward.”

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Lesson:

The boss is the Creator. We are the workers. The mischief makers are the one’s from whom the keys to spiritual potency needs to be withheld - lest they take advantage. The dolls are upright structures in the “image of man”.

Many times we don’t understand the true nature what we’re doing in this world. However, by following the Torah, we are assured that we’re activating the heavenly factory to produce kindnesses and blessings both for us and for the rest of humanity.

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