The Boy Who Couldn’t Sit Still: Then He Heard One Story

Oren was a sweet, mischievous kid, the kind everyone in the neighborhood knew. From an early age, he won people over while also challenging quite a few of them. He seemed to have an endless supply of energy, like a battery that never ran out and never needed replacing.

As the youngest child in the family, the spoiled baby of the house, no one could take their eyes off him for a moment. Even the adults assigned to keep watch over him needed frequent breaks to recharge. Look away for a few seconds, and you might miss his next move and barely manage to stop whatever came after it.

In preschool, it was somehow forgivable. His teacher often found herself out of breath, but his charm, charisma, and that look he knew exactly how to give usually did the trick. Let's just say that rules and structure were never his strongest point.

Then school began, and everything changed. Along with the rules came notes home, punishments, and daily phone calls to his parents. The fights with classmates, the teasing, the distractions, the empty notebooks, the upside-down backpack—all of it turned Oren into the challenging kid in his grade.

His parents tried everything, but Oren continued creating a buzz wherever he went. He did, however, have one tremendous blessing: He had been born to warm, supportive parents. As far as his mother was concerned, no matter what happened, was happening, or would happen, Oren was the most wonderful child on earth. She made no secret of that, not to his teachers and not to anyone who came to complain about him. His father tried harder to maintain boundaries, but always with warmth and love. Even his siblings, who often suffered the collateral damage of Oren's adventures, accepted him as he was.

But not everyone could handle him. He barely finished his matriculation exams, scraping together the last few points he needed to pass. It was not because he lacked intelligence. On the contrary, he was genuinely smart. Perhaps that was what frustrated his parents most. "What a waste of that mind," they would say again and again, but Oren was not ready to hear it.

The Army Would Straighten Him Out

"The army will straighten him out," everyone thought. Oren, too, waited like everyone else in his grade to receive his draft notice. But before he even reached the screening process, he was rejected. Someone there had apparently heard about him and his exploits. "The army has no ability to deal with people like that," he was told.

It hurt him deeply.

His parents refused to give up. That was when his uncle, a general in the IDF, entered the picture and helped get him into the screening process. Oren was eventually assigned to a combat unit. Perhaps, everyone thought, his temperament might actually serve him well there.

He barely lasted two years. They wanted to remove him fairly quickly, but once again his uncle intervened, and Oren remained despite everything. Eventually, neither side could take it anymore. Two years after entering the army, he was out, with an exemption in hand.

His parents hoped that perhaps he had finally learned his lesson and settled down. Maybe he would use his creativity to open a business and build a future for himself. But Oren was in no hurry. He wanted time to find himself.

Then a friend suggested that he fill in for him for a few days at a large children's toy store. Oren liked the idea. There was still a child inside him who had never quite grown up, and toys, games, and every new development in the field fascinated him. Soon he found himself behind the counter, hauling boxes, organizing shelves, and helping children choose what they wanted. It suited him perfectly. The store owner was pleased and offered him a permanent position. Oren was delighted. His parents were somewhat less enthusiastic, but everyone was relieved that at least he finally had some structure in his life.

The store was located on the edge of the city's Haredi neighborhood. Beside the counter stood a large display of children's audio CDs featuring stories about righteous sages, Jewish values, and other Torah topics, sold at a token price for the benefit of the public.

Who still listens to stories on CDs? Oren wondered when he first saw them.

To his surprise, plenty of people did. Children regularly came into the store whenever a new shipment arrived. Every so often, when Oren was bored and had finished all his work, he would take one of the CDs, put it into the store's sound system, and listen.

To his surprise, he loved them.

His family observed Shabbat, but there had not been much formal Jewish learning in his home. Now he found himself discovering an entire world he barely knew. He did not know many of the stories from Tanakh, or knew only fragments of them, and listening to the CDs felt like filling in pieces that had been missing since childhood.

The Story That Wouldn't Leave Him

Right after Passover, a new shipment arrived. Among the CDs, Oren noticed one he did not recognize: "Rabbi Akiva." He remembered children's songs about Rabbi Akiva, but he did not really know his story. Curious, he put it on.

Akiva, the shepherd of Kalba Savua, was a simple man of noble character. He kept to himself and attracted little attention, but Kalba Savua's daughter saw something others did not. She recognized his character and the enormous potential within him. She saw a diamond that had not yet been polished. She married him despite the difficulties and wanted him to study Torah, but Akiva insisted that he could not. He did not even know how to learn.

Then one day, Akiva saw drops of water falling repeatedly onto a stone. He noticed that the water had gradually worn a hole into the rock. Drop after drop, without stopping, had penetrated something seemingly impenetrable. If water could wear away stone, he realized, then Torah, which is compared to water, could penetrate his heart as well.

And so, at the age of 40, he began at the beginning, learning the alphabet alongside young children.

Oren listened, chills running through him. How uncomfortable that must have been. How embarrassing.

But Rabbi Akiva persisted. With extraordinary patience and determination, he continued learning and advancing until he became Rabbi Akiva, one of the greatest Tannaim and the teacher of thousands of students.

The story gripped Oren. A 40-year-old man had begun with almost nothing, persisted, and succeeded. He could not stop thinking about it. He had questions, and he wanted answers.

With his characteristic practicality, Oren headed to the neighborhood synagogue to find someone who knew the story. There he met Rabbi Ari, a young, energetic avrech who was articulate and knowledgeable. Oren unloaded all his questions and all the information he felt he was missing. Rabbi Ari gladly answered him, opened a Gemara, and showed him the sources inside.

Oren was captivated. He had never really looked at a full page of Gemara before. He had certainly never imagined himself being drawn to one.

Then a thought entered his mind: If Rabbi Akiva could begin learning at 40, then my father can too.

Oren had never seen his father open a page of Gemara, but he somehow knew that this kind of learning would make him happy. And with Oren, action generally came before reflection. He immediately asked Rabbi Ari whether he would be willing to teach his father a daily class. Oren promised to organize a group.

The rabbi agreed.

Just as Oren had predicted, his father loved the idea. Now all he needed was a group, and Oren got to work. He approached a neighbor from the building across the street and persuaded him to join. Then he recruited Ron, the young man who spent much of his day hanging around the kiosk downstairs, followed by Avner, his father's cousin who lived nearby.

And when Oren could not find anyone else to recruit, he joined the class himself.

Oren Found His Place

Since then, many pages of Gemara have been learned. Some participants left, many others joined, and the class became an established part of the community.

And Oren? From the very first class, he felt that pull again. Something powerful, something he had never experienced before. He plunged into difficult questions and complex lines of reasoning. And no, he did not get bored. He did not run away. He did not disappear.

He went deeper.

It was astonishing. The boy who had struggled to sit still in a classroom and barely managed to finish school could not get enough of Torah.

After some time, Oren asked to go to yeshiva and learn properly. Everyone's eyes widened. It seemed almost unimaginable. This was Oren, the young man who had barely earned his matriculation certificate and had never been known to sit with a book. Yet when it came to Torah, something was different. He was attached to it, drawn to it, and filled with an endless desire to learn.

His parents may once have dreamed that he would become a successful businessman, but now they saw something else: the happiness on his face, the softness that had entered his personality, and the new depth in his eyes. They could not say no.

Oren went to yeshiva and began from the beginning. Like a child taking his first steps, he learned how to approach the page, understand the question, follow the answer, and work through the discussion. He breathed Torah deeply into himself.

He had a precedent: Rabbi Akiva.

And sometimes, when learning became difficult and the letters seemed heavy, the old song would return to his mind: "...Stones, stones are worn away by water... So too, may the Torah of living water penetrate my heart, my heart of stone..."

The child everyone once struggled to keep inside a framework had finally found the one place he never wanted to leave.