The Story Of The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God

We took a break for two weeks from Jewish History class, and our assignment over the break was to read three stories by the Israeli author Edgar Keret.  One of the stories I read by him, and the title story of one of his books, was called The Story Of The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God.  The story follows two characters.  One of them is a bus driver who never lets anyone on who is late.  It's not because he's mean, just because if he wastes 30 seconds of each rider's time, and there are 10 riders, they lose a total of 5 minutes, and you can not afford to lose that much time (according to him).  The other character is a chef named Eddie, who has an odd disease which causes him to oversleep by ten minutes no matter what, which causes him to always be late for things; his job, appointments, meetings, etc.  So one day in the restaurant, Eddie meets a nice girl, who makes him very happy.  So they make plans to meet at the aquarium the next day at 5 pm.  Eddie takes many precautions to ensure he's on time, setting three different alarm clocks and turning the TV on with the volume all the way up, but he still falls asleep and wakes up ten minutes late.  He gets ready as quickly as possible and sprints to the bus.  He gets there just late, and the bus driver is going to not let him on, until the driver remembers that he used to want to be God, and that God is merciful to all of his creations.  So the driver lets him on, and Eddie gets there on time, but the girl stands him up.  So as Eddie walks back to the bus, he takes his time due to his aching muscles, but the driver waits for him.

I believe that this story has very large connections to real life.  This story tells the classic conflict of idealism and pragmatism, the same struggle Javert faces in Les Miserables before jumping to his death.  Though it is good in life and in Judaism to have strong set ideals, sometimes it is important for us to adapt, to be flexible based on the situation.  This is the conflict of interest faced by every single entity, person, country, religion, etc. that exists in the world.  The religion of Judaism sometimes has to decide whether it wants to be very religious, or be practical based on the situation that is faced in the world at that time.  In life, it is important for us to sometimes be like the bus driver.  Stubborn, yet flexible.  What it means is that it is important to be able to adapt to various realities that approach us.