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The premise of Groundhog Day is that the main character of the movie cannot move past the next day until he changes his idiotic behaviors.
It was one of those movies they showed at all the Shabbatons because it has a powerful message (fast forwarding all the necessary parts of course.
I used to have a nightmare when I was a kid. I would go to the airport board a transatlantic flight to the States and arrive at my destination. I would go to sleep and always wake up in the country of origin. It was the most frustrating dream ever. I spent my night in agony trying to figure out how to get to the country and stay there.
A famous Jewish saying Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht [Man Plans, God Laughs] derived from a psalm "Rabot Machshavot B'lev Ish Veatzat Hashem Hi Takum." [Many are the thoughts in man's heart, the will of G-d will prevail eventually."
I planned to board a flight and to go home. Once I planned that, the rest of my thinking was in that capacity. I was thinking along a certain track. I allocated time for traveling, for departing, arriving.
And it is not for nothing that Chazal do not hold women responsible commandments which are bound by time, for I failed miserably at counting to three and arrived at the airport after boarding had closed.
I was so disoriented. My entire understanding of the day had crumbled. I went back home. I did not know what to do with myself. This was not supposed to be me. I was supposed to be in the air. I couldn't sleep till five am, and I was running on a high between reading Begin, g-chatting the most random people who were awake for some reason, and just being shocked all over again every few seconds that I was still here when in fact I should have been there.
The realization kept on hitting me anew every few seconds as if I was a goldfish. They say goldfish have memory spans of five seconds. That is why they do not get depressed spending their entire life in a glass bowl. They swim to one side and then forget everything: Oh look! A glass bowl!
I woke up this morning and I was still where I was the night before. I am trying again. I want to do it right and get on that flight!
