The Old and Foolish King

Our sages call the evil inclination – the yetzer hara – “old and foolish king”. We understand why he is old – he exists since the beginning of time. But is he really foolish? Books and books are written about how to guess his strategies since they change with time. As one Chassidic master said “Where is the yetzer hara? He is where we think he is not”. Another Chassidic sage told to his chassidim: “You should always imagine the yetzer hara standing behind you with a big axe about to chop off your head”. When his student asked, “But what if I can’t imagine this,” the rebbe said “it means that he already chopped off your head”.

So why is the yetzer hara foolish? I have a friend who used to be an actress in Soviet Russia. She said that once she was called for questioning to the KGB office.” We know that you love money – admit it!” (yes how strange it would it sound – loving money was a big sin there). After she didn’t admit – they showed her the evidence – audio tape which she recorded in her house singing a famous song in English “Money, money, I love money” which was stolen from her by KGB. The KGB used scientific devices to give 100% proof that the voice recorded belongs to my friend. They thought they found evidence – but how foolish they were! They were smart enough to use technology – but stupid enough not to realize that she, as an actress, was just rehearsing this song for her performance. How stupid they were to think she loves money and recorded herself singing about it.

The same is with the yetzer hara technique.  It uses different method and modern day techniques to trick people. But, if a person uses his brains and common sense – given to him by Hashem – he would see how foolish those techniques are. But, nevertheless, we are tricked. How?

Sometimes, we think we are destroying idols, while we really are worshiping them…

There is not very well-known but very powerful tale by Rabbi Nachman of Breslev, called “The Cripple”. One of the episodes of the story is when the crippled man found various magic dusts. One of them, when put under people’s feet, caused them to repent. Another one will caused them to become insane. He mixed both powders and put in the forest where robbers passed. Robbers stepped on it – and became all righteous. They started doing teshuva and crying over their past misdeeds. But because they also got some insane powder – they started blaming each other of their misdeeds – and at the end – they all killed each other. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan writes in his commentary on this that we must be very careful while getting righteous not to get crazy.

The question is – how do we know and distinguish real desire of Hashem and tricks of the yetzer hara ?

There is another interesting parable from Rebbe Nachman: 

Once there was a very rich merchant who was the only one in possession of the finest genuine Hungarian wine. He had a servant who worked for him. One time, during a hard trip, the servant asked, “I am going crazy from the aroma of the wine – could you please let me taste it? As an appreciation for his hard work, the merchant gave him a glass of wine. He never tasted anything better and would never forget its taste.

One time, many years later, the servant was sitting in a tavern. The owner claimed he had the finest Hungarian wine and was selling it for an enormous price. After trying the wine –the servant said, “This is not the Hungarian wine, but a poor Romanian substitute!” The owner and his friends beat the servant black and blue, but that didn’t change the fact…

So it will be in the time of Mashiach – people will be served the “Romanian” wine, the cheap substitute. But, those who recognize the true tzaddik – the “Hungarian wine”– will not be tricked.

If we only do our task and try to get to know Hashem – we too will never be tricked. So how do we recognize the true tzaddik? Look for the spiritual leader who is bring the most people closer to Hashem. So, instead of being tricked by the old and foolish king into speaking slander and thinking we’re better than anyone else, we should strive for more emuna and to get closer to Hashem. Why now? Because Mashiach is standing in the doorway…