The Hasidic Parable

The Crown and the Container

The Crown and the Container great king made for himself a royal crown and prepared a container and frame in which to keep and conceal the crown so that it might remain in good condition. The shape of the container, it stands to reason, is also beautiful , and it has tiny openings through which the crown may be seen. When people come to the king's palace and see the container, the fool thinks, "How lovely is this vessel," for he lacks the wisdom to grasp that the real object of importance and value is not the container but rather what is inside-the crown. The internal is what is essentiaL The wise man, however, the person "with eyes in his head" (Eccl. 2:14) thinks, "Certainly the container is not the real feature," and he squints to gaze through the tiny holes until he catches a glimpse of the crown itself and experiences delight in it (Or Yitzhak)l The above parable is found in a text, Or Yitzhan, which was published only in 1961 from an old manuscript found among a collection of books passed down through the family of the author. Yitzhak of Radvil, who died in 1831, was in his earlier years a student of the Maggid, Dov Baer of Mezherich, as was his father, Michael Yehiel of Zlotshev,2 an important hasidic figure in Eastern Galicia.3 The reader of this parable realizes that the king does not intend to conceal the crown completely. 37 The Cro\Vn and the Container great l~ing made for himself a royal crown and prepared a container and frame in which to l~eep and conceal the crown so that it might remain in good condition. The shape of the container, it stands to reason, is also beautiful , and it has tiny openings through which the crown may be seen. When people come to the l~ing's palace and see the container, the fool thinl~s, llHow lovely is this vessel," for he lacl~s the wisdom to grasp that the real object of importance and value is not the container but rather what is inside-the crown. The internal is what is essential. The wise man, however, the person llwith eyes in his head" (Eccl. 2:14) thinl~s, llCertainly the container is not the real feature," and he squints to gaze through the tiny holes until he catches a glimpse of the crown itself and experiences delight in it. (Or YitzhakP The above parable is found in a text, Or Yitzhak, which was published only in 1961 from an old manuscript found among a collection of books passed down through the family of the author. Yitzhak of Radvil, who died in 1831, was in his earlier years a student of the Maggid, Dov Baer of Mezherich, as was his father, Michael Yehiel of Zlotshev,2 an important hasidic figure in Eastern Galicia.3 The reader of this parable realizes that the king does not intend to conceal the crown completely. 37 38 THE ttAflDIC PA~ABLE To the contrary, he intentionally prepares tiny openings in the exquisite container. However, those openings are so small that they require an effort on the part of the observer to perceive what is in the container. And this effort depends upon the person's understanding that the internal rather than the external is of primary significance, all else being secondary . The image of the container in the parable suggests several different meanings. The vessel holding and concealing the crown might suggest the world itself in which the divine life force (~iyyut, "life quality and vitality"), though concealed, is present, giving life to all that is. The yesh (literally "that which is"; concrete, corporeal reality as known to sensory perception or investigation) itself exists only because there is clad in it the ayin (literally, "nothingness"), the divine reality that is beyond all that we deem "real" on the level of our sensory experience. The world-and the worlds-are but a garment of the Divine, who is present and concealed within the yesh. The parable recalls the saying of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi in the Mishnah: "Do not look at the flask but rather at what it contains.,,4 As the Maggid, Dov Baer of Mezherich, taught, "the essence of everything that is in the world is the spirituality within it, which comes from God [and is of God] who gives it existence.,,5 In light of the parable, one...