The Hasidic Parable

The Ultimate Disloyalty

The Ultimate Disloyalty parable of a king who gives substantial wages to his servant that he might carry out his wishes whenever the king might require his service.... And the servant takes those wages and goes instead to carry out the wishes of another king who is hostile to the servant's own king and employer. Now, could there be a greater act of rebellion and disloyalty than this? Indeed, he would deserve death at the hands of his king. And the nimshal: This is what happens when one takes the divine life force that belongs to the King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, the sale purpose of which is to enable a person to do the Divine Will, and rebels, using it instead to do the will of the sitra ab'ral and the kelipah,2 which the King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, detests. (Sad ebad dekri'at shemap Hasidic teaching emphasizes that apart from ~iyyut (the divine life force activating all that is),4 nothing whatsoever could exist. And it is that same life force-Divine in origin and nature-that accounts for whatever capacities we have, including the ability to see and hear, speak and think, etc. The concept of ~iyyut implies also that our perceptions of multiplicity, along with those of separateness and separate identity, are ultimately inaccurate. The ~iyyut, which participates in any person and 101 The UltiInate Disloyalty parable of a lzing who gives substantial wages to his servant that he might carry out his wishes whenever the IZing might require his service.... And the servant talzes those wages and goes instead to carry out the wishes of another lzing who is hostile to the servant's own lzing and employer. Now, could there be a greater act of rebellion and disloyalty than this? Indeed, he would deserve death at the hands of his lzing. And the nimshal: This is what happens when one talzes the divine life force that belongs to the King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, the sole purpose of which is to enable a person to do the Divine will, and rebels, using it instead to do the will of the sitra ab'ra1 and the kelipah,2 which the King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, detests. (Sod ebad dekri 'at shemap Hasidic teaching emphasizes that apart from ~iyyut (the divine life force activating all that is),4 nothing whatsoever could exist. And it is that same life force-Divine in origin and nature-that accounts for whatever capacities we have, including the ability to see and hear, speak and think, etc. The concept of ~iyyut implies also that our perceptions of multiplicity, along with those of separateness and separate identity, are ultimately inaccurate. The ~iyyut, which participates in any person and 101 102 THE ttAflDIC PA~ABLE any existing entity, is also the same sole divine life force that enables the existence of all that is. David of Malke'iv in Podolia, evidently a contemporary of the Baal Shem Tov,s explained paradoxically that even the pleasure one derives from a transgression would not be possible apart from that ~iyyut, the purpose of which is to enable man to serve God. People commit evil acts on the premise that they are masters of their own energies and capacities, of their own life and being. But in committing a transgression, one is actually employing what is God's in order to serve the sitra a~'ra and the kelipah, which, according to the kabbalistic worldview, will one day be annulled in favor of an unmarred wholeness and holiness throughout all existence. The reader who views his whole life experience in the light of this parable will grasp its message: if that life force is Divine, then its purpose is to bring us to serve God, pursue Torah and mitzvot, and cleave to the Divine Root of our existence and of all existence. It follows that when we employ the capacities we have-along with our very gift of life-not for the service of God, but rather for evil and selfish purposes, that is nothing less than an act of theft. It is the ultimate expression of betrayal against the very source of our being. 1. "The Other Side," the unholy and impure reality, the antithesis of the Divine. According to kabbalistic thought, the sitra a~'ra emerged largely as a by-product of the processes and...