The Jewish Parrot
After his wife died, an old Jew received a parrot from his sons to keep him company. After a time, he discovered that the parrot had heard him pray so often that it learned to say the prayers. The old man was so thrilled he decided to take his parrot to the synagogue on the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah.
The rabbi protested when he entered with the bird, but when told the parrot could "daven" (pray), the rabbi, though still skeptical, showed interest. People started betting on whether the parrot would pray, and the old man happily took bets that eventually totaled $50,000.
The prayers began, but the bird was silent. As the prayers continued, there was still not a word from the bird. When the prayers ended, the old man was not only crestfallen but also $50,000 in debt.
On the way home, he thundered at his parrot, "Why did you do this to me? I know you can pray; you know you can pray. Why did you keep your mouth shut? Do you know how much money I owe people now?"
To which the parrot replied, "A little business imagination would help you, dear friend. You must look ahead: Can you imagine what the stakes will be like on Yom Kippur?"
Double Compensation
This week's Torah portion, Mishpatim, which deals primarily with civil and tort law, presents the following law [1]:
"If a man shall give money or vessels to his fellow to safeguard, and it is stolen from the man's house, if the thief is found, he shall pay double."
Simply put, the Torah states here the law that a thief need not only compensate the victim for the loss; he is also given a penalty and is obligated to pay double the sum that he took.
Yet, a well-known axiom in Jewish thought is that every single passage in the Torah contains, in addition to its literal meaning, a psychological and spiritual interpretation.
The physical and concrete dimension of a mitzvah may not always be practically relevant, yet its metaphysical message remains timelessly relevant in our inner hearts and psyches.
What is the psychological interpretation of the above law?
The Human Custodian
"If a man shall give money or vessels to his fellow to safeguard," can be understood as a metaphor for the Creator of life entrusting each person with "money and vessels to safeguard." G-d grants each of us a body, a mind, a soul, a family, and a little fraction of His world's resources. He asks us to nurture them and protect them from inner and outer forces that threaten to undermine their splendor and wholeness.
Yet, each of us also possesses an inner "thief" who schemes to steal these gifts and use them in an inauthentic way. This "thief" represents the "destructive inclination"—yetzer hara, in Talmudic jargon—that exists within the human psyche and seeks to control my body and mind, hijacking these Divine resources and using them cheaply and superficially, abusing their identity, violating their integrity, and derailing them from their destiny and splendid mission, to channel the infinite Divine energy into our bodies and the world.
When an instinctive thought compels me to surrender to despair, to lose my temper, to binge, to gamble, to drink, to consume something destructive for my body, to fill me with anxiety, fear, envy, or insecurity, my inner "thief" has just "hijacked" part of my soul and my inner Divine and pure identity, making me believe that I am fragmented and disconnected.
When I lie for short-term convenience, or I numb my system to avoid living with full presence, my inner "thief" has robbed me from living in flow, using my energy and limbs to feed the "kelipa" energy, the husks and shells that obscure my inner infinite light. When I cheat in a business deal or behave dishonestly, when I surrender to gossip or slander, my inner "thief" manages to seize my beautiful energy and use it for something that is not real.
Apathy and Guilt
There may be those few individual saints who never fail to safeguard their sacred space.
Yet many of us are subjected to frequent or infrequent visitations by this little thief who conquers particles, chunks or seasons of our lives. How do we deal with it?
Some people feel that their battles against their inner thief are, in the end, destined for failure. They give up the fight, allowing the thief to take whatever he wants, whenever he wants. They develop a certain lightheadedness and cynicism toward living a life of dignity and depth.
Others, at the other extreme, become dejected and melancholy. Their failures instill within them feelings of self-loathing as they wallow in guilt and despair.
Judaism has rejected both of these notions since both deprive us of living life to the fullest, appreciating our sacred Divine core, and leading us into the abyss, one through carelessness and the other through depression [2].
The Majesty of Returning
The Torah, in the above law, offers instead this piece of advice: "If a man shall give money or vessels to his fellow to safeguard, and it is stolen from the house of the man, if the thief is found, he shall pay double." Go out, suggest the Torah, and find the thief. Then you will receive double what you possessed originally!
Here we are introduced to, subtly, the exquisite dynamic known in Judaism as teshuvah, or psychological and moral recovery.
Instead of wallowing in your guilt and despair, and instead of surrendering to apathy and cynicism, you ought to identify and confront your "thief," those forces within your life that keep derailing you. Confront the pain and loneliness leading you to these thoughts and behaviors.
Then you will receive from the thief double the amount he took in the first place. The experience of falling and rebounding will allow you to discover your deepest beauty and light, and deepen your spirituality and dignity in a fashion double that of what it might have been without the thievery.
The Talmud[3] puts it thus: "Great is repentance, for as a result of it, willful sins are transformed into virtues." When you, sadly, fail and allow your life to go to shambles, but then confront the thief and reclaim your authentic life as your own, those previous failures bestow upon you a perspective, an appreciation, a depth, and a determination that otherwise would not have been possible.
By engaging in the remarkable endeavor of teshuvah, the sin itself is redefined as a mitzvah. Why? Because the very failure and its resulting frustration generate a profound and authentic passion and appreciation for the good and the holy [4].
The next time your inner thief hijacks your moral life, see it as a reclamation opportunity: reclaim your life with a double dose of light, love, holiness, and purity [5].
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[1] Exodus 22:6.
[2] See Tanya beginning of Chap. 1 about the danger of both of these paths. Cf. Tanya end of chapter 36.
[3] Yuma 86b.
[4] Tanya chapter 7.
[5] This essay is based on Or Hatorah Parshas Mishpatim vol. 4 p. 1050. Sefas Emes Parshas Mishpatim, in the discourses of the year 5635 (1875.) Or Hatorah was authored by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch, the Tzemach Tzedek, third Lubavitcher Rebbe (1789-1866). The Sefas Emes, a Chassidic work on the Pentateuch, was authored by the second master of the Chassidic dynasty of Gur, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter (1847-1905). See there for the spiritual explanation behind the following verse: "If the thief is not found, then the householder shall approach the court that he had not laid his hand upon his fellow's property." (In other words, if the custodian (who is unpaid) claims that he is not responsible for the loss of the object since it was stolen, he must come to court to swear that he has not made unauthorized personal use of the item.)
