Wednesday, September 24, 2008

How to Not Get Bummed-Out by the Election


The Baal Shem Tov was once asked a certain matter. He opened a volume of Zohar which was on the table, looked inside, and then told his listeners all about the incident involved. It later transpired that things had been exactly as he described them. So he was asked, "Is it by opening up the Zohar and looking inside it for a moment that you can tell what is going on at a distance?"

The Baal Shem Tov replied, "Our Sages teach us that the light with which the Almighty created the world illumined from one end of the world to the other; Adam too was able to see with this light. But when the Almighty saw that the world was not worhy of using this light, he hid away for the righteous in the World to Come.

Now," asked the Baal Shem Tov, "where did He hide it? -- In the Torah; and when a person studies the Torah for its own sake, a path is lit up for him, enabling him to understand and see from one end of the world to the other, just as things were before G_d hid the light."

1 comment:

  1. I am reading this again months later and I have just realized that the Baal Shem Tov (the BeShT) was pulling his interlocutor's leg. The primal light was hidden in the Torah, but he looked in the Zohar.

    I think this is a 300 year old sight gag. A Jew with a sense of humor -- go figure.

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