Parables

Like all of Rebbe Nachman's tales, "The Clever One and the Simple One" is a kaleidoscope. Superficially, it's a guide to success and happiness. On a deeper level, it signifies the battle between simple emuna and intellectual sophistication. Today's lesson introduces us to our two protagonists.

We often learn that so-called "friends" abandon us when we really need them, while others whom we never paid much attention to turn out to be steadfast in time of trouble. Watch this inspiring campfire story with an important lesson for life, especially now:

Before the war, when I spoke at a girl's school in Brooklyn. We discussed the importance of a person having his or her own personal relationship with the Creator and speaking to Him daily. Then, a young lady shot up from her seat and said, "Hey Rabbi, what you're talking about might have applied to Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah and other holy women mentioned in the Torah, but not to me and my generation. How could God possibly care about me, especially when I'm far from Torah and holiness and all that stuff? What does He need me for anyway?" Great question; here's my answer...

People think that they can have a life of fun and games with no responsibility or accountability and then expect to earn a first-class seat with all the amenities up in Heaven. It doesn't work that way...

Could you believe that a brilliant investment banker would be gullible enough to sell his twenty million-dollar mansion in Beverly Hills for a mere thousendth of its value? Listen to today's podcast, which exposes the sly methods of the Yetzer Hara, the evil inclination, who is capable of getting any unsuspecting person to sell his or her priceless soul for a pittance...

Here's a delightful parable I heard from the renown Novardoker Maggid, Rabbi Yankel'e Galinski, of saintly and blessed memory, about a group of drunkards. This is something to keep in mind not only while preparing for Purim and Passover, but all year long.

The mere idea of Yom Kippur is enough to raise the anxiety level of many people; that's because no one ever explained to them how Yom Kippur is the happiest day in the Jewish calendar. For real? Hear this.

A Ukrainian villager had a pain in his hand. Three visits to the country doctor didn't help at all. He finally traveled to the big city and scheduled an appointment with the big professor... This is an old Chassidic parable that explains Tisha B'av and exile.

Imagine that a stranger knocks on your front door. You look through the peephole to see who it is, and before you know – without your permission – he walks right through the door as if it were thin air. Right away you understand that this is no human. It's an angel. He identifies himself: the head debt-collection angel from the Heavenly bank and he looks serious. Here's how to avoid situations like this... 

I don't know how to express my concern for my beloved country that is now the victim of unprecedented intramural hate and discord, so I invented Old Charlie. He's the type of leader we need.

A bloke in the back was drinking his beer. One of the patrons in the pub hushed up the party: "The king's in the pub!" His mates thought that he was daft... This is an encouraging parable about life's difficulties.

This is a parable about our true source of vitality. A leaf thought that the other creatures who had no connection to the tree had a better life than she did. She wanted to be free and to fly in the wind. She decided to sever herself from the tree. Here's what happened: