The Treasure

Do not deceive yourselves! Self-deception means imagining things that do not exist. For instance, imitating someone who has very little to do with our own situation. We have already explained how every person is unique; he can only occupy his place, assume his task if he accepts himself as he is initially, with the intention of improving and of developing his basic resources. If he tries to assume a different role, if he copies someone else, he bypasses his destiny and goes astray in an illusion.

 

Every age has its myths, its fashion: legendary figures that serve as models to be idolized by the masses. Most people follow the fashion and seek to identify with the stars who represent these myths. This is a very powerful current and it is hard not to be swept along by it. In fact, these legends conceal deeper questions; questions of life posed by the evil inclination and designed to plunge people to their ruin. The man who blindly follows fashion is like a lemming hastening to the sea. Unwittingly, he gives access to his subconscious to problems that will block him, eat away at him, and prevent him from expressing himself as he really is. He has copied the crowd, he has melted into it, he has lost his place.

 

The Jewish People on the whole, and throughout his history, has always heroically resisted myths. True to the faith of our forefathers, the Chosen People has assumed its originality in spite of all the currents; in spite of the fashions and even if it always seems behind the times. Yet, history has shown so many times how much the Israelites were ahead of times by a couple of millenniums!

 

The individual Jew must adopt this attitude: resist the myths and know what counts for him is to be true to himself, no matter what those around him think. It is precisely in this way that he will enrich mankind.

 

In order to resist the pressures and currents of fashions against which his own thoughts is powerless (he does not know from where the danger comes, where the trap lies), the Jew has always turned to the Righteous of his generation. However powerful the fantasy, there are always heroes, who by their purity and reflection arrive at very high levels; they perceive answers to the most profound questions of their generation. They teach us the Torah in our own language. They teach us to adapt the eternal truths to our actual situation. They instruct us how not to delude ourselves!

 

In the days of Queen Esther, a current named Amalek was so widespread that it had contaminated all the consciences of the generation. The cult of Haman, the idol of this movement, had spread to such a point that only Mordechai resisted it: he did not bow down; he did not enter into this collective illusion. Mordechai was the hero of his generation. Together with Queen Esther he was able to demystify the dictator, showing the entire Jewish people the absurdity of the fashionable myth. He saved his fellow Jews from genocide, by showing them how to escape the current.

 

If we study the text of the Scroll of Esther attentively, we realize that the methods recommended by Mordechai were extremely simple. Anyone could have said the same thing; everyone knows that you must not let yourself be deceived. However, it is not enough to day this, one must demonstrate it. Only the authentic spiritual leader knows the secret of winning over weary hearts, of motivating a mind trapped and paralyzed, and leading it to the threshold of truth by the right rectification.

 

Let us seek out this Mordechai today! He exists, there is no orphan generation. Let us seek this guide sent by god to light our way and to tech us how to avoid self-deceit and how to resist collective illusion.

 

There was once a man who dreamed about a certain town in Austria with a bridge, and a treasure under the bridge…He traveled to the town, and found the bridge, but did not know how to proceed. In the daytime he could not search for the treasure because of the numerous passersby. A guard asked him: "What are you doing there, thinking?"

 

The man decided to tell the solider about his dream, so that he would help him, and they would share the treasure. "Only a Jew would take a dream seriously," said the soldier. "I had a dream too: that in a certain town there is a man (he mentioned the name of that man and his town) and there is a treasure in his house. Am I going to go to this man?"

 

The man went home and searched his house and found the treasure there. "Now, I know", said the man, "that the treasure is in my home. But to learn this, I had to go all the way to Vienna!"

 

The same applies to those who wish to draw close to God. The "treasure", the spiritual values, the virtues, the strength, are in each one of us. But to discover this fortune, we have to go to the Righteous one of our generation.

 

You are not far from the treasure. You know, this treasure that God sent you to find in this world. He gave you the plan to guide you: the Torah. He gave you light to inspire you, to stimulate your search. He sent stars to guide you in the night, the night of the world and of life. These stars are these ideas that we are discussing now and that come from the firmament of the Righteous.

 

If you place all you intelligence, your strength and your confidence in these ideas, you will certainly find your treasure. Even as a child you wondered about the purpose of life. You have searched, eliminated, chosen, sorted; you have discovered your path. Know that at the end of the road your treasure waits for you: the answer to your questions: "What is the purpose of my life? Where are the hidden forces that could help me to fulfill it?"