At all times, and especially in times of distress, people turn
to "miracle- working tzaddikim" who sell their wares to
thousands of gullible people. Stories about terminally ill
patients who were cured, infertile women who conceived,
penniless unfortunates who became millionaires overnight, are
circulating everywhere. By using "practical kaballah"
and "inherited hidden powers" they promise to save mankind
from all its troubles -- for a fee, of course.
In this article, I want to discuss the spread of believers in
such "wonder- workers" among more-or-less observant people.
Doubtless if these charlatans had failed to trap some
religious, or at least traditional, Jews in their net they
would never have succeeded in attracting the general
public.
Believing in "visits from another world" and other unrealistic
fancies answers a psychological need. This is the bread-and-
butter of people who, instead of focusing upon their
obligations in this world, try to run away from reality.
Occasionally it seems to a person that his life is at best
colorless and boring, or at worst depressing and utterly
bitter.
Life is surely not easy: it is full of continuous battles and
daily grappling with problems, crises, and failures. A person
is liable to sink into dejection and despair, and if he lacks
the emotional strength to handle the bitterness of reality, he
will search for a way to escape from it -- some sort of
emergency exit.
Some run away from reality by becoming addicted to narcotics
or alcohol. Others prefer to sleep for endless hours, or to
sit and stare at the empty air. There are those who immerse
themselves in self-made illusions, or in reading the illusions
that some writer has designed. Their common aim: to kill
time.
The above are all popular ways to duck current problems and
daily heartache. There are newspapers and publications that
devote full pages to ultra-fantastic scoops. These reports are
best-sellers because they feed on the vital emotional need
that we are discussing.
Our Holy Torah warns us against all sorts of sorcery, and
spells out the spiritual danger involved in going after such
things. The Rambam (in Sefer Hamitzvos, lo sa'aseh 32)
rules that "You shall not practice divination" (Vayikra
19:26) includes a prohibition against sleight-of- hand tricks,
such as stage magicians use: "These are cunning tricks,
whereby the use of sleight-of-hand convinces people that he
can do wonderful things.
We see them all the time taking a rope and attaching it to the
edge of their clothing, and a snake emerges from it. They toss
a ring into the air, and afterwards remove it from a mouth of
a person standing by. Such acts of famous magicians are
forbidden, and someone who performs them is deceiving people
through the swiftness of his hand. It is a type of sorcery
punishable with malkos and it misleads people."
The magician's sleight-of-hand does not involve using powers
of tumah, but merely employing some simple trick. Why,
then, has the Torah forbade it? The Rambam continues "Enormous
harm comes from this. Portraying totally impossible matters
before fools, women, and children is extremely harmful. It
perverts their mentality and causes them to believe in the
preposterous."
Every illusion portraying the inconceivable as capable of
happening produces immediate spiritual damage. When a person
starts "to believe in the preposterous" he has created a
potential threat that can depreciate his soul and
character.
Imagination and reality are merged together within him. He
stops functioning properly and begins "drifting" in midair,
detached from the world in which he must live and in which he
must fulfill his daily obligations.
This is significant even for the Torah observant, and
especially with regard to our children's education. In the
secular world, developing infants' and children's imagination
is for some reason approved of. "General" childhood literature
in Eretz Yisroel, too, overflows with imaginative stories
about witches and dwarfs, about Supermen flying in the air or
people who can see others but are themselves invisible. The
innocent child swallows these concoctions without even
questioning them. He begins to live in an imaginary world
severed from reality.
Fortunately, due to the increase in chareidi-written childhood
literature it is uncommon nowadays to find such books like
these on the bookshelves of a chareidi family. (If some
remnants of these fantasies still remain they should be
discarded. Although they do no discernible harm, as
written above, engrossing children in the imaginary causes
vast educational damage).
However, because of the feelings of inferiority that are
common for some reason in our camp, a certain degree of this
fantasy writing has penetrated to our children's literature
too. Some people seem powerfully determined to imitate the
secular world and create chulin al taharas hakodesh (to
make pure the mundane). The results: several books have been
written in which the connection between the content of the
book and reality is merely coincidental. Naturally we are not
talking about stories of witches and the like, but fantasies
on a different level: imaginative thrillers, fascinating
adventures, and intriguing plots that never happened and lack
any reasonable chance of actually happening. The writers and
publishers rely upon the children's rich imagination and feed
them pure fabrications.
They are, unfortunately, not taking into consideration the
damage they are causing. They know that by marketing such
stories they will sell a lot of copies, since children -- when
not restrained by their parents -- are captivated by such
imaginary stories and prefer them over "commonplace" real-life
books.
There is another trend which, although it only
pertains indirectly to our present topic, stems from the same
basic source: "miracle" stories, lehavdil. The
unnatural peaks of success these stories have reached
(commercially speaking) can likewise not be overlooked.
There are some people whose entire spiritual interest is
limited to hearing and conveying countless wonder stories.
They even choose their spiritual leaders purely according to
their achievements in wonder-working (it is irrelevant for our
discussion if the stories are true or mere fabrications). This
trend has bred the growth of bogus "wonder workers" like
mushrooms after a rain. Strong rabbinical opposition has
arisen against this state of affairs.
Naturally, no one disagrees that gedolei Torah can
bring salvation to people in a supernatural way. Every novice
knows the concepts of "The will of those who fear Him He
fulfills" (Tehillim 145:19) or "Who rules over Me? A
tzaddik. I make a gezeirah and the
tzaddik annuls it" (Mo'ed Koton 16b), and
others. Throughout history religious Jews have requested an
odom godol to pray for their sick and afflicted, and to
give a brocho for success in various fields. (This
principally refers to Torah disseminators. The Nimukei
Yosef remarked in Bovo Basra 116 that when Chazal
wrote that someone who has a sick person at home should go to
a sage to beseech Hashem to have pity on him, the sage
referred to is someone who "keeps a yeshiva." See also the
Or HaChaim on parshas Beshalach 14:27 and the
No'am Elimelech on parshas Chukas, who write at
length about the power of Torah study to heal the sick and the
prominence of people who toil over the Torah, to whose decrees
nature is subjugated).
Nonetheless, we must be wary of an extremist approach that
considers all of Yiddishkeit to be dependent upon
"wonders." Such an approach causes people to be overly engaged
in such affairs. It is a matter of general knowledge that the
Kotzker Rebbe zt'l used to rebuke his chassidim and
warn them not to pay too much attention to wonders.
Emunah and Judaism are not built only on the basis of
wonders, even when these wonders are clearly and truly done
for them by Heaven. The Rebbe explained that from this
perspective we should study the parshiyos of the
miracles that happened to us when leaving Egypt and until our
receiving the Torah from Heaven.
"Our forefathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders . .
.Then they believed in His words, they sang His praise"
(Tehillim 106:8, 12). The explanation seems to be that
although a wonder excites people, this excitement is only
momentary and is later forgotten. Through the Torah our faith
is strengthened and persists. This is what is meant by "Our
forefathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders" -- they
did not feign understanding faith through wonders. They truly
did "believe in His words," which is the Torah, through which
they "sang His praise" (Ohel Torah 253).
Paying overmuch attention to wonders offers an
easy solution for a person looking for a way to run away from
his true aim in life. Why should he bother with clarifying his
life's obligation, why should he exert himself over
understanding a difficult Tosafos, why does he need to try to
ameliorate faulty character traits? He can forget about all
this and still consider himself to be enveloped in spiritual
growth. How? Simple! He can engage only in "what is important"
in Yiddishkeit -- hearing and telling wonder
stories.
Innocent Jews are liable to succumb to this. They might begin
thinking they are fulfilling their duty by reading and talking
about wonders from dawn to dusk. They are unfortunately
neglecting their obligation to engage in personal spiritual
growth.
Chassidic and mussar leaders in the past have warned
about the dangers of such a trend. Even when a person narrates
stories of tzaddikim he should concentrate on those
facts from which each one of us can gain in yiras
shomayim and new strength for avodas Hashem. When
hearing about the avodas Hashem of gedolim,
their exertions over Torah study and scrupulous upholding of
every halachic detail, a person obtains a personal lesson and
is motivated to emulate their deeds. He then says to himself,
"When will my acts reach the acts of my fathers?" But when he
is preoccupied with hearing wonder stories and relating them
to others he has no time to absorb the important message that
will advance him in avodas Hashem.
The Slonimer Rebbe zt'l, the author of the Beis
Avrohom, told the following: "Once, after the Baal Shem
Tov was niftar, the Baal Shem Tov's holy disciples sat
together and told stories about him. Meanwhile R' Tzi
zy'a, the son of the Baal Shem Tov, fell asleep, and
saw his father in a dream. The Baal Shem Tov told him: "Why
are you telling wonder stories about me? What benefit do you
have from that and what benefit do I have from that? It is
preferable for you instead to tell about the world being for
Hashem's service. From that both you and I will benefit"
(Beis Avrohom, Shavuos, p. 161).
The Sanz-Klausenberger Rebbe said in one of his
shmuessen that, "Chassidim and anshei ma'aseh
were never accustomed to tell wonder stories about their
Rebbes. They used to say, figuratively speaking, `Signs and
wonders [belong] in the land of the children of Cham'
(Ma'ariv). They would always talk about their Rebbe's
great tzidkus and yiras Shomayim and self-
sacrifice for Hashem, and their constant faith in Him, never
diverting their attention from Hashem for even a moment. They
told this type of stories so that others could learn from
them" (divrei Torah during Seudah Shelishis, parshas
Ki Siso, 5735).
Exaggerated involvement in such storytelling testifies to the
nature of our generation. This is an age of "instant
gratification" and "the easy life": people prefer to tell
pleasant, non-obligating stories instead of devoting
themselves to the constant internal battle and the daily
fatiguing labor of advancing in Torah and yiras
Shomayim -- the real duty of each Jew. This behavior also
partakes of flight from reality and the spiritual obligations
of life. One is adopting instead sublime matters that have no
obligating significance or educational aim.
As mentioned previously, our discussion has no connection with
recognizing the power of the tzaddikim to bring
salvation through their Torah and tefilloh. This is not
the question we are addressing. Our topic is to what degree an
average Jew should engage in such stories and whether he is
allowed to let his main objective in life be to tell wonder
stories. About this we can get a clear answer from our Torah
mentors: everything is dependent upon one criterion -- is what
one is doing an aid in his spiritual growth?
Even concerning the belief in the coming of the Moshiach and
the yearning for the Redemption, which are foundations of our
faith, the Rambam writes: "A person should not engage himself
in hagodos and should not study at length
midroshim that deal with such matters. He should not
make them a principal element in his life, since they are not
conducive to yirah or ahavah" (Hilchos
Melachim 12:2). Even this elevated subject should not be
delved into in an extensive way, since it has no present
practical significance for a person's spiritual
advancement.
Even when something is as lofty as can be, that does not
justify devoting precious hours to it if it is not conducive
to the yirah or ahavah of Hashem. A person must
exert his mind and heart only in things that bring an actual
spiritual benefit and have a daily lesson for him. He should
not run away from reality to higher worlds with which he has
no connection.
Some people's obsessive involvement in wonder stories has
reached such a pinnacle that there are those who measure a
person's greatness only according to the wonder stories told
about him. That is the sole yardstick according to which they
choose their spiritual mentor, and therefore there is
presently such a mounting popularity for the various types of
wonder workers.
The Me'or VaShemesh alerted us about such a condition
(parshas Re'ei, ch. 12): "People are accustomed, after
hearing about someone who has done any sign or wonder, to
travel to him and believe everything he says to them. They do
so even though they know nothing of his life since youth, what
his nature is, and how he acts. The truth is that this
[behavior] is worthless. Traveling to a tzaddik to
study his ways and be with him is only [legitimate] after
observing for many years how he acts and his tzidkus
and chassidus. To make signs and wonders the foremost
criterion, even when one does not know what [the person] is
like, is worthless; it is forbidden to travel to [such a
person]."
Running after wonders is extremely dangerous, as sharply
expressed by the Me'or VaShemesh. It stems from dodging
reality and a person's spiritual obligations, clinging instead
to "sublime matters" totally irrelevant to man's true tasks in
life.
