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The founder of modern Chasidism is known as the Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name). Also known as the Besht. Born in the backwaters of the Carpathian Mountains, in what in the 18th century was part of Poland and is now in Ukraine, the Baal Shem Tov anticipated our own struggles with modernity. At the same time his teachings are an invitation inward, a map that allows us access to pre-modern and even prehistoric modes of religiosity, and to the transforming secrets of the Jewish esoteric tradition. The Besht believed that we find God in the ongoing story of one’s own life, and he believed in the value of each individual life—a recipe for an engaged mystic, one who is of the world rather than withdrawn from it.
Following his lead, even our struggles are to be seen in the context of the godly. Difficulties do not come from God, but God is part of our struggles with them. The Baal Shem Tov did not leave behind many teachings but there are numerous stories told about him. Here is one: After he had been teaching for quite some years, his followers asked him – “Rebbe, what is different since you have come and shared your wisdom with us?” And he replied, “Before I came, when a thief tried to enter the house, they would shout and scream and try and scare the thief away. Now that I have come” – the Baal Shem Tov went on to say – “when a thief tries to enter the house, they lie in wait. They trap the thief, and they hand the thief over to the proper authorities.” So that’s the change: Shouting and trying to scare the thief away or letting the thief in before turning the thief over to the proper authorities. Of course, this is not an argument about literal thieves and literal houses. Rather it is a question about the nature of the human soul. What is going on in this parable of the Baal Shem Tov? Well, the house is the body – me, or you. And the thief? In Jungian terms the thief is our shadow – our messy stuff – our failures, our shortcomings, our embarrassments. It is the stuff we keep hidden from our conscious minds. It’s not just the things we have done, but also the things we are drawn to do; the thief is the temptation to do evil, our lusts and our temptations to hurt ourselves and others. The ancient rabbis saw the thief as the yetzer hara – the evil inclination. In Yiddish we might call it the “schmutz” which basically means, an unpleasant unidentified thing, as in “Boychick, you have some schmutz on your face. What were you eating?”
So, in essence the Baal Shem Tov is saying this: Before I came, when people felt the evil inclination coming upon them, they would try and scare the evil inclination away. Now I have come, he says, we let the schmutz in, we acknowledge that it can’t be scared away, and we hand it over to the authorities. We work it over, and we own our schmutz. This is the great contribution of the Baal Shem Tov – helping us to “own our schmutz.” Shouting and screaming and trying to scare the thief away is an immature attitude, and it won’t work – the thief will duck round the corner and plot another heist. We are instead asked to admit that there is something to learn from letting the thief in. You see, there is always something to learn from our evil inclinations, from all of our actions, even the failures. We would rather pretend we have no evil inclination, no garbage, no schmutz. We would rather pretend our sins are somehow justifiable, not really anybody’s fault, and certainly not our own.
The Besht reminds us that we all have darkness inside. Through study, prayer, and mindfulness practice, we can learn to confront the darkness instead of shouting it away. We need to let the thief in, to allow ourselves to consider our sins, our failings, to ask why, after all these years, we keep making the same mistakes. We need to know that we could be better, that we can improve, and we can’t do that unless we acknowledge that, just like every human in this glorious universe of ours, we have our faults, we have, indeed, a thief in the bottom of the garden. But the journey towards this wholeness begins with each of us and our individual response to the thief lurking at the bottom of our gardens. Make no mistake: the thief is dangerous and looming, but he can be managed with awareness and discipline. Mindfulness is where the awareness kicks in.
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