10 Feb MISHPATIM: WE ALL HAVE AN INNER THIEF; MAKE SURE HE PAYS YOU DOUBLE WHEN YOUR INNER THIEF STEALS YOUR DIGNITY, YOU CAN RECLAIM A DOUBLE PORTION OF IT

The Jewish Parrot
After his wife died,
an old Jew received a
parrot from his sons
to keep him company.
After a time, he
discovered that the
parrot had heard him
pray so often that it learned to say the prayers.
The old man was so thrilled he decided to
take his parrot to the synagogue on the Jewish
New Year of Rosh Hashanah.
The rabbi protested when he entered with the
bird, but when told the parrot could “daven”,
the rabbi, though still skeptical, showed
interest. People started betting on whether the
parrot would pray, and the old man happily
took bets that eventually totaled $50,000.
The prayers began, but the bird was silent. As
the prayers continued, there was still not a
word from the bird. When the prayers ended,
the old man was not only crestfallen but also
$50,000 in debt.
On the way home, he thundered at his parrot,
“Why did you do this to me? I know you can
pray; you know you can pray. Why did you
keep your mouth shut? Do you know how
much money I owe people now?”

To which the parrot replied, “A little business
imagination would help you, dear friend. You
must look ahead: Can you imagine what the
stakes will be like on Yom Kippur?”
Double Compensation
This week’s parsha, Mishpatim, which deals
primarily with civil and tort law, presents the
following law:
“If a man shall give money or vessels to his
fellow to safeguard, and it is stolen from the
man’s house, if the thief is found, he shall pay
double.”
Simply put, the Torah states here the law that
a thief need not only compensate the victim
for the loss; he is also given a penalty and is
obligated to pay double the sum that he took.
Yet, a well-known axiom in Jewish thought is
that every single passage in the Torah
contains, in addition to its literal meaning, a
psychological and spiritual interpretation.
The physical and concrete dimension of a
mitzvah may not always be practically
relevant, yet its metaphysical message
remains timelessly relevant in our inner
hearts and psyches.
What is the psychological interpretation of
the above law?

The Human Custodian
“If a man shall give money or vessels to his
fellow to safeguard,” can be understood as a
metaphor for the Creator of life entrusting
each person with “money and vessels to
safeguard.” G-d grants each of us a body, a
mind, a soul, a family, and a little fraction of
His world’s resources. He asks us to nurture
them and protect them from inner and outer
forces that threaten to undermine their
splendor and wholeness.
Yet, each of us also possesses an inner
“thief” who schemes to steal these gifts and
use them in an inauthentic way. This “thief”
represents the “destructive inclination”—
yetzer hara, in Talmudic jargon—that exists
within the human psyche and seeks to control
my body and mind, hijacking these Divine
resources and using them cheaply and
superficially, abusing their identity, violating
their integrity, and derailing them from their
destiny and splendid mission, to channel the
infinite Divine energy into our bodies and the
world.
When an instinctive thought compels me to
surrender to despair, to lose my temper, to
binge, to gamble, to drink, to consume
something destructive for my body, to fill me
with anxiety, fear, envy, or insecurity, my
inner “thief” has just “hijacked” part of
my soul and my inner Divine and pure
identity, making me believe that I am
fragmented and disconnected.
When I lie for short-term convenience, or
I numb my system to avoid living with full
presence, my inner “thief” has robbed me
from living in flow, using my energy and
limbs to feed the “kelipa” energy, the
husks and shells that obscure my inner
infinite light. When I cheat in a business
deal or behave dishonestly, when I
surrender to gossip or slander, my inner
“thief” manages to seize my beautiful
energy and use it for something that is not
real.
Apathy and Guilt
There may be those few individual saints
who never fail to safeguard their sacred
space.
Yet many of us are subjected to frequent
or infrequent visitations by this little thief
who conquers particles, chunks or seasons
of our lives. How do we deal with it?
Some people feel that their battles against
their inner thief are, in the end, destined
for failure. They give up the fight,
allowing the thief to take whatever he
wants, whenever he wants. They develop
a certain lightheadedness and cynicism
toward living a life of dignity and depth.
Others, at the other extreme, become
dejected and melancholy. Their failures
instill within them feelings of self-loathing
as they wallow in guilt and despair.

Judaism has rejected both of these notions
since both deprive us of living life to the
fullest, appreciating our sacred Divine core,
and leading us into the abyss, one through
carelessness and the other through depression.
The Majesty of Returning
The Torah, in the above law, offers instead
this piece of advice: “If a man shall give
money or vessels to his fellow to safeguard,
and it is stolen from the house of the man, if
the thief is found, he shall pay double.” Go
out, suggest the Torah, and find the thief.
Then you will receive double what you
possessed originally!
Here we are introduced to, subtly, the
exquisite dynamic known in Judaism as
teshuvah, or psychological and moral
recovery.
Instead of wallowing in your guilt and
despair, and instead of surrendering to apathy
and cynicism, you ought to identify and
confront your “thief,” those forces within
your life that keep derailing you. Confront
the pain and loneliness leading you to these
thoughts and behaviors.
Then you will receive from the thief double
the amount he took in the first place. The
experience of falling and rebounding will
allow you to discover your deepest beauty
and light and deepen your spirituality and
dignity in a fashion double that of what it
might have been without the thievery.
The Talmud puts it thus: “Great is repentance,
for as a result of it, willful sins are transformed
into virtues.” When you, sadly, fail and allow
your life to go to shambles, but then confront
the thief and reclaim your authentic life as
your own, those previous failures bestow
upon you a perspective, an appreciation, a
depth, and a determination that otherwise
would not have been possible.
By engaging in the remarkable endeavor of
teshuvah, the sin itself is redefined as a
mitzvah. Why? Because the very failure and
its resulting frustration generate a profound
and authentic passion and appreciation for the
good and the holy.
The next time your inner thief hijacks your
moral life, see it as a reclamation opportunity:
reclaim your life with a double dose of light,
love, holiness, and purity.