What Can We Learn from a Thief?

Evil is a façade. It is hidden good waiting to be revealed. Our challenge is to see the hidden good by both shunning evil, learning from it and then transforming it.

Why Evil Exists

This week’s Torah portion begins with the words:

“When you go forth to war upon your enemies…and you capture captives.”

While the Torah here is simply discussing the laws concerning a prisoner of war in the physical sense, there is a profound message to each and every one of us. Every verse and word of Torah is relevant in all places and all times. The Ba’al Shem Tov, founder of the Chassidic movement (whose birthday on the 18th–Chai of Elul coincides with the parsha of Ki Seitzei and Ki Savo) provided us with a deeper insight into this verse.

We are constantly engaged in a spiritual battle. After all, we are composites of both a G-dly soul and an animal soul. They are engaged in a perennial struggle for control of the person.

Step One: Shun Evil

Conventional wisdom and classical Jewish thought tells us that we must, first and foremost, shun all evil by distancing ourselves from it lest we will be overwhelmed by it.

That is rule number one.

Don’t try to reason with your evil impulse; make deals with it, or otherwise attempt to outmaneuver it. The evil impulse—which is borne out of our natural instinct for survival and self-preservation—comes to us as soon as we are born. The newborn’s sucking instinct is one example of how we are born with this natural effort.

From this perspective, the existence of evil can only be justified because it poses a challenge for us. By struggling with evil and then repudiating it, we grow in our spiritual development.

And by no means is this form of growth to be underestimated. According to the teachings of Chassidus, the G-dly energy we unleash by performing a Mitzvah is one that can easily be internalized. The energy that we generate by restraining ourselves and refraining from doing something that is against G-d’s will, unleashes a far greater G-dly force—so sublime that we cannot access it by an action. It can only be accessed by being passive in the face of temptation.

Step Two: Harness Evil

There is, according to the teaching of the Ba’al Shem Tov, another way for us to deal with evil that is alluded to in the opening verse of this week’s parsha.

While we may never engage in evil behavior for any positive outcome—for the end never justifies the means— there are ways, the Ba’al Shem Tov taught us, we may learn and benefit from evil.

Commenting on the opening phrase of this parsha cited earlier, the Ba’al Shem Tov states that one can and may derive lessons how to better serve G-d from evil. Anything negative in ourselves or in the world can be exploited for the good, if one learns how to derive lessons from it in the service of the Creator.

This then is the spiritual meaning of “capturing captives.” We must seek out the positive lessons from every experience, even if they are evil. We then succeed in augment our positive forces by availing ourselves of the positive energy “captured” from evil.

The Seven Lessons

Rabbi Zushe of Anipole, the famed Chassidic sage (a colleague of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the author of the Chassidic classic, the Tanya, and the founder of the Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic movement, whose birthday is on the 18th of Elul, the same as the Ba’al Shem Tov 47 years later), was wont to say that he had learned seven things from a thief.

1. What he does he does he keeps to himself.

2. He is willing to take risks to achieve his goal.

3. He does not distinguish between “major” and “minor” things, but takes equally exacting care of each and every detail.

4. He invests great effort in what he does.

5. He is swift.

6. He is always optimistic.

7. If at first he fails, he is back time and again for another try.

If we had to find the thread that runs through all of these seven traits of the thief it is: conscientiousness.

In the same manner that Rabbi Zushe succeeded in pinpointing the positive traits of the thief we can, similarly, look for positive lessons in all areas of life.

Why Learn Positive Lessons from Evil?

One may raise a simple question: Why does one have to learn conscientiousness from a thief? Why can’t we learn the same lesson from the righteous people that live in every generation? Certainly, it would be far better to learn positive lessons from positive people?

Four answers can be given:

First, unfortunately, evil is far more ubiquitous than good. We cannot always afford to wait to find a righteous person from whom to learn the proper lessons of life. In the meantime we should not feel that we are left without guidance. Just take a look at the way evil works and see what traits that make them effective can be appropriated for the good.

Second, we have a tendency to not learn lessons from people who are head and shoulders above us. Frequently we hear people say, “How can I ever be expected to be like that person?”

Thus, the Rebbe states that the words of Ethics of the Fathers, “Who is wise, one who learns from all people,” are also intended to address those who are loathe to learn from people who are on higher levels. Sometimes we put people on a pedestal so we can find excuses why we’re not like them.

And since not everyone is wise enough to heed that directive of learning from all—including those who are much higher than ourselves—we must resort to learning positive lessons from those who are morally and spiritually lower than us.

Third, there is also the converse attitude we have towards learning lessons from those who are higher than us. It is called cynicism. It is a common occurrence to find fault even with the greatest of people. How many times to we find people attempting to minimize the greatness of even the most revered individuals. Even rabbis will occasionally try to “humanize” the heroic figures of Judaism and find fault even with the most righteous. There is a human frailty that sees fault with everyone and will see the negative even in the positive. How can one derive the positive lessons of a righteous individual if one will argue that they are not truly so righteous; they also have ulterior motives, etc.

Hence, it is also important to learn lessons from less than righteous individuals. And in some ways it is easier because some will be comfortable identifying with flawed individuals because they see themselves in the others who are flawed. And, since we also like to think of ourselves as being good despite our shortcomings, there is no better way—for people with this mindset—than to learn the good from other flawed people.

The fourth answer relates to the way we benefit the world when we extract positive lessons from evil. By deriving these lessons we take the good that is embedded in the evil and thereby increase the amount of positive energy in the world.

Step Three: Transform Evil

This process of “capturing a captive” is a prelude to an even more sublime form of exploiting evil that relates to the process of Teshuvah (repentance, return, a timely theme in this month of Elul as we prepare for the New Year).

Teshuvah itself has been divided into several levels.

Basic Teshuvah, which derives from fear of retribution, has the effect of merely mitigating the sin. When one’s motivation for Teshuvah, however, is out of love, the Talmud declares, the sins then are actually converted into virtues. Teshuvah, thus, has the capacity to not only glean some useful lessons from evil, but to totally transform it into good as well.

Three Steps in Preparation for Redemption

All three steps in dealing with evil carry even greater weight in our day and age as we prepare ourselves for the imminent coming of Moshiach.

The first level of shunning evil is especially relevant today. We are living in the age where the paradox of evil is in evidence. On the one hand, thousands of years of G-dly light has been generated by the good of our forebears that dispelled most of the insidious darkness and force of evil. Yet, what evil is extant today is the most potent and concentrated form.

Therefore, on the side of challenge, our generation has the greatest challenge to combat that evil, thereby unleashing unprecedented G-dly light. And when we reflect on the fact that the intensity of evil notwithstanding, we are on the verge of experiencing the very disappearance of evil, this provides us with tremendous encouragement that the war is almost over. True, the enemy makes his last stand and seems to exhibit greater power than before, but it is his last gasp.

The second level of dealing with evil, which is to learn lessons from evil, is much more pronounced now. We are witnesses to how the most audacious forms of evil assert themselves. The potency of evil is in direct proportion to the G-dly energy it masks and perverts. If we seek unconventional G-dly light we can find it when we unmask the evil and strip the G-dly energy from its vulgar façade of evil.

But, most importantly, we have an unprecedented opportunity to experience the third level of dealing with evil—the higher level of Teshuvah—which is the transformation of evil into good. We are situated on the very last patch of exile with a clear view of the future dynamics. We have the power to do Teshuvah motivated by a profound love for G-d, fueled by our disgust with the state of alienation from G-d we are presently This third approach to evil is the most effective way of preparing ourselves for the Messianic Age.

In simple terms this entails discovering the good in everyone and in every one of life’s experiences; a concept that has been greatly emphasized by the Ba’al Shem Tov as well as Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi.

Although we still have to be vigilant not to be ensnared by evil by shunning evil, we must also make an effort to focus on the positive ideals that can be gleaned from everything.

Our transformative Teshuvah and our obsession with seeing the good in everything now is thus a prelude to the fulfillment of the prophecy, “The spirit of impurity I shall remove from the land.” During the Messianic Age evil in all of its forms will be completely transformed into holiness so that even the potential of evil will not exist.

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Ki Seitzei by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.