The Kotzker Rebbe explained that the evil inclination is very devious. It doesn’t only try persuade us to commit sins. It also sometimes persuades us do to mitzvos, but for the wrong reasons.
It requires acute spiritual and psychological awareness to recognize the latter[1]. This is because religion is often a great mask, preventing us from dealing with deeper problems lurking within.
The Kotzker Rebbe once met a student in the Beis HaMedrash (study hall)
and asked him what he was thinking. The student responded that he was thinking
about this exact concept; - to which the master responded; “Good on you”.[2]
Kotzk was known to
acknowledge the great irony that acts of religious piety are often rooted in
spiritual pathology.
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[1]
This is based on a typical Kotzk technique of re-reading verses of the Torah.
Thus ‘Im bamachteret yimatzei haganav’(Shemot 22:1) does not read; ‘If while tunneling
(into a house in order to steal) the thief is found. Rather a comma is
inserted after ‘bamachteret’, and the verse reads; ‘If one searchers diligently,
one will find the thief (yetzer hara)’.
[2]
Amud HaEmet p. 56 par. 4
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