36) Sometimes The Yetzer Hora Is The Beis HaMedrash:

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

35) Are You Staying For The Party?

During the great spectacle of the Sinai experience, the Torah says; “And the people saw the thunder and flames...and Moshe entered the cloud where G-d was.”[1]

The Kotzker Rebbe explains that there are two very different ways of experiencing Judaism.

One is on a popularist and social level where one is drawn towards all the trappings and constructs of superficiality.
This is where the ‘people’ miss the essential and see only the ‘thunder and flames’ – the external show of sound and light.

The other is on a real and profoundly deep level, where there is no show, but like Moshe one simply enters silently and alone into the cloud.[2]

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[1] Shemot 20:15-19

[2] Amud HaEmet p. 54 par. 1