A parable of the Baal Shem Tov:

A king had a son who gave him much delight. And he wanted even more delight.

Because there are many sorts of delight. There’s delight from cute things your child does. There’s delight from seeing him grow into a true prince. There’s delight from playing, learning, and talking with your son as he transforms into a prince.

But within all these delights is an inner delight that touches your very core, a delight that cannot be sensed, cannot be known, cannot be spoken. It must unfold on its own. And it can only unfold within the otherness of distance.

So the king sent his son off to discover the big, wide world. And yes, the son discovered the world—and forgot the palace. He forgot the delight of being with his father and the delight his father had of being with him.

The king sent for his son, but he did not return. He sent important ministers to speak with him, but he did not listen.

But then, a wise minister devised a strategy. He changed his ministerial robes for jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers (or whatever they wore in those days). He learned to speak the slang the prince now spoke. Then he went off on a motorbike to make friends with the prince.

The prince returned.

The king, explained the Baal Shem Tov, is G‑d. The prince, that’s you.

And the wise minister represents the stories told in the Torah.

That’s what they appear to be—just stories. But clothed within them is your heavenly Father’s deepest wisdom. Indeed, it is a wisdom from the very essence of the King, so deep that it could not be spoken, it could not be known…

…except through a story told to a child absorbed within the otherness of distance.

And within that wisdom, at its very core, is G‑d’s deepest delight in you, an irresistible delight that draws you to return home.

What squeezes out such unfathomable depths to the surface, the unspeakable to be spoken, the unknowable to be known?

The peril of the king’s son, that he not be lost entirely to the darkness of this world. Such a darkness is the ultimate enemy, and to vanquish such an enemy, all options are on the table. To win this war, the king will open his entire treasury, his most precious heirlooms, that of which even his treasurer was not aware, and command, “Take it! Take it all!”

He will throw his very life into winning this war.

Which is why, in his message to his child, it’s all there. His very blood and soul is invested within those words, those stories, those teachings to a child lost in the dream of a distant world.

In the final days of the exile of the Jewish people, a time when darkness covers the earth and humanity walks in blind confusion, at that time a message arrives from Above.

That which was entirely beyond every previous generation is placed within our grasp. That which the greatest luminaries of Torah would have given everything to know is now spoonfed to our puny minds. The unknowable is made known, the ineffable is spoken, and the very essence of Torah, of G‑d, and of our souls is laid before us to gaze upon, to contemplate, to lift our minds and hearts.

And to carry us back home.

—Based on the maamar Bati Legani 5726