There was once a very old man among the Chassidim, and it was whispered that he had actually seen the holy Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, the Noam Elimelech, in his youth. Naturally, whenever Chassidim would gather around him, they would ask with great excitement, “Is it true? Did you really see the Rebbe of Lizhensk? Tell us, what was it like?”
The old man nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said. “I saw him with my own eyes.” “Then tell us,” they pressed, “what happened?” The man began his tale.
“I was a simple businessman. I had a wagon and horses, and one morning, when I went out to begin my workday, the horses were gone, stolen in the night. I was frantic. People advised me, ‘Go to the Tzaddik, to Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. He’ll help you.’ So I went. I told him my story. The Tzaddik listened quietly, took out a piece of paper and a pen, and began to draw. He drew a map—roads, rivers, landmarks—and then handed it to me. ‘Follow this path,’ he said, ‘and at the end, you will find your horses.’
“What did I have to lose? I took the paper, followed the map step by step, and to my utter astonishment, when I arrived at the exact spot he had marked, there were my horses! Just as he said! A miracle; an open wonder before my eyes.”
The listeners leaned in. “So what happened after that? You must have become a devoted Chassid of the Rebbe! You must have never left his side again!” But the old man shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I never went back.”
They were stunned. “You saw an open miracle, a mofes! You experienced the hand of Heaven through a Tzaddik—and you never went back? How could that be?”
The old man paused and smiled faintly. “I thought about it,” he said, “and I realized... why should I connect myself to a man who keeps company with all the thieves in town?”
The Chassidim were horrified by his logic, and they later repeated this story to the great Ba’alei Mussar.
They said, “This is a perfect example of sevara akuma, crooked reasoning.” But then they asked an even further question. “If such crooked logic can lead a man to suspect a saint, why did Hashem create the capacity for a sevara akuma at all?”
The answer they gave is beautiful. A crooked mind was not created to suspect a Tzaddik; it was created to judge others favorably.
Sometimes, to truly see the good in another person, to find a way to understand them charitably, you have to bend your logic a little. You have to stretch the imagination, twist the reasoning, even contort the mind, just to find a path that leads to compassion.
So yes, a crooked mind exists, but it was meant to make our hearts straight.
