By Yochanan Gordon
There is a rule in the media that sensationalism sells. If you are looking for a story to promote, look for news stories of a man biting a dog rather than a dog biting a man, which is far more common. On that note, the only thing more sensational than a man biting a dog would be a man becoming a dog.
We reached that new low last week, when a Japanese YouTuber who goes by the moniker Toco was said to have fulfilled his lifelong desire to become a border collie. He commissioned the company Zeppet, known for commercial and movie costumes, and paid them two million yen, the equivalent of $14,000, to create a life-like collie costume, which took them 40 days to make. Videos posted across the internet show this apparently tormented man who identifies as an animal rather than a human being taking a walk in the park, turning over, eating dog food, and doing other dog-like tricks, while being led by a woman who is followed by a cadre of photographers seemingly celebrating his every dog milestone.
In a normal, healthy, functioning society, such a story would be cause for grief and anxiety, but in today’s woke world that seeks to grant equality and freedom to mentally ill people to redraw gender assignments and roles and now the separation between animals and humans, it isn’t a cause for concern. Much to the contrary, it makes for good headlines and is celebrated. What’s interesting is that it was reported online that this dog man expressed concern that some people might make fun of him for becoming an animal, which led me to wonder if animals suffer from the same insecurities about being created as an animal rather than something else.
Encountering this story online in seemingly mainstream news outlets led me to wonder what lesson it can hold. The Ba’al Shem Tov taught that everything a person hears or sees possesses a message for that person in avodas Hashem. And although the chances are that none of us struggle with the thought that we were meant to be something other than how we were created, the fact that the story was brought to our attention in an accepted news medium means that there must be somewhat of a universal message being conveyed through this bizarre story.
It immediately occurred to me that one of Rebbe Nachman’s short stories has a similar storyline. Rebbe Nachman taught the following parable of a prince who went mad and thought he was a turkey. He stripped off all his clothes and sat naked under the royal table, pecking at pieces of bread and bones. The king was in mourning, overcome with turmoil over the fact that his precious son had gone mad, but despite the intervention of all the doctors he had summoned, none of them could cure his son, the prince. A wise man arrived in the royal palace and expressed confidence in his ability to restore the child’s sanity. He stripped himself of his clothes and sat beside the deranged prince, pecking at bread and discarded bones.
The prince-turned-turkey looked to his side and asked the man what he was doing under the table. The man asked the prince in return, “What are you doing under the table?”
The lad replied, “Well, I’m a turkey!”
“I, too, am a turkey,” said the wise man. After a while, the wise man asked for a pair of pants, which elicited funny stares from the king’s son and the question, “What happened to you being a turkey?”
The wise man replied, “A turkey could wear pants.”
A while later, he asked for a shirt, prompting the question, “I thought you were a turkey?
The wise man replied, “A turkey can wear a shirt.”
Slowly but surely, the wise man began to normalize his diet, sit on a chair at the table, and speak as a regular person, all the while maintaining that he was a turkey, and in that manner the prince was cured.
It was remarkable to me that this parable of Rebbe Nachman was presenting itself in real life. It caused me to probe its deeper meaning and the message that the Rebbe was looking to impart. However, before getting to the lessons derived, I wanted to go through the story again and raise a number of questions I came across after taking a closer look at it.
The first distinction between our story with the collie-turned-man and the parable of Rebbe Nachman is that the subject in Rebbe Nachman’s story is a prince and here we are dealing with a Japanese man who is hardly a prince.
Next, in the parable, Rebbe Nachman characterized the prince as having gone mad because he identified as a turkey. It would seem that Rebbe Nachman lived in a time when a human being identifying as a turkey was seen as a bizarre turn of events. Nowadays, it makes for great and celebratory headlines. It was interesting to me that although we are dealing with a clear case of mental illness in the story of the prince who thought he was a turkey, the cure comes from a wise man, not medical professionals who had all tried and failed. Another detail that jumped out at me was that although the wise man succeeds in getting the prince out from under the table and functioning like a regular human being, he does so under the pretense that you can do all these regular things and still be a turkey. So it would seem that he never really addressed the root of the issue, which is how the son of the king can identify as a turkey.
In fact, notwithstanding the amazing lesson that the parable holds in how to effectively address problems, on a certain level it was discouraging in the sense that perhaps it was conveying that we are a bunch of self-perceived turkeys acting like sons of the king. However, upon further analysis the entire approach of the wise man in curing the mad prince was built upon his ability to act like a prince while identifying as a turkey. Unlike the approach of the doctors, which Rebbe Nachman doesn’t describe but can be understood implicitly, the wise man seeks for the prince to choose to act like a prince rather than to do so based on what is expected of him; therefore, the process needs to be gradual and at times is fraught with inconsistencies between actions and identity.
It seems like this is the point of contention between the prince and the wise man. Because when the wise man positions himself under the table next to the prince, the prince asks him, “Who are you? And what are you doing here?” The wise man then asks the prince in return, “What are you doing here?” However instead of answering the question, the prince instead answers, “I am a turkey,” which answers who he is but not what he is doing under the table.
You see, the prince was suffering from the notion of doing things that weren’t in line with his perception of self. The approach of the wise man was centered on making him comfortable with acting like a prince even when he did not feel like one.
We are all sons of the King. And very often due to our composition of an animal soul and a G-dly soul with human needs and desires, we often don’t identify as children of the King. In our quest toward truth and authenticity we conclude that if we don’t feel like royalty by virtue of the fact that we don’t act like it all of the time or most of the time, then we may as well become full-time turkeys, or whatever species you identify as. However, G-d created the world in this manner, and he plunged our souls from His throne of glory into bodies made from the coarsest materials to infuse it with a spirit of G-dliness, not out of expectation but as a matter of choice. We were placed in this world, an overwhelming minority among the billions of other religious adherents, together with atheists and agnostics, to be a guiding light—to show the world the way toward fulfilling their purpose, not as healers but in the way of wise men.
The wise man sits shoulder to shoulder with the prince and shows him, step by step, the way back to his place at the table and upon the right path as a son of the king. Too often we lecture our kids, students, and colleagues who are seeking direction, but they aren’t looking to be lectured; they are looking for relatability and to be shown the way back.
A story is told of a chassid who entered yechidus with the Mitteler Rebbe, Rebbe DovBer Schneerson, in order to get help with certain spiritual maladies that were plaguing him. The Rebbe listened to the chassid intently and asked him to return in a couple of hours. The gabbai asked the Rebbe why he asked the chassid to return and he responded that he needed the time to find within himself the very same issues that the petitioner sought help for, in order to be able to help him.
This is actually supported in a halacha which says that a person could only perform a mitzvah on someone else’s behalf if he himself is obligated in it. The term used to describe doing a mitzvah on someone else’s behalf is yotzei which means to be taken out. The Toldos Yaakov Yosef writes in the name of the Baal Shem Tov that what this means is that I can only help someone out of a difficult situation if I find an aspect of that situation within myself.
We are children of the King. But we have to learn how to be comfortably vulnerable in order to be that light for society that has clearly gone mad and is looking to be shown the way back. n
Yochanan Gordon can be reached at ygordon5t@gmail.com. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.
Yochanan Gordon can be reached at ygordon5t@gmail.com. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.