אות - רעב

An irreligious man came to the Rebbe in a certain city and boasted that he was an expert in languages. He had recently been in a government office and was able to interpret a word that even their scribes did not know. He was very conceited because of this knowledge.

When the man left, the Rebbe ridiculed him for such foolish conceit.

One of the Rebbe’s disciples, an extraordinary, God-fearing scholar, was sitting there. He said to the Rebbe, “Maybe it is better to be conceited because of something foolish than to be conceited, Heaven forbid, because of one’s knowledge of Torah.”

The Rebbe was silent for a moment.

Then he said, “No. The opposite is true. The Talmud tells us that when Rabbi Akiva was in prison, Papus said to him, 'Happy are you, Rabbi Akiva, for you were imprisoned for the sake of the Torah. Woe is to Papus, for I was imprisoned for mere foolishness’” ( Berakhot 61b) .

It is brought in Likutey Moharan (I, 22:12) that the punishment for conceit is imprisonment (see also Likutey Moharan II, 63) . Also discussed is the imprisonment of Rabbi Akiva.

It is better to be imprisoned for the conceit of Torah than to be conceited because of foolishness.