Stories

When the king heard his words he bent his ear to the veil to listen to hear his words, for it was a great wonder to the king that there should exist a man who would know all the falsehood of the country. And the royal ministers who heard the wise man's words grew very angry at him, but he keeps on reporting all the falsehood of the country.

The wise man spoke up, "One could say that the king is also like them; that he likes falsehood as the country does. But on the contrary one sees what a man of truth you are, and because of this you keep your distance from them: on account that you cannot bear the falsehood of the country." And he began to praise the king very, very much.

And the king, because he was very humble - and "in the place of his greatness, there is his humility," for that is the way of a humble man, that the more he is praised and extolled, the smaller to himself and the humbler he becomes - so on account of the wise man's great praise and exaltation of the king, the king entered into great humility and extreme tininess, until he became absolutely nothing. And he could no longer withhold himself and he threw aside the veil to see the wise man: who is it that knows and understands all this? The king's face was revealed, and the wise man saw him, depicted his portrait and brought it back to the first] king. -- from Tale #6, Story of the Humble King

Features:
* The most meticulous, faithful translation to date
* Numerous appendices with commentary and biographical data:
Rimzei haMaasiyoth Chayei Moharan Likutei Halakhoth
* Divisions and diagrams to aid the reader
Edited by Nissim Kaufmann, PhD