What an impoverished person still hopes for
Chovas HaTalmidim, chapter 11, gives a related analogy. Someone who was wealthy loses his money. He may have to reduce his living costs and be unable to give tzedakah as before. If he still sees himself as someone whose present poverty is not the whole story, he continues looking for ways to recover. If he settles inwardly into the belief that nothing more is possible, he may stop seeking with the same determination.
The printed passage emphasizes continued longing, effort, and the search for a way back. The rav expresses the prospect of recovery strongly. The analogy should not be turned into a financial guarantee that identifying as wealthy makes someone wealthy again, or a judgment on someone whose efforts do not restore his money.
Its application is to avodah. A person who falls can decide that he is simply a person of small spiritual capacity. Or he can recognize that he belongs to something greater and continue to work toward it. The Piaseczner does not offer imagination in place of effort; his surrounding discussion insists on actual work.
Likutey Moharan I:56 describes a quality of malchus within every Jew, each according to his particular sphere. Some influence is visible; some is hidden. The rav applies this to the person whose royalty is not publicly apparent. The same teaching distinguishes knowing that one is in concealment from forgetting that there is anything concealed. If I know I have fallen from a higher place, I can still seek it. If I have forgotten the possibility of that place, I may no longer think to return.
A necessary clarification from the immediate continuation of the source belongs here: Likutey Moharan 56:2 says not to use one’s malchus as a servant of one’s own desires. It is to serve Hashem. This is an editorial reminder from the cited text, not an additional passage spoken by the rav in this shiur. It keeps “I am royal” connected with service and responsibility, rather than entitlement to control others.
Asking to return home
The rav attributes another mashal to the Ben Ish Chai’s explanation of Eichah. A wealthy man expels his wife and children. Years later he sees them searching through rubbish for food. They find a whole apple and rejoice because they can divide it among themselves. He sees how far their expectations have fallen: people who once knew abundance are now astonished by a discarded apple.
The image leads to the request near the end of Eichah:
הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ ה׳ ׀ אֵלֶיךָ (ונשוב) [וְֽנָשׁוּבָה] חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶֽדֶם׃
Return us to You, Hashem, and we shall return; renew our days as of old. — Lamentations 5:21
The prayer asks for more than a little relief while the relationship remains distant. Renew our days as of old: restore the closeness we have almost forgotten how to imagine. The rav reads the apple as small relief that can become the limit of a person’s hopes. He is not dismissing the value of food to a hungry person or telling someone to refuse needed assistance.
The request for return does not pretend the distance is unreal. It speaks from within that distance while still addressing Hashem.
The rav connects this with the halachah that tzedakah responds to a person’s actual needs, including needs shaped by his former circumstances. Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 250:1, includes the case of someone formerly accustomed to wealth. Its Rema distinguishes communal responsibility from what a single donor must provide. The law is not a general promise that anyone may demand a former lifestyle from any individual. The rav uses it to show that present deprivation need not erase the person’s history and dignity.
The staff that remains in the hand
Yaakov’s staff becomes a further image:
קָטֹנְתִּי מִכֹּל הַחֲסָדִים וּמִכׇּל־הָאֱמֶת אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתָ אֶת־עַבְדֶּךָ כִּי בְמַקְלִי עָבַרְתִּי אֶת־הַיַּרְדֵּן הַזֶּה וְעַתָּה הָיִיתִי לִשְׁנֵי מַחֲנֽוֹת׃
I am unworthy of all the kindnesses and all the faithfulness that You have shown Your servant, for with my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. — Genesis 32:11
The rav recalls the allusion makel, מקל, as the initials of me’olam kivinu lach, מעולם קוינו לך, “we have always hoped to You.” The initials themselves match. A staff can be all a person has left and still become the sign of hope.
קַוֵּה אֶל־ה׳ חֲזַק וְיַאֲמֵץ לִבֶּךָ וְקַוֵּה אֶל־ה׳׃
Hope to Hashem; be strong, and let your heart take courage, and hope to Hashem. — Psalms 27:14
There is a difference between having no palace and having no hope of ever returning to the King. The staff reminds the person that he is still addressing Hashem and can still take another step.
Answering even after failure
The Sfas Emes gives the rav an example from the Leviim:
וַאֲנִי הִנֵּה לָקַחְתִּי אֶת־הַלְוִיִּם מִתּוֹךְ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל תַּחַת כׇּל־בְּכוֹר פֶּטֶר רֶחֶם מִבְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְהָיוּ לִי הַלְוִיִּֽם׃
And I, behold, I have taken the Leviim from among the children of Israel in place of every firstborn who opens the womb among the children of Israel; the Leviim shall be Mine. — Numbers 3:12
Bamidbar Rabbah describes Moshe’s concern when Levi is not included in the general census. Hashem explains the tribe’s distinct closeness and service. The discussion looks back to the call after the golden calf:
וַיַּעֲמֹד מֹשֶׁה בְּשַׁעַר הַֽמַּחֲנֶה וַיֹּאמֶר מִי לַה׳ אֵלָי וַיֵּאָסְפוּ אֵלָיו כׇּל־בְּנֵי לֵוִֽי׃
Moshe stood at the gate of the camp and said: Whoever is for Hashem, come to me. All the sons of Levi gathered to him. — Exodus 32:26
The Chiddushei HaRim, as the Sfas Emes records, asks why only Levi answered. Surely there were people in the other tribes who had not worshipped the calf. The Sfas Emes explains that the people could feel implicated by what had happened among them and lose the strength to say, “I am for Hashem.” Levi’s attachment did not allow the national failure to paralyze its response.
The rav makes that point forcefully through Aharon’s belonging to Levi: the tribe could not base its confidence simply on an easy claim that everything connected with it was beyond question. He leaves the full interpretation of Aharon’s conduct aside. The application is to answering Hashem’s call now, rather than waiting until one feels able to claim an untouched past.
שִׂנְאָה תְּעֹרֵר מְדָנִים וְעַל כׇּל־פְּשָׁעִים תְּכַסֶּה אַהֲבָֽה׃
Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. — Proverbs 10:12
In the Sfas Emes, Bamidbar 5643, the love is also the person’s love for Hashem. Strong attachment can cover the failings that would otherwise make him retreat. Covering here does not remove the duty of teshuvah or deny an aveirah. Love gives him the strength to come forward and serve despite his awareness of deficiency.
Kingship without a crown
The Gemara calls chutzpah “kingship without a crown.” In ordinary use, that can mean assuming an authority one does not possess, like a pupil treating himself as above his teacher. The rav acknowledges that meaning, then follows Reb Tzadok toward a different application.
Tzidkas HaTzadik 46 develops the possibility of pressing toward Hashem even when one seems rejected. It connects malchusa belo taga with the generation of ikvesa deMeshicha, when chutzpah will increase. In the rav’s application, the holy courage of that generation is to keep serving as a king’s child even after the crowns are lost.
Shabbos 88a describes the crowns associated with naaseh venishma being taken away after the sin. The loss is real. Yet it need not force the conclusion that there is no longer any royal task to perform. This teaching does not turn ordinary insolence toward parents or teachers into a mitzvah, or supply a general permission to disregard Torah. It gives a language for refusing to let rejection be the last word in the relationship with Hashem.
Receiving the kingdom with a raised hand
The shiur reaches one more line of the story: the son receives the kingdom beyad ramah, with a raised hand. The rav hears resolve in it: the strength to accept the task without making it depend on unbroken success.
וַיְחַזֵּק ה׳ אֶת־לֵב פַּרְעֹה מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם וַיִּרְדֹּף אַחֲרֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל יֹצְאִים בְּיָד רָמָֽה׃
Hashem strengthened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel, while the children of Israel were going out with a raised hand. — Exodus 14:8
Onkelos renders the raised hand as bereish gali, openly; the rav develops its image of leaving with the head held high. The rav connects it with the Jewish people leaving with dignity. He also recalls an allusion associated in his memory with the Toldos Yaakov Yosef. The matching passages in Degel Machaneh Ephraim, Beshalach 4–5, connect the letters of bereish with Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai and, using the title Baal Shem, with Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem. The Hebrew initials רשבי and ריבש can each be rearranged into בריש; adding the word Tov to the second expansion would add a letter that is not in this allusion. They link the revelation of the Zohar and the spreading of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings with redemption. These are rearranged initials and expansions, not the plain translation of Onkelos, and the exact attribution recalled in the shiur remains distinguished from the located text.
He also recalls the departure in daylight, in full view of Egypt:
וַיִּסְעוּ מֵֽרַעְמְסֵס בַּחֹדֶשׁ הָרִאשׁוֹן בַּחֲמִשָּׁה עָשָׂר יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ הָרִאשׁוֹן מִֽמׇּחֳרַת הַפֶּסַח יָצְאוּ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּיָד רָמָה לְעֵינֵי כׇּל־מִצְרָֽיִם׃
They traveled from Raamses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the day after the Pesach offering, the children of Israel went out with a raised hand, before the eyes of all Egypt. — Numbers 33:3
Berachos 9a distinguishes the redemption that began at night from the actual departure by day. In the rav’s application, they do not creep away in shame.
The rav brings the allusion back to its practical direction: the inward teaching helps a Jew remember who he is and leave exile with his head held high. The first Exodus includes haste, while future redemption is described differently:
כִּי לֹא בְחִפָּזוֹן תֵּצֵאוּ וּבִמְנוּסָה לֹא תֵלֵכוּן כִּֽי־הֹלֵךְ לִפְנֵיכֶם ה׳ וּמְאַסִּפְכֶם אלוקי יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
For you shall not go out in haste, nor go in flight, for Hashem goes before you, and Elokei Yisrael gathers you in. — Isaiah 52:12
No ending of the Seven Beggars story has been invented here. The study has barely begun. But its opening already gives the rav the foundation he wants to carry forward: repair the fall, seek the way back, and continue serving as the King’s child while the crown is still missing.