Holes in the Head

The Chofetz Chaim was once asked how famous talmidei chachomim and rabbonim could have been drawn in by Zionism, and he answered with a parable. Chazal say that the nations are intelligent, so how could they have bowed to idols of wood and stone? Rashi on Devarim 4:19 explains that Hashem let the nations slide into foolishness so that they would lose their share in Olam HaBa. Two planks can be clamped together only if both are smooth. If one has a bump, one can saw it off, or make a hole in the other plank for it to fit into. Once joined, both look smooth and whole from outside, but in truth neither is normal, since both had to be altered to fit. Idolatry is like a plank with a bump, but Hashem smooths the idolaters with words, as if they had a hole in the brain into which the bump fits so well that the strange thing looks normal. The same, he said, is true of the question he was asked. Rav Shimshon Pincus, who received this saying through Rav Lis from Rav S. Greineman, as spoken by the Chofetz Chaim, and who noted that it appears in the Chofetz Chaim’s own work on the Torah, added that heads can have many kinds of holes. Some make a person flawed without touching his essence, but sometimes the hole is in a place that makes him unfit in his very essence. People who seem healthy, who daven and learn, may walk around with holes or gaps in their heads, in the form of problematic ideas or character traits. This opens the way to a personal accounting, since a person can be fine in many areas and a “nothing” in others because of the holes in his head.