The Lost Princess: Searching, Longing and Beginning Again

A king had six sons and one daughter, and the daughter "was very precious in his eyes". And then, in the words of the story:

At night she went to her room, and in the morning no one knew where she was. The king went to search for her, and then the viceroy rose up, "because he saw that the king was very distressed", asked for a servant, a horse and money for expenses, and set out (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:2).

Already in the first paragraph the story reveals its ending: he searched for her "for a very long time, until he found her", and in the bracketed addition in the book: "Now he tells how he searched for her until he found her" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:2). A close reading suggests that this changes the whole reading: the reader knows from the start that the search will not be in vain, and what remains to ask is not whether he will find her, but how. This is our remark, not the wording of the source.

After a long time in the deserts, the fields and the forests, he turns onto a side path and reaches a castle surrounded by troops. They let him in, he goes "from room to room without hindrance", and in the palace hall a king is sitting and no one asks him anything (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:3, Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:4). When the queen is brought in he recognizes her: it is the princess. She recognizes him too, comes over and asks: "Do you recognize me?" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:5).

When he asks how she came there, she answers that it was because of the word that slipped from her father's mouth, "and here, this place, is the Not-Good". And he asks: "How can I get you out?" Her answer is the heart of the story (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:6):

Before this she says that he must choose a place and stay there for one year, and afterward she adds: to fast, and on the last day of the year to fast and not sleep "for the entire twenty-four hours" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:6). It seems that what she asks for is not a single heroic act. For most of the year nothing special is demanded of him, only to long, to seek and to hope "whenever you have free time". The longing itself is the path. This is our explanation; the story does not explain itself.

He did so. On the last day, on his way to her, he saw a tree with beautiful apples, and "they were very desirable to his eyes". He ate and fell into a long sleep, and the servant shook him but could not wake him (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:6). When he awoke he asked: "Where am I in the world?", and heard that he had slept for several years. The princess lamented to him: "because of one day you lost it" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:7). But then she makes it easier for him:

The second time he is permitted to eat, only not to sleep and not to drink wine, "for the main thing is the sleep" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:7). And on the last day, again: he sees a spring whose appearance is red and whose smell is of wine, tastes from it, and falls asleep "for a number of years, up to seventy years" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:8).

This time she comes to him, shakes him, and he does not wake. She weeps, "for there is great pity on him and on me", and before she leaves she writes on the kerchief from her head "with her tears" and leaves it beside him (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:8). A close reading suggests that even after the second fall the bond is not broken: she leaves him a written message, and in it a new direction. This is our reading, but it rests on what happens immediately afterward.

When he awoke, he raised the kerchief "up against the sun" and read in it that she was no longer in the castle, and that he should seek "a mountain of gold and a castle of pearls: There you will find me." This time he left the servant behind and went alone. He reasoned that no such mountain exists in the settled world, "for he was expert in the map of the world", and so he went to the deserts "for many, many years" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:9).

In the desert he meets a very huge man carrying a huge tree, who is appointed over all the animals. He calls them all, and not one has seen such a mountain and castle. His answer: "See, they told you foolishness", and if you will listen, "turn back" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:10). He sends him to his brother, appointed over the birds, and that one to his brother, appointed over the winds, and each time the answer is the same (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:11, Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:12). After none of the winds knew:

Meanwhile one more wind arrives, late. The appointee is angry at it, and the wind answers: "I was delayed because I had to carry a princess to a mountain of gold and a castle of pearls" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:13). What the viceroy said in tears, with no proof at all, turns out to be true. And one may notice that the answer comes precisely from the wind that did not arrive on time, when it seemed that every answer had already been heard.

The one appointed over the winds gives him a vessel from which he receives money whenever he reaches his hand into it, so that he will not have "an obstacle because of money", and the wind carries him to the city. He bribes the guards, enters, and hires board with a wealthy man, "since he would need to apply intellect and wisdom to get her out". And the ending: "How he got her out he did not tell, but in the end he got her out" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:14).

The years, the falls and the deserts are told in detail, while the success itself is stated in one sentence without details. One can understand from this that what the story mainly conveys is the road and not the moment of arrival; but that is our understanding, and the book does not say it. The full story can be read in Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1: Of the Lost Princess.

In the story itself, as it appears here, there is no note explaining it. The closest words are in Chayei Moharan, after Rabbi Nathan records that Rabbi Nachman once said "Every Torah has a story" (Chayei Moharan 94):

The words "in our opinion" matter: this is Rabbi Nathan's assessment, not something handed down in Rabbi Nachman's name. And Torah 60 speaks of people "who sleep away their days", and says that to awaken them from their sleep "one must clothe the face for him in stories" (Likutei Moharan I, 60:6). Why he told stories at all is explained on the page Why did Rabbi Nachman tell stories, and the teaching itself can be studied in Likutei Moharan I, Torah 60.

Whoever follows Rabbi Nathan's lead will notice one thing that stands out: sleep. In Torah 60 sleep is a state of the soul, and in the story it is what stops the viceroy twice, until the princess tells him explicitly "for the main thing is the sleep" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:7, Likutei Moharan I, 60:6). Rabbi Nathan does not spell out the connection between the story and the teaching, so this is a possible perspective, not an authoritative interpretation.

One more caution. Sichot HaRan says, in the context of the story of the Seven Beggars, that "the holy soul of each and every one of Israel is also called" a king's daughter (Sichot HaRan 273). It is easy to carry this over to the first story too, but those words were written there about a different story, and whoever reads The Lost Princess this way does so on his own account.

What can one take from the story into life? Here we move from the story to explanation, and lean on things said explicitly in Likutei Moharan. The princess's first condition was longing, and there Rabbi Nachman teaches that the soul comes into being from yearning: "from the very fact that I yearn and pine after God, blessed be He, from this itself my soul is made" (Likutei Moharan I, 31:11). One can understand from this that even a period in which a person only longs and has not yet arrived is not wasted time. On the power of will see Will and yearning in the teaching of Rabbi Nachman.

The viceroy did not stop when they told him he was chasing foolishness; he "pressed" again and again (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:10). And in Likutei Moharan Part II:

And there, a few lines later, is a description strongly reminiscent of the story: there is someone "who is already at the entrance of holiness", and precisely when he is close, then the adversary "overpower him" (Likutei Moharan II, 48:2). The princess said almost the same about the last day: "especially on the last day, when the evil inclination grows very strong" (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:7). This parallel is our suggestion, and it is not written in either source. And in the same place in Likutei Moharan it says that the falls and confusions "must necessarily be passed through before one enters the gates of holiness".

And after every fall the viceroy returns: he chooses a place, stays another year, and afterward sets out to search in a new way (Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:7, Sippurei Maasiyot, Story 1:9). In Likutei Moharan it is written: "And this is a great general principle in the service of God: one must literally begin anew every day" (Likutei Moharan I, 261:1). One can read the story as a picture of this principle, and whoever fell precisely when he was close may find strength in it: the road has not ended. More on this: Renewal and Strengthening oneself.