Chapter 1 - Fourth Lesson

00:00 We’re holding here on page 5b, in the middle of chapter 1 of Tanya: “And furthermore, it is said elsewhere.” Up to this point, the Alter Rebbe has raised the main question—the question at the heart of the whole Tanya: What is the essential distinction of a beinoni? The Alter Rebbe has brought a number of proofs showing that we must say a beinoni is a person with no sin at all—not a Torah prohibition, not a rabbinic prohibition, not even the prohibition of neglecting Torah study. All the points the Alter Rebbe has explained. And yet he is not a tzaddik; he is called a beinoni. That is why Rabbah thought he was a beinoni. So the question is: What defines a beinoni? There has to be some essential distinction between a beinoni and a tzaddik. You’re saying a beinoni has no sin whatsoever, and yet he is not a tzaddik—he is a beinoni. The Alter Rebbe will explain that later on. But here the Alter Rebbe asks a very simple question based on the revealed dimension of Torah. The Alter Rebbe says, “And furthermore, it is said elsewhere that one who is half and half is called a beinoni.” After all, it is generally said that someone who is half and half is called a beinoni, while someone with a majority of merits is called a tzaddik. You’re asking what the difference is between a tzaddik and a beinoni, and saying that a beinoni has no sin, no wrongdoing at all. But elsewhere it is said that a beinoni is a person with half merits and half transgressions, while a tzaddik has a majority of merits. That doesn’t fit at all with what we said earlier. In other words, even a tzaddik is not someone whose record consists entirely of merits. Even a tzaddik has some transgressions, only a majority of merits. All the more so a beinoni: our Sages say he has half merits and half transgressions. How does that fit with what we said earlier—the exact opposite, that even a beinoni is a person with no sin or wrongdoing at all?

02:00 All the more so a tzaddik. It seems like a complete contradiction from every angle. What does “it is said elsewhere” mean? The simple meaning sounds like “people say.” But of course, the Alter Rebbe is not referring to what people say. By “it is said elsewhere,” the Alter Rebbe means in the Gemara. The wording used here is also an expression used in the Talmud—the world of Torah, not just the world at large. As the Rebbe notes, the Alter Rebbe is referring to the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah, page 16. The Gemara there discusses the Days of Judgment, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We spoke about this earlier too: there are three books—the book of the tzaddikim, the book of the resha’im, and the book of the beinonim. It says that the tzaddikim are inscribed and sealed immediately on Rosh Hashanah, right? The resha’im are dealt with immediately in the opposite way, while for the beinonim, Hakadosh Boruch Hu waits through the Ten Days of Repentance, until Yom Kippur. That is the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah. Both Rashi and Tosafos explain that this refers to a majority of merits or a majority of transgressions. That is the straightforward meaning Rashi and Tosafos give in that discussion, and that is what “it is said elsewhere” refers to. On the straightforward level of revealed Torah, the ruling is that tzaddik and beinoni are defined in terms of a majority of merits or transgressions. The Alter Rebbe does not mention a rasha here, although the question applies to the rasha as well. He does not discuss the rasha here simply because the main discussion, the main difficulty, concerns the tzaddik and the beinoni, which is the complete opposite of what we have said until now. In any case, the Alter Rebbe says, “This is a borrowed term with regard to reward and punishment.” The Alter Rebbe answers that when the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah speaks of a tzaddik, a rasha, and a beinoni, it is not using their true designations. It is borrowing these terms for the purposes of reward and punishment. What does “a borrowed term” mean? We

04:14 know that there are two kinds of names. In general, they are called a descriptive name and a borrowed name. A descriptive name describes what something really is. A borrowed name means taking a word and using it by way of analogy—borrowing a similar word, as we would put it. That is called a borrowed name. For example, we speak of a stone, and we speak of a heart of stone. A stone is a stone; that is its descriptive name. “A heart of stone” is a borrowed name. In other words, a person’s heart is like a stone, so it is called a heart of stone. That is a borrowed name. The same applies to the names beinoni and tzaddik. They have their descriptive meanings, as in the passages from the Gemara that the Alter Rebbe cited earlier. But when the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah discusses them, it uses borrowed names. In other words, that Gemara is not discussing what a tzaddik, beinoni, or rasha essentially is. That is not its subject. Its subject is the Day of Judgment. It speaks about Rosh Hashanah as a Day of Judgment and uses the words tzaddik, beinoni, and rasha in relation to judgment. So those words are borrowed for the context of judgment. That is what he is saying. He says that with regard to reward and punishment, a person is judged according to the majority of his deeds. When it comes to reward and punishment, it is a matter of judgment, and judgment follows actual conduct. In the plain sense, too, judgment follows the majority, as the Rambam says in Hilchos Teshuvah. There is that well-known statement of the Rambam about the scales: you have the right side and the left side, and whichever side goes down is the one that prevails. Through a deed, a word, or a thought, a person can tip the scales for himself and for the entire world toward merit. When speaking of judgment, then, they look

06:14 at actual deeds, as with someone who has prevailed in a case. That is the meaning of the word tzaddik here—or, sorry, “he is called righteous in the judgment”; he is called a tzaddik. What does tzaddik mean here? Not a tzaddik in the essential sense, but someone found in the right, righteous in the judgment. Tzaddik here means that he was in the right; the judgment found in his favor. Yes, like someone who has prevailed in a case. “But this is not the true descriptive name and distinction between the differing levels of tzaddikim and beinonim.” If we want to discuss their essence, their descriptive names—what tzaddik and beinoni truly mean—our Sages said, and here we return to the teaching he cited at the beginning of Tanya, “Tzaddikim are judged by their good inclination.” When speaking of the true designation, the Gemara in Berachos discusses the essence of a tzaddik, what defines a tzaddik as distinct from a beinoni. About that, the Gemara says: “Tzaddikim are judged by their good inclination.” This means not only that, G-d forbid, he has no transgressions—not even a minority—but that his good inclination judges him. This concerns his whole being. “Inclination” goes beyond deeds; it has to do with the soul, the heart, the inclination. His entire being is governed only by the good inclination, and the good inclination judges him, as it is said: “And my heart is hollow within me.” The Gemara cites this verse, which King David said, as proof concerning a tzaddik. So what does the verse say? “And my heart is hollow within me.” “Hollow” means empty—a hollow, a vacant space. There was an empty place. “My heart is hollow”: my heart is empty. And the Alter Rebbe explains that he had no evil inclination, because he had killed it through fasting. Why did he have no evil inclination? Because

08:23 He killed it—killed it through fasting. There’s something interesting here from the Rebbe, by the way, and it’s very geshmak. When they were preparing the Lessons in Tanya, they translated “my heart is hollow within me” in the usual way: “hollow” in the sense of dead. Because “hollow” has two meanings: empty, or dead. So when Rabbi Weinberg prepared the Lessons in Tanya, he explained “my heart is hollow within me” to mean that my heart is dead—referring to the yetzer hara. And the Alter Rebbe goes on to say, “for he killed it through fasting.” He killed it, so it’s dead. The Rebbe put a question mark on this. The Rebbe wrote: “Is this how chassidim learn Tanya?” The Rebbe did not like that interpretation. The Rebbe said the meaning is empty, not dead, and that is also clear from the wording of Tanya. So when the Alter Rebbe says, “my heart is hollow within me,” he means that he has no yetzer hara. That’s the first point: he has no yetzer hara. That is what “hollow” means here—empty. Empty of what? He has no yetzer hara. Then he adds, “for he killed it through fasting.” That is the reason. Why does he have none? Because he killed it through fasting. But here in Tanya, “hollow” apparently means empty. The Rebbe brings the context from the commentators on Tanach. There are two interpretations: some commentators explain “hollow” as empty, and others as dead. But the actual wording of Tanya—and what the Rebbe mainly wants to say is—what is the Alter Rebbe trying to explain here? He is primarily explaining the nature of a tzaddik. The Gemara in Berachos is speaking not about a tzaddik in the borrowed sense, but about a tzaddik in the true sense of the term. Such a tzaddik is someone who not only commits no sins in practice, but has no yetzer

10:12 hara at all. That is the precise meaning of “hollow”: his heart is empty of evil. He has no trace of evil, even in his heart, not merely in his actions. How did King David actually reach this level? By killing it through fasting. As we know, the Jerusalem Talmud, cited in several places in Chassidus, speaks of two kinds of tzaddikim: King David and Avraham Avinu. Both were complete tzaddikim. But the Jerusalem Talmud says there was a difference. King David became a complete tzaddik through the avodah of “killing it through fasting.” King David fasted so many times after the incident with Batsheva. In any event, King David worked on himself through fasting and self-denial. He utterly broke and killed the evil within him. That is how he reached the level of a complete tzaddik. Avraham Avinu, by contrast, was on an even higher level: he not only killed it, but transformed it. His path was not “killing it through fasting”; he transformed it. “You found his heart faithful before You.” The word “heart” there implies both inclinations: Avraham Avinu transformed his yetzer hara so that it, too, would love Hashem. In general terms, Chassidus calls these iskafya and ishapcha as they apply to tzaddikim. There are also iskafya and ishapcha as we learn in Tanya concerning beinonim, but here we are discussing the level of tzaddikim. So there are two kinds of tzaddikim. Some become complete tzaddikim by nullifying the evil, killing it, eliminating it. That is one kind. Others reach the level of transforming it—turning the evil into good. Broadly speaking, these are two kinds of tzaddikim found throughout the generations. There were tzaddikim whose avodah followed more of a path of abstinence, detached from this world. And there were tzaddikim who, on the contrary,

12:12 lived with wealth and expansiveness. People often describe the difference between the Tzemach Tzedek and the Rebbe Maharash. Of course, we cannot understand the levels of tzaddikim, but when chassidim wanted to give an example, they would point to the Tzemach Tzedek and the Rebbe Maharash. The Tzemach Tzedek’s service of Hashem followed more of a path of abstinence. He did not take pleasure in these things. His home was very simple, with much poverty, and so on. With the Rebbe Maharash it was the opposite: there was great expansiveness and wealth, and this was a form of serving Hashem through elevation. In general, that is the difference between them. The Alter Rebbe does not want to go into the details of these levels here. He is only explaining the Gemara’s use of the designation “tzaddik” as a title denoting a spiritual level. A tzaddik is not merely someone who has few sins, G-d forbid. Nor is he merely someone who has no sins at all. He is a person who has no trace of evil even within his soul. But anyone who has not reached this level, the Alter Rebbe continues—someone who has not reached the level we described, whose “heart is hollow within him”—even if his merits outnumber his sins, and even if he is judged a tzaddik and on Rosh Hashanah is inscribed and sealed for a good, sweet year, because in the judgment he was deemed a tzaddik—nevertheless, if he is not on the level of “his heart is hollow within him,” he has not attained the level of a tzaddik at all. He cannot be called a tzaddik at all. Why does the Alter Rebbe specify “he has not attained the level of a tzaddik at all”? The question seems very simple. He is not a tzaddik; he is not even a beinoni. According to what we learned earlier in Tanya, a person who has mostly merits but some sins is not

14:12 only not a tzaddik; he is not even a beinoni. Seemingly, the Alter Rebbe should have said, “He has not attained the level of a beinoni at all.” The straightforward explanation given here in Tanya is that the Alter Rebbe alludes to that too. He writes, “He has not attained the level of a tzaddik at all.” By “tzaddik at all,” he means to include beinoni as well. Why does he use the word “tzaddik”? Because someone with mostly merits is called a tzaddik in judgment. We said that a person with mostly merits and some sins is called a tzaddik in judgment. So the Alter Rebbe is saying that, in truth, he is not a tzaddik at all. That is why he uses the word “tzaddik.” That is the straightforward explanation people learn. But the Rebbe has a deeper explanation here, a very interesting one, and it is very important to Tanya as a whole. The Rebbe points out a remarkable detail: why doesn’t the Alter Rebbe write “beinoni”? Instead of “he has not attained the level of a beinoni,” he writes “he has not attained the level of a tzaddik.” The Rebbe explains that a person really can be a beinoni even if, in actual fact, he is now in a state where he has mostly merits and some sins—some sins that make him a rasha in the true sense of the term. For every Jew can be a beinoni at any moment. The Alter Rebbe is going to tell us this later in Tanya, in the coming chapters. In chapter 14, the Alter Rebbe will tell us that every Jew can be a beinoni at any time and in any hour. The Alter Rebbe says that a beinoni is someone who has never committed a sin and never will. As we know, what the Alter Rebbe means by “has never and never will” is that he places himself in a state in which, right now, any form of evil is out of the question for him: he will not sin. In other words, at any moment, any Jew,

16:21 whoever he may be, has the ability to be a beinoni. That is, he can put himself in a frame of mind in which sin and transgression are simply not an option for him. That is why the Alter Rebbe does not want to say “beinoni” here. He says, “He has not attained the level of a tzaddik at all.” A person who has mostly merits—listen closely, this is a point in serving Hashem—the Alter Rebbe wants to teach us that a person with mostly merits who also has sins, even a few sins, is certainly not on the level of a tzaddik. He has no connection to that level. But he does have a connection to being a beinoni. Yes, right now he is not a beinoni. In practice, he is not a beinoni right now. He has some sins, whereas a beinoni has no sin at all, as we said earlier. But at any moment you can decide that you want to be a beinoni and actually become one. It is within your power and control, as the Alter Rebbe says in chapter 14. So the Alter Rebbe did not want to write, “He has not attained the level of a beinoni,” because that level is accessible to him. In practice he is not a beinoni, but it would not be correct to say that “he has not attained the level of a beinoni at all.” He can actually become a beinoni at any time, at any moment. That is a remarkable precision in the wording of Tanya here. In any event, what do we learn here? The Alter Rebbe tells us that there are two ways of speaking about a tzaddik, a beinoni, and a rasha. There is the way these terms are used in ordinary discussion, meaning when we are talking about judgment. There, what matters is a person’s conduct in practice, and we follow the majority, because that is how the law works: “Follow the majority.” Halachah follows the majority—mostly merits or mostly sins—as the Gemara discusses in Rosh Hashanah. But when we speak about serving Hashem, genuine avodah, and the Gemara discusses a tzaddik, a beinoni, and a rasha in terms of their true spiritual levels, then, then, then a tzaddik is

18:10 A person who has no evil, not even in his heart: “My heart is hollow within me.” What we call a beinoni is a person who still has a battle with the yetzer hara in his heart; it is only in practice that he has committed no sin. So here in Tanya we have already begun to understand how the Alter Rebbe defines a tzaddik and a beinoni, as he will explain at greater length later on. The Alter Rebbe continues: In light of what we have just learned—that a tzaddik is someone whose heart is hollow within him, who has no evil at all—our Sages said in the Midrash: “Hakadosh Boruch Hu saw that the tzaddikim were few, so He arose and planted them in every generation,” and so on. That is, as the verse says, “A tzaddik is the foundation of the world.” This explains what it says in the Midrash. Actually, it is not a Midrash; it is in the Gemara. It appears in several places in the Gemara, in Tractate Sukkah and elsewhere. So why does it say “Midrash”? Well, the Rebbe says the Alter Rebbe deliberately calls it a Midrash: he means the aggadic portion of the Gemara. Why does the Alter Rebbe want to emphasize that it is Midrash? To explain that this is not about halachah. It is exactly what we learned earlier. When we speak of judgment and legal status, what matters is sometimes the halachic definition, and according to halachah there are other categories of tzaddik, beinoni and rasha. But Midrash speaks of these matters more inwardly. So the Midrash says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu saw that the tzaddikim were few, because there are not many true tzaddikim: people whose hearts are hollow within them, who have no evil even in their animal soul, in their heart, and whose entire being is only their good inclination. There are not many souls like that. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu planted them in every generation: He arranged for there to be tzaddikim, as it says, “A tzaddik is the foundation of the world.” Because the tzaddik—what

20:06 proof does the Alter Rebbe want to bring from this verse? Because the tzaddik is the foundation of the world, meaning that the world rests on the tzaddik. That is the plain meaning of “A tzaddik is the foundation of the world.” The world rests on the tzaddik, and there are only a few tzaddikim, not many. So that is the meaning of “He arose and planted them in every generation.” Since the world must have a tzaddik—without a tzaddik there is no world—and there are not many tzaddikim, Hakadosh Boruch Hu made sure that in every generation there would be at least a few, enough for there to be a “tzaddik, the foundation of the world.” It can even happen that there is only one tzaddik. That is precisely “a tzaddik is the foundation of the world.” A tzaddik is rare. At first, the Gemara says that the tzaddikim are few. But then, when you look at the Gemara there, it says there are eighteen thousand tzaddikim. After that it says there are thirty-six tzaddikim. And then the Gemara says there is—meaning, it gives several different numbers, until, at the end of the discussion, it brings this verse: “And a tzaddik is the foundation of the world.” There is a whole point of precision here, but the Rebbe writes “and so on.” Then he writes “as the verse says,” because the Gemara first brings another verse and then brings this one. In any case, the point is that the verse “And a tzaddik is the foundation of the world” teaches us how few tzaddikim there are. Sometimes there may be only one tzaddik in a generation on whom the whole world rests, because without a tzaddik the world cannot endure. That is “a tzaddik is the foundation of the world.” “The world has one pillar, and its name is Tzaddik,” and the world endures. “The whole world is sustained for the sake of Chanina, My son.” In other words, there is a “Chanina, My son,” a tzaddik who sustains the whole world, and the world endures in his merit. So broadly speaking, that is what

22:03 the Rebbe wants to say: this is the true tzaddik, and there are very few of them. But there is an interesting point here. The Rebbe examines the Alter Rebbe’s wording: Why does the Alter Rebbe bring this verse? Look, he does not bring verses for no reason. There has to be an explanation, especially since the Gemara begins with another verse, which the Alter Rebbe does not quote. He writes “and so on” and brings only the verse “A tzaddik is the foundation of the world.” So the Rebbe says that the Alter Rebbe brings this verse to emphasize that, as he has said, the true level of a tzaddik [unclear] is a very lofty level of avodah. The Alter Rebbe wants to tell us that within that level itself there are many gradations. Just as we say there is someone who is a tzaddik by legal judgment and someone who is truly a tzaddik, even among those who are truly tzaddikim there are many levels. In other words, you cannot raise a question when you see one teaching of our Sages describing a tzaddik one way, while here it describes a tzaddik another way. We see that there are many levels among tzaddikim, and we learn this from that Gemara. There is a level of tzaddikim at which there are eighteen thousand in every generation. There is a level at which there are thirty-six in every generation. And there is a level at which there is only one tzaddik in a generation—one in a generation. This tells us that even among true tzaddikim there are many levels, as we will learn later. There is a tzaddik who still has some evil, and a tzaddik who has only good; there is also a tzaddik who suffers physically. There are many levels, depending on how thoroughly the evil is nullified to the good: nullified in sixty, in a thousand, or in ten thousand. These are not just figures. Each is another level, another kind of tzaddik. So among the true levels of tzaddikim, there can be one tzaddik who is the foundation of the world. Now, this is the straightforward meaning here in Tanya.

24:02 Just one more thing: What does the Alter Rebbe want with this whole lengthy discussion? What does he need for Tanya? He has said that a beinoni is something very profound. The Alter Rebbe revealed that a beinoni is a person without sin or wrongdoing. If so, what is the difference between a beinoni and a tzaddik? Then the question arises that people generally understand it the other way around. And look at the Gemara: that is surely a tzaddik by legal judgment, but there is something deeper here. The truth is that the Alter Rebbe also wants to hint at another point. He wants to hint that the oath administered to a person—“Be a tzaddik and do not be a rasha”—contains all the levels. A baby comes into the world and is told, “Be a tzaddik and do not be a rasha.” That includes every meaning of tzaddik and rasha, both a tzaddik by legal judgment and a tzaddik in the deeper sense. In other words, when a person is told under oath to be a tzaddik, he swears to work on himself to reach the level of a tzaddik and not be on the level of a rasha. That includes all the levels of a tzaddik. The seforim, and the sichos too, discuss this: If the level of a tzaddik is so high, it would seem that you take an oath and then fail to fulfill it. How can it be that we swear an oath and do not fulfill it? It is true that the Alter Rebbe will go on in Tanya and say that we must try, and so on. And the truth is that a person must try all his life, but everyone knows that the vast majority do not reach that level. Therefore, “Be a tzaddik” includes all the levels of a tzaddik. Even a tzaddik by legal judgment is included in the oath. So a person must first strive to be at least a tzaddik by legal judgment, and then strive to reach the higher levels of a tzaddik—all the levels included in “a tzaddik who still has some evil” and “a tzaddik who has only good.” All of this is included in the oath. Through the oath, a person has the potential, the ability, to reach every level. But even if he

26:01 has not reached every level, he must at least reach some of the aspects, some of the levels, included in being a tzaddik. And here, of course, comes the well-known saying of Reb Hillel of Paritch. Reb Hillel of Paritch said that before he learned Tanya—Reb Hillel was a very holy man; he had been one of the chassidim of Reb Mottel of Chernobyl—he thought he was a tzaddik. He was sure he was on the level of a tzaddik. Reb Hillel really was a very holy man. They say that toward the end of the Tzemach Tzedek’s life, when Reb Hillel was ill, a notice was posted in the Lubavitch shul asking people to say Tehillim for him. The Tzemach Tzedek added in his own handwriting: “the righteous Rabbi.” The chassidim had written that people should say Tehillim for Reb Hillel; the chassidim themselves did not give him titles, and the Tzemach Tzedek added “the righteous” to Reb Hillel’s name. In any case, Reb Hillel said of himself that before he learned Tanya, he thought he was a tzaddik. When he learned Tanya, he said, “Doloy tzaddik.” “Doloy” in Russian means it is over. No chance of that. No chance. If only I could be a beinoni! If only I could be a beinoni, according to the depth of what the Alter Rebbe explains a beinoni to be. If only I could be a beinoni. There is much more to say about this. Have a good rest of the day.