Tefillah - 027 Our King and Our Companion

The Difference Between A Tzaddik and a Chassid

על הצדיקים ועל החסידים  We daven here for the protection of the tzaddikim (the righteous) and the chassidim (the pious).

What is the difference between a tzaddik (righteous person) and a chassid (pious person)? This is an age-old question, and our earlier sefarim give different answers.

The general answer to the question is, that a tzaddik does what is required of him according to the Halacha, while the chassid is person who goes beyond the letter of the law.

The Maharal has a different answer. He answers that a tzaddik serves Hashem out of fear, which is shelo lishmah (not for the sake of Heaven) while a chassid serves Hashem out of love, which is lishmah (for the sake of Heaven).

Rav Chaim Vital offers a different approach. He writes that a tzaddik still contains some degree of evil in himself, while a chassid is someone who has totally purified himself from any traces of evil, by cleansing himself out from any vestige of bad middos.

A similar concept is written about in Sefer Tanya, but with slightly different terminology: a perfectly righteous person does not even have to fight his yetzer hora, while a more average person still has fights with his yetzer hora. The first kind of person is called a tzaddik (righteous person) while the second kind of person is called a beinoni (average person).

We will focus here on the third approach, the approach of Rav Chaim Vital, which is that a perfectly righteous person is someone who has removed himself from all bad middos, and thus he is completely purified of evil, while a person who is not as righteous is someone who still struggles with his bad middos and thus still has some traces of evil going on inside himself.

Free Will, Above Free Will, and Below Free Will

This approach of Rav Chaim Vital is explained extensively by Rav Dessler zt”l, in sefer Michtav M’Eliyahu, who writes as follows: Every person contains within himself a “chassid”, a point of total purity, as well as a point of “tzaddik”, a point which still struggles with evil, and a point in which he usually succumbs to evil.

Rav Dessler further writes that we have a point of free will in ourselves – the power to choose between good and evil – which is the lower part of our self; and we also contain a higher power in ourselves, the point that is “beyond free will”, a point in which we see clearly what the right thing to do is, where we don’t have to struggle with evil. Our lower point, our point of free will, is called the “beinoni” within us, and our higher point, which is above our point of free will, is called the “tzaddik” within.

Rav Dessler continues there that we all have situations in life in which we struggle with making the right choices, and this is where we exercise our point of free will. We also have situations in life in which we never have to “choose” what the right thing is, because we see clearly what the right thing to do is, and it comes to us naturally. Each person has a different situation in life, and therefore, something which is a difficult test to Reuven might not be a test at all to Shimon, while the areas which test Shimon are not a test to Reuven. In addition, we all have a third part of our life, in which evil is mainly dominant, and this is “below” our point of free will, because there are parts in our life which we are naturally drawn towards the evil [and it is almost impossible for us to overcome these areas of evil].

In summary, these are the three parts to our self – our point of free will (in which we have an even struggle between good and evil), our point of above free will (in which we always do the right thing), and our point of below free will (in which we are powerfully drawn towards doing the wrong thing).

Nefesh, Ruach, and Neshamah

In similar terms, man has three layers of his soul – Nefesh (the lower part of our soul) Ruach (the middle point of our soul) and Neshamah (highest part of our soul).[1]

The Nefesh is the part in us in which we experience a pull towards evil, specifically the areas in which we usually succumb to the evil.

Our Ruach is our point of free will, areas in which we are faced with an equal challenge to either choose good or evil.

Our Neshamah is our point of total good, the areas in our life in which we never choose evil and we always choose good.

The Viewpoint From The Nefesh

If a person views himself as a Nefesh, then he experiences life through the prism of Nefesh. He focuses on the areas in which he always succumbs to evil, and thus he comes to despair, because all he sees are his spiritual failings. The despair that he feels in his life can either be taking place in his conscious state, or it can be taking place only subconsciously, but either way, he is in a state of total despair towards his spiritual situation, because all he sees are the areas in which he always succumbs to evil.

He identifies himself as a Nefesh, and the Nefesh cannot free itself from evil temptations that come its way, so what will happen? He gives up on ever overcoming his yetzer hora, and he becomes lethargic; he doesn’t care anymore, because he knows that he fails so many times anyway. He becomes broken inside and gives up on ever attaining spiritual progress.

This is what happens when a person doesn’t know how to identify beyond the level of Nefesh. He feels that evil dominates his life, so he becomes hopeless and gives up. He feels like a slave to his temptations, and as Chazal say, “A slave does as he pleases.” He feels helpless when it comes to trying to fight the various temptations of his yetzer hora.

He identifies evil as being his main place in life which he can’t get past. Of course, he might be aware, intellectually, that there are higher parts to his soul, such as his Ruach and his Neshamah, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he identifies himself with those higher parts of himself. In the actual way that he identifies himself, he perceives himself as a “Nefesh” – a helpless human being who always succumbs to the evil temptations of the yetzer hora.

The Viewpoint From The Ruach

There are also people who identify themselves mainly through the prism of their Ruach, meaning, they are always in touch with their power of free will and they are aware that there is a lifelong battle with the Yetzer Hora.

However, the problem with this kind of person is that he cannot go beyond his point of free will. This is a kind of person who is constantly battling his yetzer hora; although it is commendable that he fights with his yetzer hora, the problem here is that his life is like one long war that never ends. It is wonderful that he keeps accessing his free will to choose good and not listen to his yetzer hora, but a person should know that life is not just about fighting the yetzer hora. Our life cannot be one long war; we need rest sometimes.

For example, we have the six days of the week, and then we have Shabbos, which is the time for menuchah, to be serene. When it comes to time, we understand that there is a time for menuchah, which is Shabbos. But what is not so known is that our soul as well needs menuchah as well. This is the depth of the statement of Chazal, “A Torah scholar is called Shabbos.” A true Torah scholar is someone who has an inner peace, a point in his soul in which he can find serenity from all the troubles of life. It is the inner point in the soul that is called menuchah (serenity).

Attaining Menuchah\Inner Peace

How indeed do we get menuchah (serenity)? Do we get it through going to sleep on a bed…?

We need real menuchah on this world. The Chovos HaLevovos writes that our life consists of a lifelong battle with our yetzer hora. But that doesn’t mean that we can never have menuchah! We need to find menuchah sometimes, so we can rest from our struggles.

Menuchah is the power we can receive on Shabbos. But we have a yetzer hora too on Shabbos; so how can we get menuchah through Shabbos? If someone has never thought about this, then any “menuchah” he has from Shabbos is not real menuchah; it is just laziness, which is not real menuchah.

Let us reflect on this. What, indeed, is the difference between the weekday and Shabbos? How does Shabbos give us menuchah?

The truth is that menuchah does not come automatically to us just from Shabbos. It is accessed through a deep place in our soul. It is when a person identifies himself with the point above his free will. This is the meaning of the “Neshamah Yesairah” (extra soul) we have on Shabbos – it is referring to the secret of Menuchah. (Understandably, there are levels to how much one can reach it).

The purpose of Shabbos is to give us Menuchah, for a person to identify himself as the pure point in the soul that is above free will. But during the six days of the week, one should not live completely in his point of Menuchah; if he does, he is just acting sleeplike, and his Menuchah is imaginary. During the week, we must deal with our various struggles. Only on Shabbos are we meant to access the point of Menuchah, in which we identify our point of above free will.

What is the Menuchah we have on Shabbos? It is not simply so we can sleep in order to have more energy for the rest of the week. That is the superficial outlook, and it is a very, very superficial kind of Menuchah. Shabbos is rather the time in which we can connect ourselves and identify ourselves with the point in our soul that is above our free will, the inner point in the soul which is totally pure and always chooses good. On Shabbos, we are able to feel that there is an inner point in our soul which rests from all the spiritual wars that we go through doing the week; we can fee that point in us in which no evil can penetrate, because it is totally good.

However, in order to reach such an inner place in our soul, we need to reflect and identify the three layers of our soul – our Nefesh, Ruach and Neshamah. Reb Yeruchem Levovitz zt”l said that our entire Avodas Hashem is based on recognizing the forces in our soul. We must be very clear in the areas of our life in which evil is mainly manifest, the areas in which choose between good and evil, and the areas in which we naturally act good because we don’t have to choose.

For example, let’s say a person is aware that he has a problem with gaavah (haughtiness). If a person identifies himself simply as a Nefesh, then he thinks, “I am a baal gaavah”, and if he comes to feel lowly towards himself about it, he will develop an unhealthy feeling of low self-worth, which is called shiflus. Instead, what he should do is become aware of his shortcomings, but he can work on nullifying his ego more and more, and then he will be able to identify himself with the point that is beyond his pull towards gaavah.

When To Access The Point of ‘Menuchah’

However, we must only access this pure point in our soul of above-free will only at certain times. We must not live in it all day. The general idea is that we need to develop in ourselves a place of menuchah in our soul, which we can keep returning to after we encounter any spiritual struggle.

We must realize that although we have a lifelong battle with the yetzer hora – as the Chovos HaLevovos writes – and each person has his own particular struggles in life with his yetzer hora – we must at the same time be able to get in touch with our inner point of menuchah, so that we will have a place to “rest” from our battles sometimes.

Shabbos is the main time where we can feel this menuchah, but even during the week, we need to access it as well, though not as much. Even during the week, we need to uncover some degree of menuchah. This is hinted to when we say each day the Tefillah of the “Yom”: “Today is the first day of the Shabbos.” There is some degree of Shabbos which can be found even during the days of the week. It is the point of menuchah. The main time to access menuchah is Shabbos, but even during the week as well, we need to access it at times.

Feel Your Inner Point of Serenity, Every Day

Practically speaking, every day, we need to have some time aside to feel our inner point of menuchah - in which we feel the purity of our neshamah, which contains nothing but “splendor and joy in His palace.”

Every day, we must be able to connect ourselves somewhat to this inner place in our soul; but as we said, this should not be practiced for the entire day, because there is a concept that the weekday should not be made into Shabbos.

Shabbos – The Time of “Rest”

On Shabbos, we have menuchah. People simply understand that menuchah on Shabbos means to rest from work, and indeed, this seems to be the implication of Chazal, that on Shabbos we have to look at all your work as if it is done. But there is a lot more to the menuchah of Shabbos than just physical rest from working.

It is the time in which we can connect to the inner place in our soul, the point in our soul which is completely good – our Neshamah, which is above our Nefesh and Ruach. We must connect, inwardly, to this point in our soul. We can then use that point to nurse from it a deep attachment with Hashem, for all our life.

In Conclusion

If a person never reflects about these concepts, he lives an animalistic kind of life.  We must realize the source of our vitality, mainly on Shabbos, and at times during the week as well. But the point is that we have to realize that life is not just about struggles with the yetzer hora. We need some menuchah as well from our struggles and wars, and for this we have Shabbos. Our life cannot be one long war that never ceases.

Those who are involved deeply with their Avodas Hashem must understand this point very well. Although it is true that “A stubborn person is successful”, as the Vilna Gaon says, still, being stubborn in Avodas Hashem is not all there is to Avodas Hashem. We must all recognize the point in us which is completely good, the point in us which never struggles when it comes to certain areas of spirituality. This point is deep down within each and every one of us.