In the previous section we learned about the five categories: the tzaddik v'tov lo, the tzaddik v'ra lo, the rasha v'tov lo, the rasha v'ra lo, and the beinoni, and how Rabbah calls himself a "beinoni." Now we go deeper into the definition of the beinoni himself: what he is, and what he is not.
Abaye's response: "Lo shavik mar chayei l'chol briyah"
Immediately after Rabbah says "k'gon ana beinoni" ("someone like me is a beinoni"), the Gemara continues: "אמר לו אביי" - Abaye, his student, stands up and says to his teacher: "לא שביק מר חיי לכל בריה" - "the master has left no life for any creature." What does he mean? There are several ways to understand it:
The Gemara there is discussing the Ten Days of Teshuvah and Yom Kippur: the tzaddikim are sealed immediately for life, while the beinonim hang in the balance from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur. Abaye is saying to Rabbah: if only tzaddikim are sealed for life, and you define yourself as a beinoni, then we, your students, are certainly not above you but below you, and heaven forbid we do not fall into the category of tzaddikim who are sealed for life. It comes out that "the master has left no life for any creature." This explanation is written by the Rebbe in one of his letters, in the name of his father, who explained the passage to him this way when they learned Tanya together.
The Rebbe notes that he himself understands the passage in a simpler way. Elsewhere the Gemara uses this same expression in a different context. On the verse "כי תבוא בכרם רעך ואכלת ענבים כנפשך שבעך ואל כליך לא תיתן" ("when you come into your fellow's vineyard, you may eat grapes to your heart's content, but you may not put any into your vessel"), which in its plain sense speaks of a worker hired to labor in the vineyard, who may eat but may not take home, the Gemara says: "אמר רב: מצאתי מגילת סתרים בי רבי חייא וכתוב בה: איסי בן יהודה אומר, כי תבוא בכרם רעך - בביאת כל אדם הכתוב מדבר" - Rav said: I found a hidden scroll in Rabbi Chiya's house, and in it was written: Issi ben Yehudah says, "when you come into your fellow's vineyard" refers to any person entering. To which Rav responds: "לא שביק איסי חיי לכל בריה" - "Issi has left no life for any creature," for if anyone who walks into any field may eat his fill, no owner will have a field left. In the same vein Abaye says: with these words of yours you leave all of us in a terrible predicament. If you are a beinoni, what are we? We would be in the state of resha'im, and that is a predicament indeed.
It is known that the wicked, even in their lifetime, are called dead. If so, anyone whose level is lower than that of the beinoni is, heaven forbid, in the category of the dead, and so "the master has left no life for any creature."
In any case, Abaye is not prepared to accept Rabbah's statement, and he rejects it.
"To understand all this properly"
Many details have been presented so far, and a great many of them need explanation. The Alter Rebbe writes "ולהבין כל זה באר היטב" - "to understand all this properly" - and the questions are numerous:
What exactly is the point of difference between a tzaddik v'tov lo, a tzaddik v'ra lo, a rasha v'tov lo, a rasha v'ra lo, and the beinoni? We have seen the division, but we have not understood its content.
What does "tzaddikim, their yetzer tov judges them" mean, and why did Chazal choose the word "judges" rather than "rules" or some other expression?
What is even novel in saying that "tzaddikim, their yetzer tov judges them"? If that were not so, in what sense would he be a tzaddik at all? It seems perfectly obvious, and had it never been stated we would have assumed it on our own.
And what is the difference between a tzaddik and a beinoni?
Iyov's challenge
Something else that requires understanding, says the Alter Rebbe, is what Iyov said. The Gemara relates that Iyov sought to exempt the entire world from judgment, and said: Master of the world, You created the ox with split hooves and the donkey with closed hooves; You created Gan Eden and You created Gehinnom; You created tzaddikim and You created resha'im. In other words: how can the Holy One, blessed be He, punish a person and level claims against him, when He Himself determined that this person would be a rasha?
How could Iyov say such a thing, and what did he mean? It is striking that the Maharsha, one of the well known commentators on the Gemara, uses sharp language about this statement and rejects it, saying that heaven forbid one should understand it literally. The Alter Rebbe, by contrast, does not reject it: he brings Iyov's words and states that they need to be understood. Iyov said it, and the Gemara recorded it, so there is substance to the claim, and it must be understood.
And why does it need understanding? Because "והא צדיק ורשע לא קאמר". The Gemara says there is an angel named Lailah who is appointed over conception, and he presents every single drop before the Holy One, blessed be He, saying: Master of the world, this drop, what will become of it - strong or weak, wise or foolish, rich or poor? But "rasha or tzaddik he does not say," because "הכל בידי שמים חוץ מיראת שמים" - "everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven." And if tzaddik and rasha are not decreed from Above, how can Iyov say "You created tzaddikim and You created resha'im"?
The essence of the level of beinoni
We need to understand what the level of beinoni actually is: what the word means and what the concept is. One thing is clear: the beinoni is "אינו מחצה זכיות ומחצה עונות" - not someone who is half merits and half sins. Someone learning the Gemara might have thought: a tzaddik, the yetzer tov leads him; a rasha, the yetzer hara leads him; and the beinoni, both of them lead him, meaning that sometimes the yetzer tov pulls him to mitzvos and sometimes the yetzer hara pulls him to transgressions, a fifty-fifty person. Says the Alter Rebbe: it is utterly impossible that this is the definition of a beinoni, and there is no doubt about it. Even before one learns Tanya, it is clear to anyone who reflects a little that the beinoni is not a person with fifty percent mitzvos and fifty percent transgressions.
And why is it impossible? Because Rabbah said "someone like me is a beinoni." Even though Abaye rejects his words, Rabbah said them and meant them, and at that moment he genuinely thought this was his state. And if a beinoni is someone with half merits and half sins, did Rabbah think of himself as having half a lifetime of sins? Did he not know himself, did he not know who he was, to the point that he made such a mistake about himself and called himself a beinoni?
And it is known of Rabbah that "לא פסיק פומיה מגירסא" - his mouth never ceased from learning. The Gemara in Bava Metzia brings an astonishing story: a question was asked in the yeshiva on High in the laws of nega'im, about a certain bahereth, whether it was tahor or tamei, and there was no one to rule on it. They said: there is one man expert in the laws of nega'im, and his name is Rabbah, and he will rule. But that means bringing him to the heavenly court and ending his mission in this world. They sent the Angel of Death and told him: go and bring Rabbah, we need him Above.
The Gemara says that the Angel of Death went out on his mission and could not carry it out, because there was no way to seize Rabbah. What did he do? He made a great commotion outside, and Rabbah thought enemies were coming, and said: better that I die than fall into their hands. In that split second he interrupted his learning with a thought about the enemies outside, and in that instant the Angel of Death was able to take him, and Rabbah issued the ruling Above. So Rabbah was on a level where you could not catch him for a single moment without Torah study.
Such a person can say and think about himself: whoever wants to know what a beinoni looks like, here is an example. Is it conceivable, after such a statement, that a beinoni is someone with fifty percent transgressions? Twenty percent? Ten percent? One percent? Impossible. "ואיך היה טועה במחצה עונות חס ושלום?" - "and how could he have erred about having half sins, heaven forbid?"
Some people answer immediately: Rabbah was humble, and out of humility he spoke that way. But this answer does not fit at all, and it reveals a flawed understanding of what an anav is. Humility is not falsehood. A person who says about himself "I am such and such" while deep down he knows he is the greatest tzaddik alive, and simply finds it unbecoming to say so publicly and therefore says "I am nothing," is not humble, he is a liar, one thing in his mouth and another in his heart. An anav is someone who truly thinks and means what he says. When Rabbah said of himself "I am a beinoni," he genuinely held that he was a beinoni.
It is worth noting that further down the page the Alter Rebbe will say that Rabbah was mistaken: he really did say it out of humility, and he really was mistaken, for he was not a beinoni but a complete tzaddik. But we need to understand how he could be mistaken, and with G-d's help we will understand this later on. In any case, for such an error to be possible, the beinoni cannot be someone you can picture as slipping up now and then in something. If that were the definition of a beinoni, Rabbah would not have made such an error and would not have thought of himself as one.
In the lines that follow, the Alter Rebbe narrows the possibilities and rules them out one by one. The beinoni is not:
a fifty-fifty person, half merits and half sins;
a person who slips in a light rabbinic prohibition;
a person who sees his fellow about to stumble and does not stop him;
a person who neglects Torah study even for a single second.
Anyone with even one of these shortcomings is, at that moment, not only not a beinoni, but a rasha, since the yetzer hara has overcome him. It emerges that the beinoni has not a single shortcoming.
And if he has no shortcoming at all, why is he not a tzaddik, and why is he a beinoni? Here is where the learning has brought us: what is a beinoni? We do not know. All we know is what he is not: he is not someone who has transgressions. And what he is: entirely good. If so, why is he not a tzaddik, and why is he called merely a beinoni? And what is a "sefer shel beinonim," a book for beinonim? Can we too be in this state, and who exactly is being spoken about here?
This is really the entry ticket to the Tanya, which leads to a truer grasp of definitions that seem simple and self-evident. Habit of speech is the stumbling block: everyone throws around the word "tzaddik," and people play with these definitions very cheaply. It is not so. Even the definition of a beinoni is a definition you have to know how to use.
In summary: in this section we learned Abaye's words "lo shavik mar chayei l'chol briyah" in three ways of understanding; the questions of "to understand all this properly" regarding the differences between the levels and regarding "tzaddikim, their yetzer tov judges them"; and Iyov's challenge as against the principle "everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven." Above all we focused on rejecting the mistaken definition of the beinoni as half merits and half sins: from Rabbah's statement about himself, he whose mouth never ceased from learning, it is clear that the beinoni is entirely good and has not a single shortcoming, and nevertheless he is not a tzaddik.
In the next section we will take up Rabbah's error: how could a complete tzaddik be mistaken about himself and call himself a beinoni, and what that teaches us about the essence of the beinoni.