In EmunahSpeak: The Beinoni HaKodosh we said, our job is to reach the level of Beinonim. And we also noted that Hashem derives a tremendous nachas ruach from the Beinoni’s lifetime street fight with Ra (evil).
The entire existence of the Beinoni is a study in contradiction because the very strength of the Beinoni derives from an inherent weakness.
Unlike the Tzaddik, who for the most part travels under the radar as far as life’s temptations are concerned, the Beinoni never leaves his foxhole on the front line in the battle against Ra. His weakness is that he sometimes forgets to keep his head down, which invariably leads to a grab bag of negative consequences. But being a Beinoni, he licks his wounds and is back in the thick of it in short order.
Our whole purpose in this world is to defeat the Ra, and defeat in this context doesn’t mean changing the Ra into something you would be comfortable inviting to your home for a Shabbos seuda. Ra is an integral part of Creation with a fundamental role to play for the duration. Our job here is not to change the Ra but rather to push it away.
And this is where the Beinoni’s strength lies. It’s in his ability to push the Sitra Achra (Ra) down every time he abstains from doing something he shouldn’t do, and he possesses that koach only by virtue of the possibility of his not abstaining. And that positive decision not to do wrong diminishes the koach of tuma which consequently causes the Kovod Shomayim to go up in the world. And this elevating of Hashem is more important than anything else. In contradistinction, the Tzaddik has no taiva to do Ra as we understand that term, which means that he cannot subdue the influence of the Sitra Achra in this world.
As we said in EmunahSpeak: The Beinoni HaKodosh, At its root, this world was created with but two personality types that will always remain the way they are: The Tzaddik and the Rasha. And as we also learned there, Beinonim, in the view of the Tanya, have the same spiritual DNA as the Rasha’im.
The Tzaddik and Beinoni are side by side with one not being higher than the other. They represent two distinct ways for nachas ruach before Hashem. And He doesn’t expect from one what he wants from the other.
Rabbi Yisroel Brog tells us that a Tzaddik can turn what’s bitter into something sweet and darkness into light. The Tzaddik increases tov, but he’s not fighting to destroy the Ra.
And that’s why we need Beinonim. Beinonim do the job.
Rabbi Brog points out that whereas the Tzaddik is all about sweetness, the Beinoni is loaded with charif. The Yetzer Hora is always working on him inside with every tool at his disposal.
This is the lot of the Beinoni, and at the end of the day, no matter what he does he can’t turn the charif into something sweet.
But he can make it palatable.
