So who are they, anyway?
While the tzaddikim are most certainly purely righteous, the purely righteous do not necessarily have to be tzaddikim.
They could also be Beinonim on a roll who are rising to the challenge of the tests being placed before them in contradistinction to their literal soul brother, the Rasha, who simply goes with the flow of his inherent bent toward wickedness without making any attempt at staying the course.
As we said in reference to the Beinoni in EmunahSpeak: The Beinoni HaKodosh (2), 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.
The mechanics of the pushing away process was also laid out in EmunahSpeak: The Beinoni HaKodosh (2) where we also spoke about the Beinoni’s ability to push the Sitra Achra (Ra) down every time he abstains from doing something he shouldn’t do and the fact that he possesses that koach only by virtue of the possibility of his not abstaining.
But by merely staying on defense, ever so vigilant not to do that which the Torah prohibits, a Beinoni doesn’t qualify as yet as being purely righteous. In addition to being able to administer a smack down to the Ra he has to bring something to the table in the way of spreading light if he wishes to do as the purely righteous do.
And what exactly do the purely righteous do, be they of the Tzaddikim or of the Beinonim?
Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook z”l, explained as follows:
Rather than complain about wickedness, the purely righteous go on offense and increase righteousness. And they do it by example, which in turn brings people close as opposed to pushing them away.
And rather than complain about heresy, the purely righteous increase faith. They instill in others the foundations of emunah which, in and of itself, pushes heresy out the door, because as we know from EmunahSpeak: Nothing but Thoughts, we have it on good authority from Chazal that one cannot hold onto two disparate thoughts at the same time, so all we have to do is to decide to put good thoughts into our heads, thereby pre-empting the dark side competition.
And rather than complain about ignorance, the purely righteous increase wisdom. They know that the only antidote to ignorance is to give over the Toras Moshe that they received from their rebbeim who are links in a chain extending all the way back to Har Sinai.
The approach of the purely righteous is the Rosetta Stone of achdus. Rather than snipe from the sidelines on all the ills, real and imagined, that plague us, the purely righteous proactively give of their essence with the aim of qualifying those very ills for the endangered species list.
They understand that a little light can dispel a great amount of darkness, so rather than complain about darkness the purely righteous increase light.
