Tzadik - Historical Sources On The Tzadik

Historical Sources On The Tzadik

Based on the teachings of Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Baal Shem Tov and the Ohr ha-Chaim, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi taught in the name of the Zohar that "He who breathed life into man, breathed from Himself." Therefore one's soul comes from the essence of God.

According to kabbalah, a tzadiki, because they have completely nullified themselves and their desires to what God wants, their Godly soul (which like every Godly soul is part of God) is revealed within them more than other people who have not completely nullified themselves to God. This concept is based upon many Jewish sources. Here are some:

• The Zohar: "Et pnei Ha'adon YHWH - do Rashbi" (Lit., "The Countenance of the Lord YHWH - this is Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.")

• The Jerusalem Talmud "All the standing that the prophet Elijah did before his teacher Achiya Hashiloni, were as if standing before the Shekhinah." And this is explained in Yesod HaAvoda in the name of the Radbaz, "This was because Achiya had his mind and thoughts connected and cleaved to the greatness of the holy one, and Elijah when he stood before his teacher connected his thoughts with the thoughts of his teacher with the love from his heart, and therefore it was as if he stood in front of the Shekhinah."

• Bahya ben Asher comments on the verse "And Moses took the tent and pitched it for himself outside the camp, distancing from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting, and it would be that anyone seeking the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp." saying that "From here we see that Moses was called with the Tetragrammaton, and we also find that Jacob is called with El...And we also find by the name of a Tzadik that he is called with the Tetragrammaton... And we also find that by King Messiah that he is called with the Tetragrammaton as it is stated. and this is his name that he shall be called, The Lord is our righteousness...And the reason by all of them is because one who cleaves to something, is called by the thing which he is cleaving to."

• Yoel Sirkis "The purpose of The Blessed One was always that one should be involved in Torah in order to bond our souls in the essence and spirituality and holiness of the source of the giver of the Torah...And if one is involved in Torah study with this intention, one becomes a Merkavah and Heichal for the Shekhinah may he be blessed, so that the Shekhinah is literally within them, because they are a Heichal to God and within them literally the Shekhinah establishes its dwelling place."

• Chaim Volozhin "If someone sanctifies himself properly through the performance of all the Mitzvot...Then he himself is the Beit HaMikdash itself...Because this is the truth regarding Tzadikim through the deeds which are desirable by the blessed one they are the Mikdash mamash"

• Moshe Chaim Luzzatto "The holy one who cleaves constantly to God and his soul fires up with true intellectual understanding with great love of his creator and fear...Behold a person like this, he himself, is considered to be like the Tabernacle Beit HaMikdash and the Mizbeiach...And also it is said regarding Tzadikim they are the Markavah, because the Shekhinah dwells in them just like it dwelled in the Beit HaMikdash."

• Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler "And this thing is so much certain to one that thinks in depth about it, until it is impossible to understand how someone can argue on it, and so was already mentioned in the words of many of the great scholars like the Ramchal and others, that the image of Tzadikim is Hashem may He be blessed, Himself, and they are the same."

• In 1951 the seventh Rebbe of Chabad, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson made a similar statement regarding the practice by Hasidim to have a Rebbe act as an intermediary with God on their behalf. He explained, "The Rebbe is completely connected with his Hasidim, not like two separate things that connect; rather, they become completely one. And the Rebbe is not an intermediary which separates, but one that connects. Therefore by a Hassid, he with the Rebbe with God are all one ... Hence, it is not possible to ask any questions about an intermediary, since this is Atzmus uMehus itself as it put itself in a body. This is similar to the statement of the Zohar, 'Whose is the face of the Master ? This is the Rashbi.'."