Don’t Get Stuck in the Middle

Special Edition for Rosh Hashanah 5775            

L’Shanah Tovah Tikatayvu – “May you be inscribed for a good year!”

We invoke these words liberally at this time of year, as the Jewish alternative to “Happy New Year,” but what is the back story to being “written up” for good on Rosh Hashanah?

The Gemara, in a famous passage (Rosh Hashanah 16b), delineates the three categories into which all people are divided on Rosh Hashanah – tzadikim, resha’im, and beinoniyim. The tzadikim  (the righteous)are immediately sentenced to life, whereas the resha’im (the wicked) are sentenced to the opposite. The beinoniyim – literally, “middle ones” – have their judgment suspended until Yom Kippur, and their sentence is thus determined based on their conduct in the interim.

Rabbi Moses Maimonides (aka the Rambam) discusses this system in his Laws of Repentance (3:3), where he identifies “tzadikim” and “resha’im” as, respectively, those who merits exceed their demerits, and those whose demerits exceed their merits. The beinoniyim, the Rambam comments, are those whose merits and demerits are precisely equal. These people, the Rambam proceeds to explain, have their judgment delayed to Yom Kippur, and if they repent during the interim period, they receive a favorable sentence on Yom Kippur.

Many later writers addressed the question of why the Rambam requires specifically repentance, rather than a mere “tipping of the scales” by increasing mitzvah performance and avoiding sin. If, as the Rambam indicates, the judgment is determined based on a quantitative equation of mitzvot and sins, it would seem that the beinoniyim need simply to ensure that they perform enough mitzvot while avoiding sin during the interim period to tip the scales in their favor. Why does the Rambam insist upon repentance?

Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner answers this question by redefining the categories of tzadikim, resha’im and beinoniyim. According to Rav Hutner, the Gemara refers here to what he terms a “midda ba-nefesh,” or the essential, overall status of a person. It is possible, Rav Hutner claims, for a person to be classified on Rosh Hashanah as a “tzadik” even if, numerically speaking, he has more sins on his record than mitzvot. If one is, at his core, fundamentally committed to God, but due to frailty or other factors currently has more sins on his record than merits, he is nevertheless categorized as a tzadik. Rav Hutner draws a comparison to a generally patient, indulgent person who occasionally grows angry. These infrequent outbursts do not undermine the individual’s overall status as a patient person. Likewise, even if we have occasionally lapsed into periods of sin, which tilt the quantitative equation against us, we will still be defined as tzadikim if we are truly and genuinely committed to God at our core.

The beinoniyim, then, are not those whose wrongful acts number precisely the same as their good deeds. Rather, these are people who remain internally conflicted, who are not steadily committed to God but who are also not entirely sinful. They are mindful of, and generally fulfill, their religious duties, but they lack the determination and resolve to serve the Almighty and avoid wrongdoing with consistency and under all circumstances. And for such a person to change his status from beinoni to tzadik, it does not suffice to add more mitzvot to the scale. What is needed is for this individual to make a firm, resolute decision of consistent, unwavering commitment, and this is why the Rambam demands teshuva. Teshuva here means leaving one’s “in between” status and firmly implanting himself on the side of loyalty to God. Without this resolute decision, he will remain a beinoni regardless of how many mitzvot he performs.

We might add that this explanation of the “beinoni” status may help explain the seemingly peculiar ritual of the goats performed during the Yom Kippur service. The High Priest is instructed by the Torah to take two outwardly identical goats and casts lots determining which is offered as a sacrifice to God, with its blood sprinkled in the holiest sanctum of the Temple, and which is taken away and thrown off a cliff in the desert. As we stand in judgment on Rosh Hashanah, many of us are a blend between “for God” and “for Azazel,” possessing conflicting loyalties and commitments. We do not ignore God’s commands, but neither are we wholeheartedly devoted to the point where we make every sacrifice demanded of us by our religious obligations. The process of the Ten Days of Repentance is intended to lead us to the two goats of the Yom Kippur service, to the point of making a firm, unwavering decision, without “if’s” or “but’s,” as to where our loyalties lie. On Yom Kippur, there is no longer any room for “beinoniyim,” for indecisiveness, for trying to be “religious” without a total religious commitment. The teshuva of these ten days is precisely the teshuva of choosing one direction to the exclusion of the other, of making a clear decision and statement that our loyalties are to God and to God only, without exceptions, and without any ambivalence. And this is how we change our status from beinoniyim to tzadikim, from people straddling the fence to devoted adherents of the Almighty.