So Who Are the Lamed Vav Tzadikim?
By Yehiel Levy | June 02, 2016
As a boy, and up until today, I was always intrigued by the concept and tradition of the 36 hidden righteous. I remember people speaking of them with great reverence, in whispers and undertones. Unfortunately, nowadays, they are spoken of in the wrong context and freely, whether out of ignorance or misconception and sometimes in the most inappropriate ways. And so I did some research in Hasidic and other sources and came up with some interesting points.
For many faiths, there are the punishments and rewards of the afterlife to motivate us to be good on earth. But not everyone spends a lot of time pondering these future realms or even believing in them. So then, why bother to be good?
But there is a wonderful old Hasidic legend that addresses this issue, with the suggestion that more might be at stake in this life than you think.
According to a very old Jewish mystical tradition, at all times in history there are 36 righteous men who wander the earth unknown to everyone else, including one another. These are the Lamed-Vavnikim, or the Tzadikim Nistarim.
These men, who wander the earth unknown, are absolutely critical to the existence of the human race, because as long as they continue to exist, the anger of almighty God is held back from the earth for their sake. Even if the world were to become completely depraved, for the sake of these few righteous men, doom will not yet fall on this present world.
The inspiration for this medieval idea certainly has its roots in the Bible. In Chapter 18 of the Book of Genesis, God descends to earth to visit Abraham, to inform the patriarch that his wife Sarah would bear a child in their old age. After this, the Lord announced that he intended to visit the city of Sodom because the outcry against their sins was very great.
Abraham interceded for the people of Sodom, asking the Almighty if he would not spare the city if only he found 50 righteous men there. The Lord agreed to this, whereupon Abraham argued God down to 45, and then 40, and then 30, and even down to 20 and then to 10.
Abraham’s debate with God is one of my favorite Bible stories, and it makes a gracious point—for the sake of the few God might spare the many.
In Genesis, God will spare Sodom for the sake of 10. The number 10 is certainly a sacred one and there are many examples of groups of 10 in the Bible, beginning with the 10 sons of Jacob who went down into Egypt. But while the unknown worthy men of Sodom account for the principle of hidden righteous ones, where does the number 36 derive from?
The origins of the legend may be with Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, who lived in the Holy Land in the second century CE and who in a biblical commentary declared that if certain men were alive in his own day, God would certainly not destroy the world. In his list of urgently needed righteous types of men, Rabbi Shimon included himself and his son and various biblical worthies.
A century later, Abbaye, one of the sages of the Talmud, added his comment to Rabbi Shimon, saying that at all times, “there are never less that 36 men who greet the Shekhinah,” or the earthly presence of God.
Abbaye based his judgment on Isaiah 30:18, which reads in part, “blessed are all those who wait for Him.” The words “for Him” in Hebrew are also “lamed vav” or the digits for 36, and so the number became fixed. Modern scholars have suggested that the fact that ancient astrology believed that the sky, the courts of heaven, was traditionally divided into 36 sections of 10, giving us our modern 360 degrees of a circle, may have influenced the numbering for the Talmudic sages.
In medieval Jewish mysticism, the 36 men came to be known as the Tzadikim Nistarim, or the “hidden righteous ones.” Within the rich culture of the Hasidic Jews, this group began to be more and more defined. These secret people are righteous men whose actions are good and compassionate. They do not know that they are among the 36, and their humility is so great that were they to discover that they are indeed these righteous ones, they would cease to be them. Therefore any person who declared himself to be one of the hidden ones would certainly not be one. But God knows who they are and for their sake he spares the rest of us.
The Hasidic Jews loved to attribute wonderful powers to the holiest of their rabbis, and so in some of the writings one finds disciples of great rabbis wondering of their master might be one of the 36. In Hasidic legend these men are scattered around the Diaspora, that is, the communities of Jews across the world.
On occasion, one of the Tzadikim Nistarim will emerge from obscurity to save a Jewish community or some group of innocent people from disaster or persecution. But then he will always return to obscurity in the Jewish settlements again. These are, of course, ordinary men, not angels, who live and die as anyone else. When one of the hidden ones does die, his role is then passed unseen to another unknowing worthy character.
There is a beautiful moral point to this legend, which many Jewish scholars have noted. Since we do not know exactly who these 36 righteous ones are among us, it certainly calls forth some moral points for everyone.
First, we should all strive to be kind to all whom we meet, particularly the least among us, for one never knows if you may not be offering kindness to one of the very 36 on whom the survival of the world depends.
Secondly, each person should strive at all times to conduct himself or herself with honesty and charity according to God’s law, for who knows if you might not be one on whom the world depends?
And finally, the legend suggests a reminder call to humility for all people, because it is not by your own cleverness, power, wit or wealth that the community depends, but on those who are morally more sincere.
So let each of us be compassionate, humble and honest, because perhaps today you will walk by one of the Tzadikim Nistarim, on whom the world depends.
By Yehiel Levy
Lamed Vav Ẓaddikim
LAMED VAV ZADDIKIM (Heb. ל״ו צַדִּיקִים, "36 righteous men"), the minimal number of anonymous righteous men living in the world in every generation. They are privileged to see the Divine Presence, and the world exists on their merit. The origin of this tradition, found in the Babylonian Talmud, is handed down in the name of the amora Abbaye: "there are not less than 36 righteous men in the world who receive the Divine Presence" (Sanh. 97b; Suk. 45b). This number has become renowned in fiction and in folklore, especially in Kabbalah and ḥasidic legends. Many suggestions have been made in the study of the origin of this number and its meaning. The majority are of the opinion that the origin is not Jewish. According to G. Scholem, it is drawn from the astrological belief in 36 celestial decans (see *Astrology), each of which rules ten days of the year and, thus, ten degrees of the constellations. This belief was also widespread in Western-Hellenistic culture and in Oriental teachings. Other conjectures have also been raised, but the subject remains unclear. It should be noted that the number 36 is not exclusively mentioned in the aggadah in this connection. The tanna R. Simeon b. Yohai believed that "the world never lacks 30 righteous" (Gen. R. 35:2, in J. Theodor's edition, 1 (19652), 330 and parallels) while it is said in the name of R. Simeon b. R. Jehozadak (third century) that "the world exists by the merit of 45 righteous" (Ḥul. 92a). This count, however, is also internally divided into 30 and 15, representing the number of righteous to be found in Ereẓ Israel in contrast to those abroad (i.e., Babylonia; ibid., see also Mid. Ps. 5:5). According to Rav Judah, the number 30 represents the number of "righteous among the nations of the world" (Ḥul. 92a). The widespread dissemination of the number 36 specifically can be attributed to the later Kabbalah, which adopted it.
[Encyclopaedia Hebraica]
According to Jewish folklore the hidden saints, called in Yiddish lamedvovniks, were responsible for the fate of the world and one of them is considered to be the Messiah. The idea is not found among Oriental Jews. The lamedvovnik was unnoticed by other men because of his humble nature and vocation. Lamedvovniks figured in kabbalistic folk legend of the 16th–17th centuries and in ḥasidic lore from the end of the 18th century. At times of great peril, however, the lamedvovnik makes a dramatic appearance, using his hidden powers to defeat the enemies of Israel, after which he returns, as mysteriously as he came, to his wonted obscurity. A tale in one of the Yiddish chapbooks relates how in Safed one such hidden saint was aided by the Ari ha-Kadosh (R. Isaac *Luria) disguised as a certain "Rabbi Nissim." The lamedvovnik theme may well have inspired the "Legend of the Three Nephites" in the Book of Mormon. In the 20th century, the Jewish tradition was reworked by the French writer André *Schwarz-Bart in his novel Le dernier des justes (1959; The Last of the Just, 1960), but in a way totally alien to the Jewish spirit, suggesting that the 36 saints were a long and tragic dynasty and that each lamedvovnik was "privileged" to become a martyr.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Beer, in: Bar Ilan, 1 (P. Churgin Memorial Vol., 1963), 172–6; G. Scholem, Das Buch Bahir (1923), 61f., 68 n.10; idem, in: JC (April 21, 1961), 23; R. Mach, Der Ẓaddik in Talmud und Midrasch (1957), esp. 134ff.; Montefiore and Loewe, Rabbinic Anthology (1938), 231–2, 665.
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