2007 July 05 » Baggas’ Blog

5th July 2007

WOTD - Tzadikim Nistarim

Tzadikim Nistarim - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tzadikim Nistarim or Lamed Vav Tzadikim (ל”ו צדיקים) refers to 36 Righteous (or Saintly) people, a notion rooted within the more mystical dimensions of Judaism. (In Hebrew gematria, Lamed is the letter representing “thirty”, and vav represents “six”. Tzadikim is the plural for “righteous” or “saintly”). They are also known as the Lamed vavniks (the “Thirty Six” [people]). They may also be referred to as Tzadikim Nistarim: “Hidden Righteous [Saints]”.

Mystical Hasidic Judaism as well as other segments of Judaism know that there is the Jewish tradition of 36 righteous men whose role in life is to justify the purpose of mankind in the eyes of God; their identity is unknown to each other; if one of them comes to a realization of his true purpose then he may die and his role is immediately assumed by another person:

The Lamed-Vav Tzaddikim are also called the Nistarim (”concealed ones”). In our folk tales, they emerge from their self-imposed concealment and, by the mystic powers, which they possess, they succeed in averting the threatened disasters of a people persecuted by the enemies that surround them. They return to their anonymity as soon as their task is accomplished, ‘concealing’ themselves once again in a Jewish community wherein they are relatively unknown. The lamed-vavniks, scattered as they are throughout the Diaspora, have no acquaintance with one another. On very rare occasions, one of them is ‘discovered’ by accident, in which case the secret of their identity must not be disclosed. The lamed-vavniks do not themselves know that they are one of the 36. In fact, tradition has it that should a person claim to be one of the 36, that is proof positive that he is certainly not one. Since the 36 are each exemplars of anavah, (”humility”), having such a virtue would preclude against one’s self-proclamation of being among the special righteous. The 36 are simply too humble to believe that they are one of the 36. [..read more..]

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