The Do’s and Don’ts of Becoming a Tzaddik
Shoftim 5785
I recently came across, and shared, this story about Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach Zt’l.1
One Simchas Torah, a young yeshivah bachur asked Rav Shlomo Zalman for a brachah.
With his usual warmth, Rav Shlomo Zalman blessed him: “You should find a good shidduch, have parnassah, and merit time to learn Torah.”
The bachur hesitated. “Thank you,” he said, “but that’s not the brachah I was looking for.”
“So what do you want a brachah for?” Rav Shlomo Zalman asked.
“I want to be the Gadol HaDor,” the bachur replied.
Rav Shlomo Zalman’s face fell. He grew visibly upset.
“How can I give you a brachah like that?” he said. “To ask to be the Gadol HaDor means you're asking for everyone else to be smaller than you. That’s not a brachah. It’s a put-down to others. I can’t give you such a brachah.”
It made me think.
Should we really be aspiring to be gedolim? Should we teach our kids to?
Or should we simply aspire to grow, to learn, to be kind, to be present, and if gadlus comes, it comes? Because we see them as bigger, not smaller.
Maybe a true Gadol looks around and sees a world full of Gedolim.
A friend of mine put it well: aim to be a tzaddik, not a gadol. A tzaddik is measured by who you are, while a gadol is defined as who you’re better than. A tzaddik can fall and still be a tzaddik, because greatness doesn’t come from being perfect nor does it come from being seen.
To be great you just need to be true to yourself. No title or degree necessary.
In Parashas Shoftim, we read about Moshe Rabbeinu instructing the Jewish people on what to do the moment they cross into Eretz Yisrael. They are to appoint shoftim to judge and shotrim to enforce the law. These leaders should sit at the city gates, facing the mess of real life.
The meforshim use this as a parable of sorts to teach an important lesson, one that is pertinent year-round, but especially during Elul, the period of introspection. They explain that just as there are gates to every city at which the beis din sits, so too a person has gates. The Sefer Yetzirah speaks of seven gates, both big and small, the openings of the face: two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and a mouth.
We have to guard what passes through them, especially our thoughts and the desires they spark. In the days of Elul, we should be placing sifters and guardrails on what we allow in and we should be policing our actions to ensure purity of thought. More simply, we should be putting God at the gates to make sure that whatever we do is aligned with the ratzon Hashem. When we put God to the side, we end up veering to the side as well2.
The careful caveat is that this is something personal, for one to do for themselves, not for others.
As we enter this time of year, many people grow anxious and take on more than they can handle. They begin policing themselves, piling on stringencies, and often end up overwhelmed. The Toldos Yaakov Yosef3, quoting the Rema4, warns that this, too, can be the yetzer hara at work—pushing us to push too far until we collapse.
Yes, we need safeguards to keep us on the path of Torah. But we also need to be self-aware and honest about where we are and what we can realistically sustain. Someone might think they can commit to an hour of learning every day, or to daven with a minyan three times a day. For many, that’s a struggle—I know it is for me. Instead of making impossible commitments, start smaller: learn for five minutes, try one minyan. Choose the step that you can truly hold.
That’s how one becomes a tzaddik. The greatest tzaddikim are often the most balanced and level-headed people who take the middle road, one step at a time.
Every Jew is a tzaddik in potential, but true tzidkus means being aware of where you are holding. The goal isn’t to imitate someone greater than you in ways that don’t fit. Taking on chumros or practices that aren’t really yours just to seem holier will only backfire. Instead, focus on genuinely, humbly and steadily on being yourself. That’s the path to holiness.
Rav Yeruchem Levovitz5 taught that if you aim only for the big things, you miss the point of Elul. The real work lies in the small acts that show you care about the ratzon Hashem: pausing before you speak in irritation, putting your phone down to truly listen, making a brachah with kavana. These are the true “judges” that guide you through the gates.
Because when you rise too high too fast, you only crash back harder. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive. It means striving with balance. Boundaries that fit who you are today are what carry you forward.
Rav Moshe Dovid Vali writes6 that the best protection and weapon against the yetzer hara is learning Torah. When a person learns properly, the yetzer hara itself will ultimately agree with the yetzer tov to fulfill the ratzon Hashem and walk the derech yesharah without veering left or right.
Elsewhere7, Rav Vali presents a sobering idea. Sometimes a tzaddik is on the verge of falling, and in an act of mercy Hashem removes him from this world so he can remain among the tzaddikim in Gan Eden. Other times, however, the danger comes not from failure but from overreaching. A person who is not truly on the level of a tzaddik may push beyond his capacity, striving to be “too much of a tzaddik.” That overextension itself can shorten his life: a body strained beyond its strength may collapse; one who gives away more tzedakah than he can afford may end up destitute.
Rav Vali is clear: Hashem desires each person to be a tzaddik according to his own strength. To take on more Torah than your mind can carry, or more practices than your life can sustain, is not growth but self-destruction. True tzidkus means serving Hashem within the measure of your abilities.
It reminds me of a children’s song that exists in countless variations. In Hebrew it goes:
“עוגה, עוגה, עוגה – במעגל נחוגה; נִסְתּוֹבֵבָה כל היום עד אשר נמצא מקום. לשבת, לקום! לשבת, לקום! לשבת, לשבת, לשבת כל היום!”
“Circle, circle, round we go, spin all day till a place we know — sit and rise, sit and rise, sit and sit all day.”
On the surface, it’s just a silly game with kids holding hands, spinning in circles, and collapsing in laughter. But listen closely, and you’ll hear something deeper. Life itself is a circle. We turn and turn through days, months, and years. The Jewish calendar brings us back again and again with Pesach in the spring, Rosh Hashanah in the fall. We rise, we fall, and the circle keeps moving.
And the words? “We’ll turn all day until we find a place.” Isn’t that what we’re all doing as we search for our place, our belonging, our home? All our spinning, all our wandering, is really a search for Him. Then comes the refrain: “To sit, to rise, to sit, to rise…” That’s life itself. Action and rest. Struggle and peace. Exile and redemption. You can’t rise forever, and you can’t sit forever. The holiness lies in the rhythm which leads when to move and when to pause. As Elul begins, maybe this children’s tune has something to teach us. Teshuvah means dancing within the circle until we find the place where we belong, as our truest selves, and the God who has been waiting there all along.
In one of the western variations, the song ends: “ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” But in that version, no one gets back up. Our secret is that when we fall, we rise again and keep dancing. We fall, we leap, we stumble, we soar and always stay within the dance. It is through that dance that we become tzaddikim.
Elul is not about breaking yourself or proving yourself. It’s about dancing in circles, with rises and falls, always with God at the center. To be a tzaddik in Elul means dropping the illusion of perfection and instead focus on being steady and balanced. That’s the kind of teshuvah that lasts.
As the band Shlepping Nachas sings, “my friends are tzaddikim and tzaddikim are my friends.” What they’re really saying is that they see the people around them, flawed, striving, complex human beings, as individuals sincerely trying their best. They don’t mean tzaddikim in the halachic sense, or the next Gadol HaDor. They mean that every Jew, in their own way, is living with purpose, doing the quiet work of a tzaddik.
Rav Shlomo Zalman wouldn’t give that bachur a brachah to be the Gadol HaDor because becoming a tzaddik isn’t about towering over others. It’s about walking with them, steady and balanced, with God at the gate and to dance the spiral of life with sincerity.
As told by Rav Avigdor Nebenzahl in Yerushalayim B’Moadeha 3 Weeks
Beis Yaakov HaKollel, Shoftim
Shoftim
Machir Yayin, Esther 5:14
Daas Chochmah U’Mussar I:72
Mishneh LaMelech, Shoftim 17:20
Koheles 7:15–17; see also Metzudas Dovid