People like labels. Labels make everything easier: we identify “the good guy” and “the bad guy,” as if “goodness” is an attribute that is a part of who a person is, like their height or skin color.
I accept that this is how people prefer to think, but I am not sure it is how we are supposed to think. After all, every life is a journey, and what might be appropriate or “good” in a child or a teenager may not be appropriate in an adult. “Good” is only meaningful if we have context, after all.
I think the Torah can be misread when people see words like “righteous” or “wicked” and understand them as pure value judgements, easy labels for identification of who is in the right and who is in the wrong. Translating “righteous” from Tzadik and “wicked” from rasha may actually be an error!
Consider, for example, Noach. He was described as “righteous/tzadik within his generation.” But why? What did Noach actually do at that time? He had not yet been commanded to build the Ark. The text does not tell us that he engaged in Good Deeds. So why is he call a tzadik?
Then one thing the text tells us about Noach is that Noach listened to G-d.
Listening, of course, is the precondition for consideration of new information, for being open to changing oneself and one’s own behavior. Listening to someone else is essential in order to have a proper relationship. It is no surprise, therefore, that shomea, listening, is the single most important verb in the Torah. A Jew listens, and considers and thinks and contemplates – and then we use the resulting understanding to act.
Why do I think that “listening” is a key part of being righteous? In part because of the way the Torah uses the opposite word: rasha. This word is often paired with Tzadik, the word for “righteous,” to show us that they are in fact two different paths of human behavior. In the Torah, a person is one or the other – not because they are characteristics of a person, but because they are the gateway for the choices a person makes. Are we receptive, or do we block out anything that causes us to think?
The Torah shows us, in the way it uses these words, what they actually mean.
Avraham is the first to use the word rasha in the Torah. He challenges G-d concerning the people of Sodom:
Abraham came forward and said, “Will You sweep away the tzadik along with the rasha? … Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the tzadik as well as the rasha, so that tzadik and rasha fare alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”
The angels come to Sodom, and the townspeople demonstrate that they are indeed rasha – they refuse to listen to Lot or the angels. They slam down any receptivity to outsiders or outside ideas whatsoever. Their refusal to listen means they have blocked out any possibility to even consider what an outsider has to say, let alone make thoughtful individual choices.
The Torah is telling us a profound lesson: being evil or wicked is not merely what we choose to do! It is also indelibly linked to whether we have first chosen to be willing to listen, to be receptive to what others have to say. And this helps explain why it is Avraham who first uses the word rasha in contrast to Tzadik: it is Avraham who shows us what it really means to listen to G-d, and he is keenly aware that most of the world, most of the time, does not share that inclination. He must have felt it quite personally: for all that Avraham proselytized, not a single person outside of his family remained part of the religion he founded!
There is a second famous example of how this word is used: Moses intervenes to save the life of a Jewish slave, killing the Egyptian overseer. When [Moses] went out the next day, he found two Hebrews fighting; so he said to the rasha, “Why do you strike your fellow?” (E. 2:13)
How did Moses know which one was the rasha? The response proves it!
He retorted, “Who made you chief and ruler over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”
This encapsulates the behavior of a rasha: he simply does not want to listen, to consider the possibility that he could be making better choices. The man digs in, defending his actions and rejecting everything Moshe has to say. He is just as unreceptive to constructive suggestions as were the people of Sodom! That is why he is the rasha!
The word rasha is not the same as the word for “evil.” In the Torah, “good” and “evil” are judgements, even if contextual. But rasha is predominantly (if not universally) a description of a person’s state of mind. Are they willing to critically assess themselves and try to make good choices? If so, they are, like Noach and Avraham: a Tzadik. A rasha acts like the people of Sodom and the fighting slave in Egypt: they instinctively reject
A related understanding of this word is found when discussing those who bear falls witness, who willfully and knowingly reject the truth. Hence
You must not carry false rumors; you shall not join hands with the rasha to act as a malicious witness (E. 23:1) … Keep far from a false charge; do not bring death on those who are innocent and tzadik, for I will not acquit the rasha. (E. 23:7)
Rejecting the truth is quite similar to being unreceptive to what others have to say: both deal with lying to oneself and to others.
In sum: Good and Evil are the results of the decisions we make. But in order to make conscious and thoughtful choices, one must first be willing to open one’s ears, to listen and consider what others have to say. The process of a person’s life is determined first and foremost by whether or not we are willing to act like Noach and Avraham and Moshe: are we trying to truly listen? Or do we reject everything that does not already agree with what we think we know?
Receptivity divides the righteous from the wicked.