Rasha (רשע) — the wicked person

Core definition

The rasha (wicked one) is, in the maamarim's moral taxonomy, one in whom evil dominates the good — the counterpart of the tzadik, in whom good dominates, and of the beinoni (the intermediate), whose avodah is the constant suppression (iskaphya) of evil that remains "in its force, only nullified for the hour" [15962/maamar_012 :: עב׳ 782–783]. The Talmudic extreme is the rasha gamur — "the completely wicked," expounded from Yirmeyahu's "one basket, very bad figs" (Yirmeyahu 24:2; Arachin 16b) [60800/maamar_035 :: בס״ד, תבוא — עמוד רכז, עב׳ 259]. Yet the corpus's treatment of the rasha is dominated not by condemnation but by a striking doctrine: even the completely wicked cannot sever the soul's bond with Havayah.

How the Rebbeim develop it

The central passage states: "the revelation of the aspect of the essence of the soul can be even, Heaven forbid, in completely wicked people — as our sages, of blessed memory, said: 'The wicked are full of regrets' — for from the side of the essence of the soul, he neither wants nor is able to be separated from Divinity" [31673/maamar_036 :: [עמוד תא], עב׳ 357–359]. Sin, then, is not the soul's will: "that, Heaven forbid, they transgress a sin, Elokim forbid — is because of the spirit of folly (ruach shtus), which covers over the truth, and it seems to him that he is still in his Judaism in wholeness" [31673/maamar_036 :: [עמוד תא], עב׳ 360–362]. And the proof is the crisis-moment: "when something comes to him through which, behold, Heaven forbid, he could be separated from Divinity — then he is liable to give his life in actuality (b'poel mamash), and he remains strong in his Judaism" [31673/maamar_036 :: [עמוד תא], עב׳ 363–364]. The rasha's mesirus nefesh under persecution is not a contradiction of his wickedness but the revelation of what his soul's essence always was: unable to be separated from Divinity.

This is the classical Tanya framework (chs. 1, 19): the rasha's evil is in his deeds and his animal soul's dominance, while his soul's essence remains a "part of Divinity literally," untouched. Even the tzadik-spectrum is defined by the same axis: "the incomplete tzaddik is one who does not despise evil... and he is called 'a tzaddik to whom evil [happens]' — for there is still some evil in him" [58837/maamar_071 :: עב׳ 39–41] — tzadik and rasha are positions on one continuum of the good-evil balance within the soul.

The maamarim also note the rasha's paradoxical power. "The wicked through their unity this with this draw from above the aspect of the good's flow in physicality — as the dispersion's generation and Achav's generation, as our sages [said] — though complete wicked, in their doings causing, Heaven forbid, separating and cutting in the upper man's aspect of the hishtalshelus's order's aspect; but through their unity they draw from above, measure for measure, from the aspect of His unity" [31654/maamar_012 :: [עמוד תצב], עב׳ 1029–1032]. Even complete wickedness, when joined by unity, draws down blessing — "measure for measure, from the aspect of His unity" — though such unity "not per the Torah" draws only "the good's flow in physicality" [31654/maamar_012 :: [עמוד תצב], עב׳ 1035–1036].

Key distinctions

Related concepts

Sources