This is why I could never be Lubavitch. I want to become a tzaddik, and the BaalHaTanya won't let me.

@HodofHod I'm not kidding. The vast majority of other authorities (including the Rambam, to which this question was originally addressed) say that any Jew can become a tzaddik. We rule according to the majority. Therefore, according to the majority, G-d wants me to strive to become a tzaddik. Since G-d wants me (and you, and all of us) to strive to become a tzaddik, I cannot join a sect which tells me that I'll never get there.

@Will, it is also worth looking at what RSZ says at the end of ch. 14. He writes that a beinoni - even though he hasn't, and indeed might never, reach the level of a tzaddik, who instinctively loves Hashem and hates evil - still needs to set aside times to train himself to do just that. First of all, he has to do his part; second, he might even thereby merit that Hashem reward him by making it possible for him to achieve that level of avodah.

@Alex This is an unfortunate outgrowth of the Deification of leaders, and one of the reasons the rest of the Torah world was so wary of Chassidus in the first place. Actually, this concept of a charismatic leader being perfect, never having desire to sin, predates the BaalHaTanya and the BaalShemTov. This claim was first made by 12 devotees of a radical preacher in the times of the Amoraim. A guy that grew up in Natzeret, I believe his name was Yeshua.

@Will: who said anything about "a charismatic leader being perfect"? A tzaddik, first of all, has to work to develop himself to that point too; that is his form of avodah. Besides, RSZ also points out earlier (in ch. 10) that even (most) tzaddikim don't have a total hatred for evil, implying that indeed they haven't completely sublimated it. Be that as it may, kindly don't use this site to casually slander Chassidus - a well-accepted stream of Judaism, one which has long since proven its bona fides - as being similar to a non-Jewish religion; we try to follow the rule of את והב בסופה here.

@Alex not every difference of opinion is slander. In any case, this question was THE RAMBAM and his definition of Tzaddik. I won't bring up inter-sectarian philosophical divides out of the blue; but when someone hijacks a Rambam question and turns it into a Tanya shiur, such a clarification is warranted.

@hodofhod It wasn't a gratuitous comparison. This very concept, that some person are "born tzaddikim", and that the rest of us cannot even come close to their perfection, was expressed by the founders of Christianity before it was expressed by the founders of Chassidic thought, typically concerning their leaders.

@Will, you know perfectly well that that's not what Chassidus means by this. Some people are "born tzaddikim" in the same way that some people are "born musicians": they have a certain talent that other people don't, but they still need to develop and practice it. Conversely, someone who doesn't have such natural talent can practice and practice until they become quite an accomplished musician, and indeed will excel over the person with the natural talent who never developed it.

So too: some people are granted by Hashem the gift of being able to totally transform their yetzer hara to good, or to "kill" it (see Yerushalmi, Berachos 9:5, about Avraham and David respectively; are you going to also accuse Chazal of trying to pass off a Christian notion, G-d forbid?), and they need to work on doing so; others have the job of fighting their yetzer hara and beating it over and over, while never totally vanquishing it. So, if you have a "born tzaddik" who never bothers to defeat his yetzer, vs. a beinoni who never listens to his - there is no question who is the greater one.

And incidentally, @Will, you might do well to also look at ch. 27 of Tanya for further discussion of this point. Far from your mistaken notion that in Chassidus "the rest of us cannot even come close to the perfection" of tzaddikim, RSZ points out that the avodah of the tzaddik (of transforming evil into good) and of the beinoni (fighting against evil) are equally beloved forms of avodah to Hashem, and are equally "delicious" to Him.

@Alex You're only saying that Hashem loves the "regular" people (beinoni) as much as He loves the "born special" people (tzaddik). That doesn't refute the point; RSZ still claims that a tzaddik is a different creation than other human beings. That's not normative Judaism.

@Will, again, a tzaddik is not any more a "different creation than other human beings" than is Mozart. Anyway, though, may I ask: who exactly appointed you the decisor of what is and isn't "normative Judaism"? Dare you say that you know Judaism better than someone who is widely accepted as an authority on halachah (and is quoted as such by later halachists including Misgeres Hashulchan and Mishnah Berurah)? A little humility might be in order.

@Alex Most poskim throughout the ages have defined tzidkus as the absence of sin. It can mean that a given person doesn't have any sin on his account (after sincere tshuvah). It can mean that, at the end of ones life, one has more mitzvos than aveiros. However, once you go an define tzidkus as a state that only certain people can reach, you leave the realm of normative Judaism.

@Alex Koheles 7:15, "Do not be too much of a tzaddik". Why would King Solomon tell us that, if only certain people are born with the tzaddik gene? Brachos 37, "A tzaddik gamur cannot stand where a Baal Tshuvah stands". In that case, someone who has never sinned is called a "tzaddik gamur". So then, what is a tzaddik? To answer your question, the majority view of our poskim form the realm of normative Judaism.

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