Parshas Kedoshim 5782
“Good job, tzaddik!” “Thank you, tzaddeikes!”
I often find myself using these terms to convey that one of my children has gone beyond the call of duty. Whether overachieving in school, performing an unusual act of chessed, or exceeding expectations in some other manner. Telling my daughter she’s a tzaddeikes is like saying, “You’ve really transcended yourself. You’ve gone beyond who you naturally are.”
But like many others, I’m using the term incorrectly.
Among a smattering of other mitzvos, Parshas Kedoshim instructs us to use proper weights and measures when selling merchandise. A shopkeeper’s scales must be accurately calibrated; a merchants counterweights use to determine the proper amount being given to the customer must be honest and true. Interestingly, the term the Torah uses to describe this equipment is “tzedek.”
מֹאזְנֵי צֶדֶק אַבְנֵי־צֶדֶק אֵיפַת צֶדֶק וְהִין צֶדֶק יִהְיֶה לָכֶם אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם אֲשֶׁר־הוֹצֵאתִי אֶתְכֶם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם׃
ויקרא יט:לו
Scales that are tzedek, weights that are tzedek, an eiphah that is tzedek, a hin that is tzedek shall you have. I am Hashem Your G-d Who took you out of the Land of Egypt.
Vayikra 19:36
The Torah’s expectation is not that a merchant will provide his customer with more than what he payed for. Only that he will not shortchange him. The scales need not be tipped in the favor of the buyer; they need only perform the job that they are meant to.
In fact, this is how the Mesilas Yesharim uses the term, “tzaddik”. In drawing a distinction between a “tzaddik” and a “chassid,” he explains that it is the latter who goes beyond the letter of the law. The tzaddik, on the other hand, simply fulfills only what the Torah expects of him. No more, no less.
Of course, easier said than done. The Torah presents us with a series of dictates that are, frankly, challenging. We may not eat what we like, say what we like, or look at what we like. The Torah’s demands are difficult, even if we seek only to fulfill them to a T, without aiming to exceed its expectations.
But it is here that the Torah’s usage of the term tzedek. Can be so helpful. Tzedek as applied to accurate weights and measures is a reminder to read the Torah and its mitzvos not as a series of demands, but of endowments.
A scale can properly weigh produce so long as it wasn’t manipulated. A weight can provide an accurate reading provided it wasn’t doctored. A Jew can achieve tzidkus—a full and proper observance of all the mitzvos of the Torah—simply by being ourselves.
When we read the Torah, we’re reading about ourselves. The mitzvos are not a collection of rules and regulations unnaturally imposed upon the Jew, demanding that he be someone he really isn’t. The mitzvos, rather, are about discovering what we’re entirely capable of and what we were designed to do. A mitzvah is a revelation into the immense ability that Hashem has endowed the Jewish spirit with. To learn Torah is not to learn about a foreign body of laws, but to learn about oneself and what every Jew is capable of.