Week 6: The Middot and the Tzaddik
Day 39 – Netzach in the Tzaddik
Netzach, the pro-active spark of initiative:
“One of the principle characteristics of the zaddik, therefore, is his going out to the people, to save them. He takes the initiative to heal the breach, not waiting for the people to act. … The zaddik must ‘arouse himself, as in the beginning of creation. It is he who must begin the labor of binding together what has been broken in order that the former harmony be restored.”
Netzach as one of the “Wings of Yesod” (with Hod):
“His mission is to move between the righteous and the unrighteous, ‘to turn many from sin, to change night into day. … The zaddik strives to save the people whom he loves and goes seeking them.”
Netzach related to, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”:
“Concern is more than awareness of another’s existence. It means to care; to go out of oneself toward one’s fellow man to help him, to heal him, to raise him. … he must feel for another in order to be whole himself.”
“The Zaddik,” Samuel H. Dresner pp. 148-154