זה וזה שופטןThe Beinoni

zeh vazeh shoftanIn Gamatria ↗

The evil sleeps beside him; he never lets it rule.

The book's opening puzzle: the Talmud names tzaddik, rasha and beinoni (the 'intermediate'), and Rabbah counted himself a beinoni. So the beinoni cannot simply be someone half good, half bad. The tzaddik's evil has been stilled or transformed. The rasha lets evil take hold, even briefly. The beinoni never sins in deed, speech or willed thought, yet his evil is as strong as ever. Both impulses 'judge' him, like judges who voice opinions, but God gives the ruling. During prayer his evil sleeps; afterward it may wake.

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