Explorations in Sefer Tanya Chapter Twelve “The beinoni is he in whom evil never attains enough power to capture the ‘small city,’ so as to clothe itself in the body and make it sin. That is to say, the three garments of the animal soul—thought, speech and action originating in the klippah—do not prevail within him over the Divine soul to the extent of clothing themselves in the body—in the brain, in the mouth and in the other 248 limbs— thereby causing them to sin and defiling them, G-d forbid. “Only the three garments of the Divine soul, they alone, are implemented in the body, being the thought, speech and action engaged in the 613 commandments of the Torah. He has never committed, nor ever will commit, any transgression; neither can the name ^rasha’ be applied to him even temporarily, or even for a moment, throughout his life...” Even if he did fall and act wrongly, he returns to the state of a beinoni as soon as he is inspired to repent. Despite his valiant struggles against his lower inclinations, he still remains in the category of a beinoni all the while that the negative is alive within him at the root. It is Hashem’s will that he yearn and exert himself to reach the tzaddik-\Qwo\., which means being completely cleansed of the “bad blood” of his yetzer. The beinoni state is one of perpetual longing to transform the animal soul into absolute goodness. The deeper works explain the inner meaning of the verse, “And it will be, when Hashem your G-d gives you rest from all your enemies that surround you...”—one must find respite from all of the temptations of the yetzer that keep him from devoting himself to Torah and prayer. After finding rest from the influence of the “bad blood,” he leaves the state of rasha and becomes a beinoni. At that point, the avodah is to “blot out the memory of Amalek”—to uproot the evil within him at its source. The human heart is this is why each of us is charged at the very outset ,׳filled with the roots of the bad middos of our lives of avodah to “be a tzaddik.’’" We need to have the final goal before us all the way through. A person should never make the mistake of thinking, “First ITl be a beinoni and afterward I’ll develop a real yearning to be a tzaddik.’’" From the very start. 157.