Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Chassidism, opens his masterwork the Tanya with a contradiction. The Talmud in Tractate Niddah says that before birth, every soul is given an oath: "Be righteous and do not be wicked. And even if the whole world tells you that you are righteous, regard yourself as wicked." But the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) in Avot says the exact opposite: "Do not consider yourself wicked."
Which is it? Should you see yourself as righteous or wicked?
The Tanya's answer reshapes all of Jewish psychology. There are not two types of people—righteous and wicked. There are five. A completely righteous person whose good has absorbed all evil. An incompletely righteous person who has subdued evil but not eliminated it. A completely wicked person ruled by desire. An incompletely wicked person who sins but still has good impulses. And then the fifth category, the one Rabbi Schneur Zalman calls the benoni (בינוני)—the "intermediate person."
The benoni is the hero of the Tanya. This is the person who has never committed a sin in action, speech, or even sustained thought—but who still feels the full force of the evil inclination raging inside. The benoni does not experience inner peace. The war never ends. The dark urges never disappear. The benoni simply wins every battle, every single time, without ever winning the war.
Rabbah, one of the greatest Talmudic sages, once declared: "I am a benoni." His student Abbaye immediately objected: "Master, if you are merely a benoni, you make it impossible for anyone else to live." If even Rabbah—whose righteousness was legendary—was only intermediate, what hope is there for ordinary people?
The Tanya's answer: the benoni is not a lesser category. It is the realistic, achievable spiritual life. The tzaddik (a righteous person) transforms evil into good. The benoni does something arguably harder—he contains evil within himself forever, fighting it every day, and never lets it win.