Where are the righteous
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 3, 2026
Who are the righteous? What does it mean to be righteous? It is, to be sure, not a quality of a subject, an attribute of this or that man, this or that woman. Justice — Benjamin wrote — is a state of the world, a dimension of being, not of will or intention. Things are just, Spinoza said, when you see them not at a certain time or at a certain place, but when you see them in God. This is why justice is something you can never have, but only contemplate. And yet, when you see things as they are in God, being the flower of that flower, being the smile of that smile, being the innocent of that innocent, then you feel a need you cannot escape, a need that neither demands nor commands you anything, but that acts within you beyond any will or intention — that’s how it is, and there’s nothing else to do. I will never forget the words of a young woman who was part of a resistance organisation in a Nazi-occupied country. She was arrested and tortured but confessed nothing. When she was liberated, her comrades wanted to celebrate her as a hero, telling her that if she had been able to stand torture it was because of the strength of her political convictions, her loyalty to the cause, and similar nonsense. But she shook her head and just said: no, I did it because I liked it, on a whim. She saw justice, she felt a need that overwhelmed her on all sides, but she never thought for a single moment that she was righteous, that justice could belong to her. If she had only believed in the just cause, but had not seen justice, she would have succumbed to torture and confessed.
This is why, according to Jewish tradition, the righteous, the tzadikim, are hidden in the world — hidden above all from themselves. And this is why there is something paradoxical in wanting to reward the righteous, as it were the other side of that justice that consists in punishing the guilty. Just as punishment can never come from justice, but only from law, neither reward nor recognition belong to justice. The righteous one recognised and rewarded, the no longer hidden tzadik, is no longer a righteous one.
The mystery of law, i.e. the mistery of guilt and punishment, must not be confused with the mystery of justice. For this reason it is perhaps well that the guilty be punished, but it is not equally sure that the righteous should be rewarded. They wander the world unrecognised until the end of times and, as legend has it, only in this way do they save the world.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 3, 2026
Who are the righteous? What does it mean to be righteous? It is, to be sure, not a quality of a subject, an attribute of this or that man, this or that woman. Justice — Benjamin wrote — is a state of the world, a dimension of being, not of will or intention. Things are just, Spinoza said, when you see them not at a certain time or at a certain place, but when you see them in God. This is why justice is something you can never have, but only contemplate. And yet, when you see things as they are in God, being the flower of that flower, being the smile of that smile, being the innocent of that innocent, then you feel a need you cannot escape, a need that neither demands nor commands you anything, but that acts within you beyond any will or intention — that’s how it is, and there’s nothing else to do. I will never forget the words of a young woman who was part of a resistance organisation in a Nazi-occupied country. She was arrested and tortured but confessed nothing. When she was liberated, her comrades wanted to celebrate her as a hero, telling her that if she had been able to stand torture it was because of the strength of her political convictions, her loyalty to the cause, and similar nonsense. But she shook her head and just said: no, I did it because I liked it, on a whim. She saw justice, she felt a need that overwhelmed her on all sides, but she never thought for a single moment that she was righteous, that justice could belong to her. If she had only believed in the just cause, but had not seen justice, she would have succumbed to torture and confessed.
This is why, according to Jewish tradition, the righteous, the tzadikim, are hidden in the world — hidden above all from themselves. And this is why there is something paradoxical in wanting to reward the righteous, as it were the other side of that justice that consists in punishing the guilty. Just as punishment can never come from justice, but only from law, neither reward nor recognition belong to justice. The righteous one recognised and rewarded, the no longer hidden tzadik, is no longer a righteous one.
The mystery of law, i.e. the mistery of guilt and punishment, must not be confused with the mystery of justice. For this reason it is perhaps well that the guilty be punished, but it is not equally sure that the righteous should be rewarded. They wander the world unrecognised until the end of times and, as legend has it, only in this way do they save the world.
(English translation by I, Robot)
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