Tehillim 37 | "Very Soon, the Wicked Will Be No More"

This psalm is a work of wisdom psalm. It contains no prayer, no lament, and no direct appeal to God. Instead, it offers a series of proverbs, intended to "educate" its audience. The central issue the psalm addresses is the enduring theological dilemma of the righteous who suffer - perhaps the most persistent philosophical problem the Tanakh deals with. The psalm speaks to an audience of righteous individuals who are troubled by the success of the wicked who persecute them, accumulate wealth and power, and seem to thrive. The message of the psalm is clear: everything will ultimately be reversed. There is no reason to envy the wicked who prosper in the present, for in the end, their downfall is certain, and the righteous will prevail.

At face value, the psalm teaches that in the struggle between good and evil, the wicked will be defeated, punished, and ultimately erased from the earth: “Very soon the wicked will be no more; you will look at their place to find them gone” (37:10) Yet in a well-known 'Torah' in 'Likutei Moharan', Rabbi Nachman of Breslov offers a strikingly different reading of this verse. He writes: “Know, a person must judge everyone favorably (Avot 1:6). Even someone who is completely wicked, it is necessary to search and find in him some modicum of good; that in that little bit he is not wicked. And by finding in him a modicum of good and judging him favorably, one genuinely elevates him to the scale of merit and can bring him to repent. This is the aspect of “Very soon the wicked will be no more; you will look at their place to find them gone” (Psalms 37:10) (Likutei Moharan 282:1). According to Rabbi Nachman "very soon the wicked will be no more" not because he will disappear, but because he will cease to be wicked. And the path to that transformation is through closeness. If we can identify the good points within a person, and give weight to those traits, it is precisely those qualities that will be strengthened and grow.