After initially learning of the Tzadikim Nistarim from a Haneke film, I have never forgotten about the concept.
They are usually poor, unknown, obscure, and no one guesses that they are the ones who bear all the sorrows and sins of the world. It is for their sake that God does not destroy the world even when sin overwhelms mankind. [link]
I am irreligious these days about most things other than brushing and flossing. I am certainly not the mystical type to my partner’s disenchantment. So why a secular, faux-structuralist would grab onto this concept with both hands and closed eyes leaking tears only to beg it to be real I don’t know.
Or maybe I do. As I have been aging slightly *cough* I have begun to appreciate the positive things that religion has sought. And the idea that someone, anyone of our population could be a pillar of human existence on our piece of rock flung through space is so lovely and ebullient a thought. It is religion creating a new structure for all of us to do no harm because any one person could be a Lamed Vav Tzadikim. It is creating a group that can parlay the good of humankind to an angry existence or god or super-villain. It lets me believe for a moment that there must be at least ten good people on the planet, and it could-might-well be you.