Don’t Consider Yourself a Tzadik

Don’t Consider Yourself a Tzadik:

Sefer Korban Ani explains that the pasuk can be translated as follows; “A man who is tahor” – this refers to a man who considers himself pure and holy. “And is on the road” – he thinks he is on the right path and that he won’t veer from it. “He is not” – he is not being truthful. If he really would be a yarei shomayim, he would find at least some fault in himself that he must rectify.

Even truly great men of the past did not look at themselves as tzadikim. Rav Saadia Gaon went so far as to roll around in the snow because he felt that he had not reached the proper level of avodas Hashem. Furthermore, the Semak counts thinking of yourself as a tzadik as a prohibition of the Torah.