AND MOSES SAID, "BY THIS YOU

SHALL KNOW THAT IT WAS THE LORD WHO SENT ME TO DO AL THESE THINGS; THAT THE ARE NOT OF MY OWN

DEVISING: IF THESE MEN DIE AS ALL MEN DO, IF THEIR LOT BE THE COMMON FATE OF ALL MANKIND, IT WAS NOT THE LORD WHO SENT ME. BUT

INTO SHEOL, YOU SHALL KNOW THAT THESE MEN HAVE SPURNED THE LORD."

(Bamidbar

16:28-30)

Ten things were created on the eve of the Sabbath [of the week of

creation] during dusk; they are the following: The mouth of the earth…

(Avot

5:5)

…Our sages did not believe in

spontaneous changes in the Divine Will. Rather, from the very first creation He

has made it part of the nature of things that whatever was to be made of them could be made of them. That was to be the

regular use and the basic, the natural quality. Yet, if there was to be a new

phenomenon in distant times, a miracle, this is still along the same lines. For

this reason they have said that, on the sixth day, He made it part of the

nature of the earth that it should swallow Korah and his group, and that the

well should bring forth water, and that the donkey should talk, and similarly

the other phenomena…You might now say that if all these miracles have been

embodied in the nature of these things from the six Days of Creation, why have

these ten been singled out? Know that they have not selected them to say that

there are no other miracles that have been embodied in the nature of things

since the six Days of Creation. It is rather that these only were created

during dusk, while the other wonders and miracles were incorporated in the

nature of the things with which they happened at the time of their creation.

(RaMBaM on Avot, based on

the Forchheimer translation)

Where Did Korah's Sons

Disappear To?

Aviad Stolman

In

our parasha, we are told:

Scarcely

had he finished speaking all these words when the ground under them burst

asunder, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their

households, all Korah's people and all their

possessions. They went down alive into Sheol, with all that belonged to them;

the earth closed over them and they vanished from the midst of the

congregation. (Bamidbar

16: 31-33)

These

verses, and in particular the emphases on all Korah's people and they… with all that belonged to them imply

that Korah's sons were among those swallowed up by

the

earth. However,

parashat Pinhas plainly states that Korah's

sons did not die (Bamidbar 26:11). What are we to do with this blatant

contradiction?

Several

derashot contain attempts to dispel the tension between these passages. Midrash Tehillim on

psalm 46 places these words in the mouths of Korah's

sons: "We witnessed all of the miracles which were performed in connection

with us, as it says, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up

with their households. Where were we at that hour? Out in the open air, as

is written, Korah's sons did not die. That

is to say, the earth did swallow up Korah's sons, and

at that moment they existed in a transitional state of "neither living nor

condemned" (see Yalkut

Shimoni, Pinhas 773).

However, at the end of the day, they managed to escape from the bowels of the

earth. Yalkut Shimoni

(loc. cit.) even explains how they were saved: "A place in Gehinom became

stable for them and they stood up on their feet and sang [praises to God]… when

Korah and his congregation were swallowed up, his

sons found themselves standing like a mast on a ship." According to these

explanations, Korah's sons had entered the depths of

Sheol but God made them a safe place in Gehinom, allowing them to stand up and

not fall into the abyss. Supported by these midrashim,

Yehudah Amihai tells us: "When you walk in this desert, wear very colorful

clothing and hear singing of praises to God from the depths below your feet,

like the singing of Korah's sons who were swallowed

up by the earth, all the while singing halleluyah."

Amihai assures us: "Sometimes, at night, you can

hear their muffled singing" (Nof Galuy Einayim, Jerusalem 5752).

According

to another interpretation found in Yalkut Shimoni, the earth did not

swallow up Korah's sons at all, rather, "the

area all around them was torn asunder, but the place just below them was not

torn." These graphic attempts to mediate between the various scriptural

passages reflect how the authors of the midrashim

viewed the moral character of Korah's sons. Those who

found the sons in no way culpable described them as having entirely avoided

being swallowed up, while those who held the sons partially guilty described

them as being swallowed up at first, but later rescued.

The

view that Korah's sons were at least partially guilty

invites a question: Why were they saved? The Jerusalem Talmud (Bava Batra 8:2 [16a]) claims that they were rescued not because they repented, but rather

only out of deference to "the merit of their father and mother's father."

Midrash Aggada

on Bamidbar (Buber, 26:11), weaves together the motifs

brought above, and writes: "At first, Korah's

sons were with their father, but they all eventually decided to repent and God

saved them. A safe place standing on three pillars was made for them in

Gehinom; the fire's heat could not reach them there, and they began to sing."

The

problem is that Scripture offers no indication that Korah's

sons participated in the attack on Moses. Their name remains absent from the

parasha, suggesting the contrary. It would seem that their sin consisted

precisely of their unwillingness to rise up against their father's sin. Korah's sons – well known as poets – could surely have

convinced him to abandon his unacceptable approach. Their decision to watch

from the sidelines as their father debated theology with Moses was itself

unacceptable. Their sin, while not as serious as that of their father, was

enough to bring them to the state of "neither living nor condemned."

I

think it is possible to understand Korah's sons'

unwillingness to become involved in the light of an insight pointed out by my

grandfather, Rabbi Yitzhak Stolman ztz"l, one of

the most important rabbis of 20^th century America. As is well known, several midrashim portray Korah as opposed to halakhic logic,

especially the halakhah's legal-positivism, which

ignores the law's motivation. The Sages attributed these kinds of arguments to

Korah because they saw in him someone trying to undermine the legitimacy of the

ritual and hierarchical institutions: For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst! (Bamidbar 16:3). In the spirit of ehsayahu Leibowitz: All the community are holy, even without the need for practical commandments. The

following well-known derasha stands in the center of my grandfather's considerations:

Korah jumped and

said to Moses: Would an entirely blue tallit be exempt from tzitzit?

He

told him: It would be required to be fitted-out with tzitzit.

Korah

told him: The fact that the tallit is entirely blue will not exempt it,

but four strings do? Does a house full of Torah scrolls require a mezuzah?

He

told him: It requires a mezuzah.

He

told him: The Torah's 275 sections do not exempt the house, but the section

written in the mezuzah does! He said: You were not commanded about these

things; you made them up. (Bamidbar Rabbah, 18)

My grandfather used to expound

upon the Sages' derashot, deriving from them new and stimulating insights for

his generation. The following, apparently composed during World War II, is what

he had to say about the above derasha:

This

question strikes one as being the question of the day: "A house full of

books, etc." – A world full of books, a modern and enlightened world, a

creative and constructive world, which plumbs the depths of the secrets of

creation with its books and knowledge; why does it need Torah and halakhah? "An entirely blue tallit,

etc." When man's heart is full of wisdom and knowledge, does he

still need tzitzit? But see: The world we live

in today is full of books, one great house of books, and despite that how great

is the hatred between brothers, how numerous the acts of destruction, how

conflict and enmity have intensified!…And why didn't those houses full of

books save the world? Where are the libraries, studios, schools and theatres?…A difficult and embittering question. And the answer is

so simple: Because the house full of books lacks a mezuzah…because there are

no tzitzit on the tallit which is entirely blue…all of the

houses full of books and all of the tallitot that are saturated with

blue will not be of use to the world when they have no extension to everyday

life, to the street and the marketplace. And when there is no connection

between them, then the house full of books is left to itself,

and tyranny and cruelty are left to themselves. An tallit can be entirely colored a blue that is similar

to the sea and the firmament (Menahot

43b) while remaining completely

unrelated and disconnected to the everyday behavior of human beings. There is a

house full of books in the world, but the marketplace is completely empty of

books. Israel's obligation of mezuzah is an obligation to connect the house full of

books with the marketplace, to gather all of a person's comings and goings

under the banner of Torah and fear of heaven. (Minhat Yitzhak, 210-1)

Under

the cover of "democratic" values and a war against the

professionalization of halakhic expertise, Korah and his followers forwarded an

elitist, alienated, and separatist ideology. They filled their homes with many

books, but refused to share the messages contained in those books with other people.

Their lack of social and educational involvement kept them from understanding

that not all of the congregation are holy. Korah's sons were raised in a home that educated towards the

intellectual excellence and excessive piety symbolized by the tallit

which is entirely blue; but it did not educate towards social involvement. Uninvolvement in their father's struggle against Moses was

the rotten fruit of their wrong-headed education.

I

shall conclude with HaRav Kook's apt words regarding the importance of

universal social and educational involvement, which may explain what brought

Korah to challenge Moses and Aaron:

A

person must always extricate himself from his personal framework, which fills

his entire being, until all of his thoughts always revolve around his personal

fate, which brings man low into the depths of pettiness, causing him endless

material and spiritual suffering. Rather, his thought and will and the very

foundation of his ideas must be inclusive, inclusive of everything, of the

entire world, of man, of all Israel, of the entire universe. Upon this his

private realm will also be properly founded. (Musar HaKodesh

101)

If

only we could fulfill "this demand, to always be given over to the

foundation of the universal" (ibid) which, according to HaRav Kook, is "the

foundation of the souls of the righteous who walk before God taking pleasure in

Him"(ibid).

Rabbi Aviad Stolman in a doctoral

candidate in Bar Ilan University's department of Talmud. Source quotations for his parashat hashavua lessons in

halakhah and philosophy may be found at: http://atranet.co.il/shiur/

A Disagreement for the Sake of Heaven – Does it Depend Upon the People

Involved or Upon the Manner in which the Disagreement is Conducted?

We are all acquainted with the mishnah in Pirkei Avot (5:17) which

compares the disagreement between "Korah and his

congregation" – the archetypical disagreement which is not for the sake of

heaven – with the "disagreement between Hillel

and Shamai" – the archetypical disagreement for

the sake of heaven.

A braiytah from Yevamot 14b illustrates the manner in

which the disagreement between Beit Hillel and Beit Shamai was conduced:

Even

though Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagreed in the matters of associates to

levirate marriage [tzarot], sisters, an old bill of divorce, the

doubtfully married woman, one who stays in the same inn with his ex-wife, money

and its equivalent, a penny and its equivalent – Beit Shammai did not avoid

marrying women from Beit Hillel, nor Beit Hillel from Beit Shammai, which

teaches you that they treated each other with affection and friendship, in

order to fulfill the verse Love the truth and the peace (Zechariah 8: 19).

This braiytah

expresses the matter-of-factness that characterized the disagreements between

Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. Even when they

disagreed on significant and serious halakhic issues (the doubtfully married

woman!) they did not allow their personal relations to be affected, and they

treated each other with affection and friendship out of love for truth and

peace.

Despite the idyllic description

of their serious yet businesslike disagreement that did not injure relations

between the two rival schools of thought, we find in the Talmud Yerushalmi (Shabbat 1:4) a harsh tale describing a disagreement between the two schools.

The Mishnah

(Shabbat 1:4) describes an unusual situation in which Beit

Shammai was in the majority, leading to the halakhah being decided in

accordance with their views in 18 instances: "And these are from among the

halakhot proclaimed in Hananyah ben Hizkiyah ben Garon's attic, when they went up to visit him, and Beit Shammai

were counted and exceeded the number of Beit Hillel, and 18 things were decreed

on that day."

The Gemarah

(Yerushalmi Shabbat 1:4) tells us how that majority was achieved:

That

day was as hard for Israel as the day in which the [golden] calf was

made… Rabbi Yehoshua taught: The students of Beit

Shammai stood below, killing the students of Beit Hillel. We learn: Six of them

went up, and the rest stood upon them with swords and spears.

In that very house of study in

which they respected each other, and even intermarried

– strong disagreements between them created a culture of violence and Beit

Shammai achieved its majority forcibly and with threats – that day was worse

than the day the calf was made!

Perhaps Rabbeinu

Ovadya MiBartenura's comments will enlighten us

regarding the concept of a "disagreement for the sake of heaven":

…and

I heard that meaning of "its end" is "its purpose", and "that

which is desired from its matter." In disagreements for the sake of

heaven, the purpose and end of the disagreement is to gain the truth, and it

persists, as they say the truth is clarified through argument, and as became

clear in the disagreement between Hillel and Shammai that the law accords with

Beit Hillel. In a disagreement that is not for the sake of heaven, the desired

end is power and love of combat, that is an end that does not persist, as we

found in the disagreement of Korah and his congregation; their purpose and end

of their intentions was to seek honor and power, but they led to the opposite…

When a disagreement is for the

sake of heaven and the purpose of the parties is to clarify the truth, then

they can respect each other and treat each other with affection and friendship.

However, when their goal is victory, the disagreement becomes violent. A

disagreement for the sake of heaven is then a fair and peace-loving struggle

over the truth, conducted out of respect and appreciation for the other's

truth.

Any disagreement that begins for

the sake of heaven may degrade into bloody conflict in which each party strives

for victory. The degradation of the disagreement between Beit Hillel and Beit

Shammai into a violent conflict teaches us that no man, society, or nation is

impervious to the need to "win," but such a victory is "as hard

for Israel as the day in which the calf was made,"

a day which felled many dead. There is no need to go on at length about the

concrete and moral dangers that lay in wait for us if we do not learn to prefer

truth and peace over victory, both in our internal and external disagreements. Are

we capable of internalizing this important truth and acting upon it?

Pinchas Leiser – editor.

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