THEY GATHERED TOGETHER

AGAINST MOSES AND AARON AND SAID TO THEM, "YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR! FOR ALL

THE COMMUNITY ARE HOLY, ALL

OF THEM, AND THE LORD IS IN THEIR MIDST. WHY DO YOU

RAISE YOURSELVES ABOVE THE LORD'S CONGREGATION?"

(Bamidbar 16:3)

And Korah took: Korah was envious of Moses, and now he took

advantage of the opportunity when Israel

was grieving over the edict of [punishment for the sin of the] scouts and the

destruction, and he set out to execute his plan.

Korah

and his congregation had seen all of the wonders performed by Moses; how could

they possibly not believe in his commission [by God]? And if they, who were

eye-witnesses, did not believe, then that creates doubts about Moses, that

perhaps his [miraculous] deeds were fakes. However, the truth is that Korah and

the people of his group did not deny the authenticity of Moses' signs and did

not suggest that he used human trickery. After all, they said For all the community are holy, all of them,

thereby admitting that God did indeed dwell in Israel's

midst and did perform signs and wonders for them. Rather, Korah and his group

made a great error because they had grown accustomed to living among the

idolatrous Egyptians, learning false opinions from them about the Divinity and Providence.

Korah and his group believed that there was a God in Israel,

and that that God, known as the Lord had promised their fathers to give them

the land, and that he performed signs and wonders. However, they further

believed that through the action of special rites God had entered into a

covenant with the priests and sages who knew the manner of His worship, that He

would do their bidding. They believed that Moses, using God's power. did great things, but they also believed that God could be

enticed by Moses, and hearken to him, when he would perform desirable rites

before Him. Now that the Taberncale had been erected

and they came to know the laws of sacrifices, and the

manner of worship that is pleasing to God, they thought that anyone could be a

priest and prophet, not just Aaron and Moses. Korah

aggrandized himself and said: I shall be a priest and a prophet, and the Lord

shall answer me with miracles and wonders just as he had answered Moses and his

elder brother – shall I and my brothers now serve as your arms-bearers??? Moses

understood his intention and told them: Take pans for yourselves, and see if

your worship and incense are acceptable in their own right before Him – no

matter who the burner of incense may be – or is it the Lord's will that he who

burns incense before Him shall be special, chosen and beloved by Him.

(ShaDaL on Bamidbar 16:1)

From

Misunderstanding to Clarity, from Arrogance to Contribution

Shlomo Fox

Parashat Shelah ends with the

commandment of tzitzit, which contains the

warning: do not follow [taturu] your heart and your eyes. In parashat Shelah, men, the

leaders of the Israelites scouted-out [toru] the land

of Canaan and were mistaken in what they saw. They erred

and caused the entire congregation

to err and they had to bear their punishment of a year for each day – forty

years of wandering in the wilderness. Little time had passed before the

complaint Why do you raise yourselves above

the Lord's congregation was heard. This time, it seems to be case of an error of the heart. Those objecting to

Moses and Aaron's leadership were led by famous men, Korah the Levite, Datan and Aviram and On ben Pelet of the tribe of Reuben, together with two hundred

of repute (Bamidbar 12:2)

Moses had been called much more modest

parasha end with the priestly gifts?

In

his book Mei Ha'Shiloah,

the Izbitzer Rebbe writes:

For

all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. As

it is written: Truthful speech abides forever, a lying tongue for but a

moment (Proverbs 12:19). There they said that truth is everlasting,

while the lies that was in their mouths immediately

ceased to exist. Because of this, the verse will be a tikkun

a psalm to the sons by naming their father, Korah. [In

this way] he [David] returned him [Korah] to his principle [quality], for if

they enjoyed no good from this [from being associated with their fore-father]

he would not have associated them with evil, God forbid, as we read in the Gemara, "Could it be that sin came by his hand and

Scripture associated them with him [as their ancestor]?" This is one of

the thirteen hermeneutical rules of Torah interpretation: "Anything

mentioned in relation to a general principle… cannot be returned to its

principle until Scripture explicitly returns it." King David, may peace be

upon him, explicitly returned him [Korah] to his general principle. Thus, The

ARI z'l decreed that the psalm of the Sons of

Korah be read before the blowing of the shofar, and this custom became

accepted throughout Israel.

He

continues:

Why

do you raise yourselves above the Lord's congregation? It is written: And

the shade of My hand (Isaiah 51:16). The

point here is that every soul in Israel

contains a good and precious point that God apportioned to it in particular. However,

in this world that point is dressed in a

garment that appears as its opposite, that is the meaning of and cover

you in the shade of My hand. God also prepared

garments for precious souls that appeared as the opposite of their

preciousness. So it was, too, with our Rabbi Moses; since Scripture proclaimed

that he was very humble, he was dressed in an opposite garment. That is why

they charged him with seeking to lord over others…

According

to the Izbitzer Rebbe, it

is impossible that Scripture would mention a sinner and his sin – such a

thought is a mistake on our part. The "garment" of the deed is

confusing, the people and it leaders misunderstood Moses; they suspected him of

arrogance – perhaps this is also true of how we relate to Korah and his party? The

error resulted from the garment – the

unexplained choice of Aaron and his sons led the leadership to ask: why them

and not us?

It

seems that Sanhedrin 110a can shed some light on the Izbitzer

Rebbe's comments:

And Moses arose and went to Datan and Aviram (Bamidbar 16). Resh Lakish said: From here [we learn that] one should not

maintain a disagreement, for Rav said: Anyone who maintains a disagreement

transgresses a negative commandment, for it is said: do not be like Korah

and his party… Rabbi Hisda said: Anyone who

disagrees with his Rabbi is like someone who disagrees with the Divine Presence,

for it is said [who agitated against Moses and Aaron as part of Korah's band] when they agitated against the Lord (Bamidbar 26).

That

is to say that we must learn from our errors. Moses teaches us how to behave in

a dispute – you must abandon your position and approach your opponent. This is

something like what Eruvin 13b explains to us: Why was the halakhah determined

according to the House of Hillel if "Both these

and these [the opinions of the House of Hillel and of

the house of Shamai] are the words of the living God"?

"Because they were easy to get along with and humble, and taught both

their own dicta and those of the House of Shamai. Not only that – they would teach the dicta of the House of Shamai before their own." Moses also understood

that he must go and talk to the Reubenites.

What is the force of the trial of incense

and why were the pans used to line the altar?

Moses

tells Korah and his party:

Do

this: You, Korah and all your band, take fire pans,

and tomorrow put fire in them and lay incense on them before the Lord. Then the

man whom the Lord chooses, he shall be the holy one. You have gone too far,

sons of Levi! (Bamidbar 16:6-7).

After

the fire came out, we read:

Order

Eleazer the son of Aaron the priest to remove the

fire pans – for they have become sacred – from among the charred remains; and

scatter the coals abroad. [Remove] the fire pans of those who have sinned at

the cost of their lives, and let them be made into hammered sheets as plating

for the altar – for once they have been used for offering to the Lord, they

have become sacred – and let them serve as a warning to the people of Israel. Eleazar the priest took the copper fire pans which had been

used for offering by those who died in the fire; and they were hammered into

plating for the altar, as the Lord had ordered him through Moses. It was to be

a reminder to the Israelites, so that no outsider – one not of Aaron's offspring

– should presume to offer incense before the Lord and suffer the fate of Korah

and his band. Next day the whole Israelite community railed against Moses and

Aaron, saying, "You have brought death upon the Lord's people!" (Bamidbar 17:2-6)

It seems that the complaint made by Korah and his party

can be attributed to a lack of communication between Moses and the people, a

failure to understand that the appointment of Aaron and his sons to serve in

the Tabernacle had to be explained to the people and their leaders. Even after

the earth tears open in what would seem to be an irrefutable validation of

Moses and Aaron, the people still accuse them of killing the Lord's nation. Apparently,

Korah's charge of arrogance expressed an even deeper

problem, so that the gulf separating Moses and Aaron from the people persisted

even after Korah's death.

Which is why the incense ended the

plague!

One of the ingredients of the incense was the

foul-smelling helbana [galbanum] (Shemot 30:34). Referring to this, the Talmud (Keritut 6b) states:

R. Hana bar Buzna said that R. Shimon Hasida

said: Any fast that does not include the criminals of Israel

has a foul odor, yet Scripture included it among the ingredients of the

incense. Abayey said, we

learn this from [the verse]: and founded His vault [agudato

– literally, His association] on the earth (Amos

9).

The incense is a symbol. Its preparation requires the

combination of materials which, when separated, have a foul odor. However, when

mixed together with the other ingredients they balance and enhance each other. Similarly,

the criminal is also an "important and essential" part of the nation.

Korah and his party were to be tested by the incense,

and their fire-pans would be used to plate the altar forever. Aaron walks

around with the incense in order to stop the plague; he is proclaiming: "We

are one association."

The Kol Nidrei prayer begins with the words: "In the

academy on high, and in the academy below, with the

permission of the Omnipresent may He be blessed. With the permission of this

holy congregation, we allow that prayer commence with the participation of

sinners."

The verse from Amos mentioning agudato

is cited by Sifrei Devarim 90: lo tegodedu – do not form various associations, rather

have all of you be one single association, and so he says: Who built His

chambers in heaven and founded agudato on earth (Amos 9:6). It is also used in the midrash (Vayikra Rabba 30) that compares the four species of Sukkot

with the Jewish People, explaining that the former must be held together in one

aguda, even though the willow branch

represents those Jews who perform neither commandments nor good deeds.

The transformation of the fire-pans into a plating for

the altar is reminiscent of the midrash mentioned by Rashi (Shemot 38:8), which states that the basin was

made from tzovot mirrors: "The

daughters of Israel possessed mirrors which they would look into while adorning

themselves, and even those they did not hold back from bringing as a gift for the

Tabernacle. Moses disparaged them because they were made to serve the evil

inclination, but the Holy One blessed be He said, "Accept them, for these

are most cherished by Me, for it was thanks to these that the women raised up

great hosts [of children] in Egypt. When their husbands would return home from

their harsh labor, they [the women] would go and bring them food and drink and

feed them and take out the mirrors, and each would gaze at herself with her

husband in the mirror and seduce them with words, saying, ‘I am more beautiful

than you,' and this would induce desire in their husbands and they would

cohabit with them, and become pregnant and give birth there, as it is said I

aroused you under the apple tree (Shir HaShirim 8:5), and

this relates to the expression tzovot

mirrors. The basin was made from them, since it served to make peace between

husband and wife, i.e., when its water was given to a woman whose husband had

demonstrated his jealousy for her, but she met with another man nonetheless."

As the Izbitzer

Rebbe said: the garment is confusing, but its

existence points to the power of the different one, and that we must gaze into

someone's inner self, rather than at his exterior.

Regarding the fact that the parasha ends with an account

of the priestly gifts, Rashi on Bamidbar 18:8 (following

the midrash in Sifrei Bamidbar 119) says: "The

you and to your sons as a perquisite for all time (Bamidabr 18:8). Hinei

in Hinei,[see],he

is coming to you, and he will see you and his heart shall rejoice (Shemot 4:14).

It is like the parable of the king who gave his friend a field, but he did not

write it down, nor sign it, nor appraise it. Someone came and disputed the

ownership o the field. The king told him [his friend]: If anyone wishes to come

and dispute your ownership, I shall write [a deed] and sign it and have the

appraisal done. So too here, when Korah came and disputed Aaron's claim to the

priesthood, Scripture came and gave him the twenty-four priestly gifts in an

eternal covenant of salt. That is why the two passages appear next to each

other."

According to the midrash, Korah's complaining lead God to legally establish the

twenty-four priestly gifts. In other words, Korah's

complaint sprung from ambiguity, and as a result of

his complaint the privileges of Aaron and his sons became written law, an

eternal covenant of salt.

Parashat Korah

can teach us the importance of communication, how important it is to explain

things rather than assume that everything is clear. This message does not apply

only to Moses and other leaders, but to every person as well. Every human act

bears meaning, all deeds are written down and are

instructive.

The midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 34:8)

states: R. Yitzhak bar Merion said: The Torah teaches proper behavior: When a

person performs a commandment, let him perform it with a joyous heart, for if

Reuben had only known that the Holy One blessed be He had written about him Reuben

heard and saved him [Joseph] from their hands (Bereishit

3721), he would have taken him [Joseph] up on his shoulder and carried

him back to his father.

If Aaron had known that the Holy One blessed be He wrote

of him and see, he is coming to you and when he sees you his heart shall

rejoice (Shemot 4:14), he would have

met him with drums and dancing.

R. Kohen R. Yehoshua DeSakhnin said in the name of R. Levi: Earlier, a person

would perform a commandment and the prophets would write it down. Now that there are no prophets, who writes it down? Elijah

and King Messiah, and the Holy One blessed be He signs it through their agency,

as it is written: Then those who revere the Lord talked to each other. The

His behest (Malachi 3:16).

It appears possible to understand the verse and the

sons of Korah did not die (Bamidbar 26:11)

as an example. Korah's objection brought the Holy One

blessed be He to establish the priestly gifts in law. So too, we may learn the

need for clarity from Korah's deed, we may learn o

accept the sinners among us, to distinguish between content and "garment",

and to prepare the "incense" of society.

Shlomo Fox teaches at Hebrew Union College, at Beit Shemuel and at Koly. He is an educational director at the IDF project of

Beit Morasha.

God of the

Spirits

O God, God of the spirits – He who knows thoughts

– his justice is not like that of mortals. When parts of the state rebel

against a mortal king, he does not know who sinned; that is why he takes his

anger out on everyone, but all thoughts are revealed to You

and You know who the sinner is.

(Rashi Bamidbar

16:22)

[The term] God [el] – says that He has the

power to annihilate them in an instant, and He is God of the spirits, or

He can annihilate them, for the spirits are in His hand.

(Ibn Ezra Bamidbar 16:22)

God of the spirits of all flesh

– He knows the hearts of humans, and knows whether they sinned because of a

lack of faith or because they are flesh,

and thus susceptible to temptation.

(Rabbi Yitzhak Shemuel Regio Bamidbar 16:22)

They flung themselves on their faces, and said: O God, God of the spirits of all flesh, when one man sins,

at the entire community will you be furious?!"

It is revealed

beings intervene against the transgression, as a rule it is the incited

masses – who are less guilty -who are hurt; the inciters themselves usually go

unpunished. But you are God, God of

spirits of all flesh, you can discern in your wisdom the degree of every man's guilt. When one man sins –

graces. We have noted a

the thoughts of divine supervision.

(Rabbi S. R.

Hirsch, Bamidbar 16:22)

God of the

spirits Why is this said? He said to Him, "Master of the universe,

the character of each person is revealed to you, and no two are alike. Appoint

over them a leader who will tolerate each person according to his individual

character."

(Rashi Bamidbar 27:16, Judaica

Press translation)

O God, God of the spirits

– He knows the spirits [i.e., human souls], and which spirit is worthy.

(Ibn Ezra Badibar 27:16)

God of the

spirits – He knows the thoughts of humans – who is

worthy to lead His people.

(Reggio ad loc.)