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AND MOSES SAID, "BY THIS YOU
SHALL KNOW THAT IT WAS THE LORD WHO SENT ME TO DO
(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,
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 20th century
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.
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
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
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 (
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
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
Pinchas Leiser – editor.
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