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From: JoshHoff@aol.com <joshhoff@aol.com>

To: "joshhoff@aol.com" <joshhoff@aol.com>

Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2011, 07:18:58 PM EDT

Subject: Netvort: parshas Korach, 5771

Branching Out

By Rabbi Joshua (botanically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

In this week's parsah we read of the rebellion of Korach and his company against the leadership of Moshe, Aharon and the Levi'im.God tells Korach and his followers, as well as Aharon, to take firepans and place incense on them, and appear in front of the Tent of Meeting the next day. Whoever's offering will be accepted will prove to have been chosen by God to serve in the mishkan, and the others will be proven to have been rejected. The next day, when they appear at the scene, varies factions of rebels receive different forms of punishment. In regard to those who challenged Aharon's leadership. A fire comes down and consumes the incense offering of Aharon,, and indicating his acceptance as the representative of the nation, and consumes the two hundred fifty people who brought the other incense offerings, indicating their rejection for that role. God then sends a plague to punish the people. Aaron, through using the incense that Mote instructed him to make, fends off the plague.

Curiously, after all of this divine intervention, the people again complain, and God sends yet another proof of the leadership of the Levi's. He tells Mote to gather staffs from each of the tribes, as well as the staff of Aaron, and place them all in the tent of meeting, before the Aaron, or the ark. The staff of the chosen leader will then blossom, while the staffs of the others will remain unchanged. The test is performed, and the next morning the staff of Aaron blossoms forth with almonds. The difficulty here is, why did the people continue to complain after the acceptance of Aaron's offering and the rejection of the others, as well as the complaint that brought the plague, and Aaron's removal of it? What else did they feel needed to be proven for them to accept the leadership of Aaron and the Levi's?

ARV Amnon Bazooka, in his Nekudas Pesicha, explains that the test of the firepans was more of a rejection of others for the eldership position, rather than a positive acknowledgment of the qualities of Ahron and the Levi'im for their position. The test of the branches, on the other hand, demonstrated the virtues of Aharon and the Levi'im through which they were worthy to be the ones to lead the people in serving God. In a somewhat similar vein, my teacher, Rav Aharon Soloveichik, zt'l, explained that the people, at this point, had accepted that Aharon and the Levi'im deserved their positions while the nation was still in the wilderness. However, they were still not convinced that, in future contexts, at different times and in different locations, they would be the proper ones to serve as the nation's spiritual leaders. The test of the staff proved that they were the proper spiritual leaders of the nation in all times and locales, as symbolized by the almond which can flourish in various habitats or environments.

Rav Mordechai Ilan, son-in-law of Rav Yitzchak Arieli who authored Eynaim Le Mishppat,noted, in his Mikdash Mordechai, that according to the Rambam, when the aron, the holy ark that encased the luchos, the Torah tablets given at Mt. Sinai, was buried underground before the destruction of the first Temple, Aharon's blossomed branch was buried along with it. This was done, wrote Rav Ilan, to indicate that service in the temple and connecting to Torah, were part of the essence of Aharon and the Levi'im, and their task would always remain to bring people closer to Torah..In another comment, he points out that it was the staff of Aharon, and not that of Moshe, that was placed in the aron, even though Moshe represented Torah to a greeter degree, in that he was the one who presented us with the Torah. This was because Moshe's staff also served as a means of bringing punishment to the Egyptians, while Aharon's staff was not,and in regard to bringing the people close to Torah, it is preferable that the softer approachable used. Perhaps we can add that the people themselves indicated this when they complained a second time, after the demonstration of the test of the firepans that Aharon and the Levi'im had been chosen for their positions. They wanted to see something positive in this regard, in addition to the negative test that preceded it, through which all others proved to be rejected from this role.