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From: netvort@aol.com <netvort@aol.com>

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

Sent: Friday, July 8, 2016, 11:18:02 AM EDT

Subject: Timing: Netvort, Korach 5776

Timing

By Rabbi Joshua (populistically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

The Ramban points out that Korach’s rebellion against the leadership of Moshe and Aharon had its origins earlier then when the actual rebellion took place. Korach’s feelings of hostility began when Aharon was appointed Kohein Gadol and the Levi’im were chosen to function as servants in the mishkan. However, the people, at the time, would not have listened to Korach’s arguments, because they were all loyal to Moshe. It was only a year later, after the incident of the spies, when God decreed that the people between twenty and sixty would die in the wilderness, making them open to hear attacks on Moshe, that Korach proceeded with his propaganda campaign. This comment of the Ramban helps us to understand the rebellion further.

Korach’s major complaint to Moshe was articulated in his comments “You have taken too much upon yourself. The entire community – everyone - is holy, and God is among them. Why then do you exalt yourself over God’s congregation?” (Bamidbar 16:3). Rav Kook, in his work Oros, writes, that to a degree, Korach was correct. The Jewish people do have a collective kedusha, or holiness. His mistake was his failure to recognize that there are different levels of kedusha among individuals. This feature of the holiness of the Jewish people, is underscored in the parsha in other ways as well.

The rabbis tell us that to illustrate his argument, Korach dressed two hundred and fifty men in tallisos that were completely dyed with techeles, and asked if these tallisos required a fringe of techeles. The image evoked was a congregation that is totally holy, and the argument was that they do not need an individualized leader, represented by the fringe of techeles, although the halacha, as taught by Moshe, declared that it is required. This midrash is based on the fact that the parasha of tzitzis immediately precedes the recording of the rebellion of Korach. This juxtaposition implies that Korach’s propaganda was somehow connected to that mitzvah. Following the Ramban, there is a further connection with the mitzvah of tzitzis, as I will try to demonstrate.

We noted in last week’s message that the mitzvah of tzitzis, as given following the incident of the spies, served to encourage the people to move on despite the severe decree issued by God, that they would die in the wilderness. The royal blue of the techeles evoked for them their charge to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, thus realizing the lack of self-esteem articulated by the spies when they said, “we were in our eyes as grasshoppers.” This sense of being a holy nation, as brought out by the techeles in the tzitzis, is what fueled Korach’s argument. As pointed out by Rav Mordechai Ilan, in his Mikdash Mordechai, Korach’s argument was in essence correct. The Ba’al HaTurim, in his commentary on the verse that charges the people to be a holy nation, says that all Jews at that point had the potential to be the high priest. Korach’s mistake, explains Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, as cited in Darash Yosef, was that he was considering only the collective kedusha of the Jewish people. There is, however, in addition, the important aspect of individual kedusha, and that depends on the input of each person, not merely on the collective charge of the nation. Rav Ilan says that the aspect of individual impact is brought out in the test of the rods of each tribe in which only the rod of the Levi’im brought forth almonds. The almond, he says, is at first bitter, and only later turns sweet. So, too, the Levi’im, in achieving their individual kedusha, experienced initially some bitterness, through the intensity of their effort to fulfill their task. Korach ignored this element in the attainment of kedusha, and as a result brought destruction upon his followers and himself.