From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2004 2:37 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Korach, 5764




                                             What's So Funny?

                  By Rabbi Joshua (humorously known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


In memory of my grandmother, Shaindel Leah (Shapiro) bas Shmuel Mordechai, whose 30th yohrzeit occurred on Thursday, 28 Sivan. May her memory be a blessing.


The story is told of an itinerant preacher - a maggid - who went from town to town speaking, with only one sermon in his arsenal. That sermon discussed the rebellion of Korach and his minions against the leadership of Moshe and Aharon. When the maggid spoke during the week of parshas Korach, of course, he had no problem, but what did he do the rest of the year? He would get up to speak, reach into his pocket for his snuff box, pretend that he had dropped it, and then, after a lengthy search, announce, " My snuff box is gone! It must have been swallowed up by the earth, just like Korach ! Speaking of Korach…." He would then proceed to give his Korach sermon. Interestingly, this joke is only one of several that I once heard from a well known rabbi in Chicago as part of his sermon on the Shabbos of parshas Korach. Moreover, I have, on other occasions, heard rabbis begin their sermons of that week with a Korach joke or story (readers are invited to send in any additional Korach jokes they may know. For my personal favorite, see Netvort to parshas Korach, 5759, available at Torahheights.com). Why is it that Korach, more than any other Biblical figure, has become the object of so many jokes? On a simple level, it is possible to explain that the very absurdity of Korach's charge of arrogance against Moshe, the humblest of all men, in saying, "why do you exalt yourselves over the congregation of God" (Bamidbar 16:3) , evokes laughter. However, I believe that there is a more fundamental idea latent in this phenomenon, and that an understanding of Korach's core offense can help explain it.

Korach, in confronting Moshe and Aharon, argued that the entire congregation is holy, and, therefore, they should not exalt themselves over them and act as their leaders. The midrash says that Korach clothed the two hundred fifty people who joined his rebellion with prayer shawls dyed completely with techeiles, commonly (though not universally) identified as a certain shade of blue, and argued that there is no need to dye any of the strings with techeiles, since the entire garment is dyed with it. Moshe, however, maintained the normative halacha that there still needs to be a thread hanging from the end corner of the garment that is dyed with techeiles. Korach also argued that a house filled with Torah scrolls does not requires a mezuzoh - which contains two sections of the Torah written on a small piece of parchment - on its doorposts, while Moshe insisted that it does. The Maharal of Prague, in his work Tiferes Yisroel, chapter 22, explains that, symbolically, Korach was arguing that everyone in the congregation is holy, and, therefore, there is no need for the leadership of Moshe and Aharon. The halachic requirement of a thread dyed with techeiles, and of a mezuzoh on the doorpost, is symbolic of the need for leaders over the people. The thread of techeiles on the tallis represents the leadership of Aharon, who taught the people how to serve God properly, and the mezuzoh on the doorpost is symbolic of Moshe, who taught Torah to the people. On a more essential level, the Rambam, in his list of thirteen fundamental beliefs of the Torah, writes that Moshe, as the one who brought the Torah to the nation, was in a different category than all of the other prophets, and belief in the uniqueness of his prophecy is a separate principle, in addition to the principle that God bestows prophecy on certain people. Thus, Korach's rejection of Moshe's choice of Aharon as kohein gadol, besides being a rejection of the kehunah, can thus also be seen as a further rejection of Moshe and his unique status as a prophet.

Interestingly, it seems from the Rambam that Miriam and Aharon made the same mistake as Korach when they spoke disparagingly of Moshe. As we discussed last week, Miriam was punished for this by being stricken with tzora'as, a certain kind of skin disease, commonly translated as leprosy. The Rambam, at the end of his Laws of the Impurity of Tzara'as (16:10), writes that tzora'as comes as a punishment for speaking leshon hora, or evil talk.The purpose of the punishment, he says, is to prevent the person from engaging in the conversations of the wicked, which he describes as being 'leitzonus' and leshon hora. Although 'leitzonus' is commonly translated as 'joking,' the Rambam, as we will see, seems to use it in a wider sense, as a specific kind of humor. He goes on to mention the incident of Miriam speaking about Moshe, and notes that she did not say what she did with bad intent, and, moreover, she loved her older brother, Moshe, whom she had helped raise from infancy. Still, what she said was forbidden, and she was punished for it. All the more so, then, will people who have bad intentions be punished. Such people, the Rambam says, speak against the righteous people - the tzadikim - and against the prophets, the Torah, and, ultimately, deny God. My teacher, Rav Aharon Soloveichik, zt"l, explained that according to the Rambam, we learn from the incident of Miriam that there is a special prohibition of leshon hora, not to equate ourselves to Torah leaders and judge them by our own criteria.

The Rambam, as we have seen, refers to this kind of talk as 'leitzonus.' Rav Aharon translated this term to mean cynicism, imputing hidden motives to the actions of our leaders instead of regarding them with the respect they deserve. Korach, then, did not learn from the incident of Miriam and Aharon, but, rather, repeated the offense in a magnified way, cynically accusing Moshe of having personal motives in his appointment of Aharon as kohein gadol, and in his own role of leadership. This cynical attitude led to his eventual demise. Perhaps, then, the reason for the abundance of Korach jokes is a kind of 'midoh kineged midoh,' a measure for measure punishment. Korach spoke of Moshe in a cynical way, and so, people treat him cynically as well, making 'leitzonus' of him with a continual supply of jokes and stories.    



Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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