Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: Korach and Company - Forerunners to the Karites

Added: 2026-06-10

[00:00:02][music] [music] [singing] [music] [music and singing] [singing] >> Um, okay. Um, well, thank you for coming again. And uh, as always, praying for the protection of Am Yisrael, for the last of unity of the people of Israel, which will lead to victory, and for all of those whose health has been affected by terror.

[00:00:42]Uh, refuah shleima Leah Shoshana bas Yisrael asura and Rav Dov ben Shoshana.

[00:00:50]And um, there's no particular uh, aliyah neshama this week, but uh, all the neshamot that need aliyah uh, should be elevated by uh, the divrei Torah that we're doing and that everyone else is doing as well.

[00:01:03]Uh, we did have uh, a little bit of an unpleasant experience uh, two days ago in the morning, like 5:30 in the morning, when the alarm went off.

[00:01:13]And uh, we had thoughts that perhaps this, you know, we were finished with this.

[00:01:18]But Hakadosh Baruchu apparently decided that we still need some literal wake-up calls. And these were quite literally uh, wake-up calls for most most people.

[00:01:27]Uh, through In other words, in a way, Hashem is kind of reminding you, "Don't think you don't need me anymore."

[00:01:33]Uh, we time we tend to think, "Oh, when things are dangerous, we turn to Hashem." And then life goes on normally, and you don't really need Hakadosh Baruchu to kind of be involved in your life. So, every once in a while you need we need, not all of us, we need a little bit of a shock to our system to remind us that God is in charge of the world.

[00:01:51]And uh, we need his rachamim. We need his mercy all the time.

[00:01:55]Uh, you know, there's a famous vort.

[00:01:58]They say it in the name of many different gedolim, chasidic gedolim, misnagdic gedolim, so it's a true thought because everybody claims it. It says in Hallel, "Halleluhu Hashem kol goyim." All the nations of the world should praise Hashem.

[00:02:13]"Shabchuuhu kol umim." They All the nations should give a praise. "Ki gavar aleinu chasdo."

[00:02:21]Because Hashem's kindness for to us is so great.

[00:02:26]So, the question is very obvious. Why should the nations of the world praise Hashem because his kindness to the Jewish people is so great? It should have said, "We should praise Hashem because the kindness is so great." So, the vort is, we have no idea what the nations of the world are planning for us.

[00:02:46]In other words, we don't know. We don't realize that for every, God forbid, terrorist uh, incident that goes through, there were 25 or 30 that didn't go through.

[00:02:54]So, only the nations actually know how much kindness Hashem is showing the Jewish people. We don't know.

[00:03:01]Um, Chazal say such a loshon, "Ein ba'al haness makir es nisa."

[00:03:07]The beneficiary of a miracle doesn't even recognize that he has gotten a miracle.

[00:03:14]But, the nations that tried to destroy us, they are able to understand that.

[00:03:19]So, that's the "Ki gavar aleinu aleinu chasdo." Okay, so, b'ezras Hashem, we hope that um, the little bit of warning that we had should just be an isolated incident and we should go back to a ceasefire, but still, it's a time for us to always do [clears throat] chuva, to introspect, to kind of come together as a people, achdus Yisrael, and the like. And that, of course, brings us to this very, very interesting parsha, the parsha of Korach.

[00:03:48]>> [snorts] >> Uh, and there are so many, many questions about the parsha of Korach.

[00:03:53]Number one, it's not even clear when it happened. The Rishonim have wildly different and opposing views as to the chronology. In the Chumash, it follows the story of the spies.

[00:04:07]So, you could almost posit, which makes a certain amount of sense, that part of the the miscontent or discontent of people that they wanted to rebel against Moshe is because they've been condemned. They've just been condemned to wander in the desert for 40 years.

[00:04:26]So, they blame the leadership for not straightening it out. So, there is indeed a logical connection between the rebellion of Korach and the chet hamaraglim. And yet, and yet, many Rishonim put it much later that it happened sometime in the middle of the 40 years without necessarily saying why. And the Ibn Ezra moves it much earlier than the chet hamaraglim, uh when the Mishkan was dedicated.

[00:04:53]Right, the chet hamaraglim was the 9th of Av. The Mishkan was dedicated the preceding Nissan of the second year. So, we have like three different views when Korach took place.

[00:05:03]Uh but putting aside the chronological point for a moment, Korach was the cousin of Moshe and Aaron.

[00:05:11]Because uh Korach was the son of Yitzhar.

[00:05:14]Yitzhar was a brother of Amram.

[00:05:18]So, Moshe, Aaron are the sons of Amram.

[00:05:20]Korach is the son of Yitzhar. They are first cousins. Uh their grandfather is Kehat.

[00:05:28]Kehat was the most elevated of the Levite families, those who carried the the Aron Hakodesh.

[00:05:34]Now, Korach seems to represent a type of philosophy that might be called radical egalitarianism.

[00:05:43]Uh it might be called anarchy. Korach is essentially making the argument, we don't need authority structures. We don't need people to tell us what God wants us to do.

[00:05:57]Ki chol ha'edah kulam kedoshim.

[00:06:01]Everybody's holy. Every Jew is holy.

[00:06:03]Every Jew is good. Every Jew heard God at Har Sinai say Anochi Hashem Elokecha, lo yihiyeh lecha.

[00:06:10]We don't need leadership. Korach is essentially advocating the abolition of leadership. And this is brought out in the famous mashal that the Midrash says that Korach used to kind of gather up his crowds. He said to Moshe Rabbenu, if you have a tallis that's totally blue, totally tekhelet, do you still need a string of tekhelet?

[00:06:34]So Moshe said, yeah, the color of the tallis makes no difference.

[00:06:37]Or Korach said, if you have a house that's filled with sifrei Torah, do you need a little mezuzah on the door?

[00:06:45]The answer is yes, but what's Korach's argument? He says, if the house is filled with sifrei Torah, you don't need a designated parchment to be a mezuzah.

[00:06:55]If the tallis is filled with the color tekhelet, which reminds us ultimately of the divine throne, you don't need a special little string.

[00:07:03]You, Moshe, are like the mezuzah, or you are like the string, but we don't need the string and we don't need the mezuzah if the whole house is filled with kedushah.

[00:07:14]You know, uh this is a in politics, this is a popular populist refrain over and over again.

[00:07:21]Huey Long, governor of Louisiana during the um depression and afterwards, had a motto.

[00:07:27]He he he became very famous. He got assassinated, but uh he says, every man is a king.

[00:07:33]Every man is a king. The government shouldn't be telling you what to do, etc. So Korach is rebelling against authority. Korach is really suggesting a kind of >> [clears throat] >> spiritual anarchy. And you know, anarchists in our popular vision tend to be these lunatics running around, but Korah seems to be describing an idea that let every person be under his fig tree and under his vine, and he will know how to serve Hashem.

[00:07:59]Uh that makes it very, very attractive.

[00:08:02]Now, problem is that Moshe's initial response to Korah is not really addressing Korah's claim.

[00:08:11]Moshe talks to Korah about the idea that why are you so unhappy? The tribe of Levi was given so much authority, so much honor, so much dignity. Hashem separated you as a Levi to do the highest avodah in the temple.

[00:08:30]Why do you thereby seek the kehuna and other jobs?

[00:08:34]Now, the Korah Moshe is not responding to Korah's arguments. If Korah's argument would have been "Why am I not given positions of authority commensurate with my talents?"

[00:08:47]So Moshe could answer, "You have been given great important positions." But if Korah's argument is not "Hey, I didn't get my job."

[00:08:56]If Korah's argument is there ought not to be hierarchy, then how is Moshe Rabbenu addressing that by saying, "You're high on the totem pole."

[00:09:06]Korah's point is there shouldn't be a totem pole.

[00:09:09]Right? So why is Moshe addressing the importance of shevet Levi if Korah's very argument is that there should be no differentiation between one Jew and another Jew?

[00:09:23]And the answer is very simple. The answer is hidden agenda.

[00:09:28]Korah speaks the language of egalitarianism.

[00:09:33]But Moshe understands that this is really a power struggle.

[00:09:38]And indeed as Rashi points out, Korach had a particularistic grievance that he was not given a position of authority that he thought he deserved.

[00:09:49]Because remember, Kohath had four sons.

[00:09:52]Amram, Izhar, Hebron, Uzziel.

[00:09:58]These are the four sons of Kohath.

[00:10:00]And uh Elizaphan ben Uzziel, meaning the son of the youngest son of Kohath was made the nasi over the tribe of Levi, of the Levite.

[00:10:13]So, Korach's argument is that's not fair.

[00:10:16]Amram is the firstborn son of Kohath.

[00:10:19]So, a bechor gets double portion.

[00:10:22]So, that's why Moshe and Aaron, Moshe gets leadership, Aaron gets kehuna.

[00:10:27]But the next position should go to the next son, which is Izhar.

[00:10:31]So, Korach's argument was, although he didn't have He never articulated this argument uh publicly, but his argument was that the nesiut of shevet Levi should not have been given to the son of the youngest son of Kohath, it should have been given to the son of Izhar, Korach and the like.

[00:10:49]Now, this is not what Korach said.

[00:10:51]Korach That wouldn't have been a very popular stance. Korach is not making a public campaign by saying, "Hey, I got cheated out of a job."

[00:11:00]Who's going to care?

[00:11:01]So, instead, he develops a whole philosophy that there ought not to be hierarchies, there ought not to be authority figures, everybody is equal.

[00:11:10]But Moshe discerns that there was a hidden agenda in which he was looking for power. And indeed, uh if you study the history of most revolutions throughout uh history, it is always that way. Let's take for example the French Revolution.

[00:11:29]Right? So, that was uh liberty, equality, fraternity, get rid of the monarchy.

[00:11:35]But you replace the monarchy with Robespierre, who was a murderous tyrant, pretty much worse than the kings that preceded him.

[00:11:45]The Russian Revolution, to create a more just society.

[00:11:50]So you replaced Nicholas, who was not a great guy. I'm I admit that. With Lenin and Stalin.

[00:11:58]Well, is there a net improvement there?

[00:12:01]Probably not in all ways.

[00:12:04]In other words, it's often the case that people create revolutions with causes of equality and justice and fairness, when in reality it is simply substituting one power structure for another power structure. And this was Moshe Rabbeinu's wisdom. That's what Moshe Rabbeinu says, "I'm not going to address egalitarianism. I'm not going to address anarchy. I'm not going to address all of your nice arguments that we don't need authority.

[00:12:34]I'm going to address the fact that you're jealous that you didn't get a particular job and that's why you're developing a whole philosophy. I want you to know that you have a lot of kavod and you have a lot of chashivus."

[00:12:47]In fact, I'll just give you another example outside of the revolutionary context.

[00:12:52]Um the religion that's known as uh Karaites.

[00:12:58]Right? Karaites. Karaites. They're still Karaites around. They're they're very small right now, but in the Middle Ages they were very large. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of Karaim.

[00:13:09]Uh many many of them were located in Mitzrayim and the Rambam quite often had many many difficult encounters with Karaim.

[00:13:19]Some historians have posited that a lot of the structure of the Mishneh Torah, the hidden structure of the Mishneh Torah, was the Rambam's war against the Karaites.

[00:13:29]Now, what is the outstanding uh belief of the Karaites? They essentially do not believe or do not accept what we call the oral law, the Torah Shebaal Peh. So, they accept the Bible, they accept the Tanakh, they do not accept the Mishna, the Gemara, Chazal. They consider rabbinic interpretation of uh the Bible to be illegitimate. That's why they're called Karaim. Karaim means biblical people. They they only look at the biblical people.

[00:13:57]Uh biblical uh verses. That's why, to give you one interesting example, Karaim do observe a holiday called Rosh Hashanah, but they do not blow shofar on Rosh Hashanah.

[00:14:09]Why is that so? Because, interestingly enough, the Torah never says specifically to blow shofar. It simply says "Yom Teruah."

[00:14:18]Yom Teruah. In other words, teruah can mean blowing a shofar. It can also mean shouting in prayer.

[00:14:25]And Chazal had to have a drasha.

[00:14:28]How do you know it's shofar? They don't accept the drasha, and they interpret the pasuk a day of prayer, not a day of shofar blowing.

[00:14:35]Right? Et cetera. Now, the Karaites have a philosophy, right?

[00:14:39]Their philosophy is that the only message from God is the written Torah, and not the oral Torah, and rabbinic traditions are therefore illegitimate.

[00:14:48]Okay? But, I can tell you that we know very exactly when Karaim got invented as a movement, and that is there was a fellow Anan ben David, a little before Rav Saadia Gaon, who was in line to become Resh Galuta.

[00:15:04]Resh Galuta was a political position in which you were the head of the Jewish community, and he was passed over in favor of somebody else.

[00:15:15]So, he decided to start his own religion.

[00:15:20]Once again, it's not that philosophically he got up one day and said, "Hmm, I don't understand the legitimacy of the rabbinic tradition."

[00:15:29]He was mad they didn't get a job.

[00:15:32]So, the philosophy followed the anger.

[00:15:36]Uh it was not an objective philosophical argument. And that's exactly the same with Korach. Korach is about power.

[00:15:44]Korach is about being a malcontent, but he disguises it in the language of equality.

[00:15:54]And in truth, the Eben Ezra points out, all of the people who joined Korach had their personal grievances, even though they were talking about equality.

[00:16:06]Uh many from the tribe of Reuven joined him.

[00:16:09]>> [snorts] >> And that's because Reuven was upset that they were supposed to be the firstborn, but it was taken away from them and given to Yosef, who had Ephraim and Menashe.

[00:16:18]So, Shevet Reuven was angry.

[00:16:20]The firstborn were angry because they were replaced by the Leviim.

[00:16:25]The Leviim were angry because they didn't get the job of the Kohanim.

[00:16:29]So, the Leviim resent the Kohanim, and the firstborn resent the Leviim, and Shevet Reuven resents even the firstborn because they should have been the designated firstborn. So, everybody has their own private grievance, but they come together with a made-up idea. Kol ha'edah kulam kedoshim, which Rav Soloveitchik calls the common-sense rebellion of Korach, Huey Long's declaration, every man should be a king.

[00:17:01]So, Moshe understood this.

[00:17:03]And there's one other person who understood this.

[00:17:06]And that is a person that we know nothing else about. And this is Mrs. On ben Peleth.

[00:17:12]If you remember, the Chumash describes that Korach had 250 elders, a Dathan and Abiram, the perennial troublemakers, and On ben Peleth from the tribe of Reuben.

[00:17:28]Now, On ben Peleth seems to disappear from the scene because when it describes the ground opening up, right? The 250 Nesi'im got killed with fire when they brought incense.

[00:17:39]Korah and Dathan and the Abiram got swallowed up.

[00:17:43]But it makes no mention of On ben Peleth. Where did he go? What happened to this On ben Peleth, who must have been a prominent participant in the rebellion because he's mentioned? So the Gemara in Sanhedrin gives us a very, very interesting backstory.

[00:17:58]That when Korah was organizing the rebellion and he wanted to get On to come and help him organize, so Mrs. On didn't want her husband to participate. So she uncovered her hair.

[00:18:09]Married women's was have covered hair.

[00:18:11]And that scared off even Korah's people would not enter a Jewish home where the woman was not properly dressed.

[00:18:19]So she scared them off.

[00:18:22]And then, as good wives do, she told her husband what an idiot he is. He comes home very enthusiastic.

[00:18:29]And you can imagine the scene. He says, "Hey, every man is a king. Korah says we're all equal. Korah says we're all holy. Korah says each and every one of us can connect to God without intermediaries.

[00:18:43]That's fantastic."

[00:18:45]So Mrs. On says to him, I'm paraphrasing. I don't have the exact words. She says, "You're an idiot.

[00:18:51]What do you think is going to happen?

[00:18:53]If Moshe wins, you're in big trouble.

[00:18:56]And if Korah wins, you'll be a nobody anyway.

[00:18:59]You think Korah's going to make everybody equal?

[00:19:02]This is a power grab."

[00:19:04]So it's interesting how she reads him.

[00:19:06]She didn't read him with mussar. She didn't say, "How can you rebel against Moshe Rabbenu, the greatest prophet?"

[00:19:12]She didn't use from talk. She didn't use religious talk.

[00:19:16]She used very, very practical common sensical arguments saying, "You are a loser either way this goes.

[00:19:25]You will either lose to Moshe or you're going to lose to Korach. What's the point of this?"

[00:19:32]And that very common sense approach saved his life. As a result, he disassociated himself. So, the two kind of heroes of the story who saw through the pretense of egalitarianism was number one, Moshe Rabbeinu, which one might expect. And number two, Mrs. Own Ben Palace, who's a hidden person that had the insight of really understanding what is going on.

[00:19:59]Right? So, this is one of the time-honored roles of good wives is to dissuade their husbands from doing crazy things. And that was an example here here as well. So, this is the idea of the hidden agenda.

[00:20:13]Some of you might remember from a prior life a novel by a George Orwell.

[00:20:19]Not 1984, that's the most famous novel, but another novel, Animal Farm. And Animal Farm is actually a parody.

[00:20:28]It's a satire of the Russian Revolution.

[00:20:31]Although he doesn't make the point explicitly. That is the animals decide to revolt against the oppressive conditions that the human owners are imposing on them. So, they revolt in the interest of equality, in the interest of fairness, in the interest of goodness and justice.

[00:20:49]And the leader of the revolution is a pig who goes by the name Napoleon.

[00:20:55]And Napoleon eventually morphs into a dictator that takes away all the rights of the animals.

[00:21:02]And Orwell was making the point that And this was the Russian Revolution. It started with the cause of equality and dignity of man.

[00:21:11]It turned into brutal dictatorships. And that's exactly what it is. The Babachev Rebbe used to talk about this a little bit. The Babachev Rebbe used to mention that when he was in Russia as a younger person, he knew he actually knew very religious Jews, religious Jews who were dedicated communists.

[00:21:33]Because they believed that would create compassion, that would create justice, that would create fairness.

[00:21:40]This is before the Russian Revolution, but they have associated with communism because they saw this as a kind of sedaka, kind of creating a moral and good society. Now, obviously they were mistaken because they were looking at it from a totally objective way of looking at it, not looking at the the power and the ego and the jealousies that were motivating all of the participants in this particular in this particular game. And that's really the tragedy of of Korach in that particular way, the idea of um the hidden agendas. And to some degree it gets complicated because to some degree the agenda can be hidden even from ourselves.

[00:22:26]You know, people when they get upset over something, a slight, an insult, they might say something like, "It's not personal, it's a matter of principle."

[00:22:38]So, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky used to say, "Whenever somebody says, 'It's not personal, it's a matter of principle,' it is always personal."

[00:22:46]Uh and he would tell people who would come to him and say, "So-and-so did this to me. Is this how a Jew behaves? You know, I protest the immoral behavior."

[00:22:56]So, Rabbi Yaakov said, "You know, you're not the first person that's been victimized by this.

[00:23:02]So, when other people were victimized, did you feel the same sense of outrage?

[00:23:07]If you don't feel the same sense of outrage when it's done to somebody else, and you get more upset cuz it's done to you, then obviously it is personal. It's not the objective idea that I cannot tolerate injustice.

[00:23:24]If I could not tolerate injustice, then it would hurt me just as much if somebody else was a victim than me.

[00:23:31]But, we convince ourselves, you know, we want to look at ourselves as righteous and not simply being petty. So, we convince ourselves that our own, and again, I'm including myself, our own uh pettiness is really for a larger cause that's objectively just and fair, when in fact there's a hidden agenda. So, the problem is the agenda is sometimes hidden even from a We don't even know our motives. Okay.

[00:23:57]So, now I want to just share with you a very, very fascinating gematria uh that the Shem Ishmael Shem Ishmael just uh was the son of the Avnei Nezer, the Sacha Chava Rebbe. So, the Shem Ishmael was the next Sacha Chava Rebbe.

[00:24:17]The Avnei Nezer uh was known The reason I mentioned the Avnei Nezer but Dafka The Avnei Nezer was not just a great Hasidic Rebbe. The Avnei Nezer was regarded even by non-Hasidim as one of the great Gedolei Hador in Halacha.

[00:24:30]The Avnei Nezer was a great, great Gaon in Halacha. Uh his Sefer on Hilchos Shabbos is to this very day one of the great classic Seforim on Hilchos Shabbos called the Eglei Tal. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's it's a authoritative Sefer. But, he was also a great Hasidic Rebbe, and his son, the Shem Ishmael, uh followed in his father's uh footsteps. In fact, if you've ever seen a Shem Ishmael, it's really voluminous.

[00:24:55]It's like um two volumes on every Chumash, plus another volume on Yom Tovim. So, he wrote quite a lot. A Shem Mishmuel is considered to be, I'll just mention this for your own uh edification, uh one of the easier Hasidic books to listen to. In other words, if you're trying to get into reading Hasidic sefarim, uh it is uh one of the most accessible.

[00:25:21]It's uh much easier than Rav Zadok or or whatever it is. Okay, but be that as it may, the Shem Mishmuel brings a fascinating gematria in the name of the Ariza.

[00:25:34]>> [clears throat] >> And the Ariza does not explain the gematria. He just gives you the gematria.

[00:25:38]He says, "The gematria of Korach is 308.

[00:25:46]The gematria of Moshe is 345.

[00:25:54]>> [snorts] >> 345 - 308 is 37.

[00:26:02]And 37 is the gematria of Hevel."

[00:26:07]The the the son that was killed by Cain.

[00:26:10]So, putting all this together, we have the following equation.

[00:26:15]Moshe - Hevel = Korach.

[00:26:21]Or Korach + Hevel = Moshe.

[00:26:26]Right? It just follows I'm just looking at the numbers. Right? Because Moshe is is 345.

[00:26:33]Uh Korach is 308. So, therefore, Moshe I'm sorry, Korach + Hevel is Moshe.

[00:26:42]Moshe - Hevel is Korach.

[00:26:45]Now, there's [clears throat] no explanation there, right? But this is a gematria that the Ariza sets up. So, the Shem Mishmuel offers a beautiful hesper as to what is the significance of this gematria.

[00:26:58]And he goes back to the idea that at the very beginning of creation, the first child They were actually twins, but the older twin that was born from Hava, the name was Kayin.

[00:27:12]And uh the Torah says, why did she call him Kayin? She said, kanisi ish im Hashem.

[00:27:22]Now, kanisi in that pasuk means I created, not I acquired.

[00:27:28]I created. Of course, she's kind of factoring out her husband in this, but she says, I created a man, a child together with God.

[00:27:39]Right? So, Kayin comes from creation or acquisition.

[00:27:46]Now, Hevel is a word that means vapor, breath, something very ephemeral and temporary.

[00:27:56]Remember in Kohelet, HaMelech's meditation on life that we read on Sukkot?

[00:28:04]And it's very depressing. Everything is worthless, whatever you try to do never achieves anything, people take it away, people don't appreciate you, life is short, life is brutal, people get sick, people die. It ends with a positive statement. Sof davar, at the end of everything.

[00:28:22]Hakol nishma, after you heard the whole story, fear God and do His mitzvot.

[00:28:28]Because that is the only meaning of life.

[00:28:30]But what is Kohelet saying throughout the whole book? Everything else is worthless, worthless, worthless. And what is the refrain that HaMelech says over and over again? Havel havalim, amar Kohelet, havel havalim, hakol Now, the famous King James translation of Havel Havelim is vanity of vanities, says the preacher, Koheles, vanity of vanities, everything is vanity.

[00:29:03]But, I would just suggest to you that what vanity meant in English in the 17th century is not the same as it means today. In other words, today when you say when you say about somebody being vain, that just refers to being boastful, arrogant, proud.

[00:29:22]But, what vanity meant then was something that was empty and meaningless. So, we still say that, don't take God's name in vain.

[00:29:34]That doesn't mean pridefully, that just means for no reason.

[00:29:38]So, vanity of vanities in modern English would be better translated futility of futilities.

[00:29:48]Okay, people don't realize that that that what vanity meant to [snorts] the translators of the King James or to Shakespeare uh is not the modern use of vanity today. So, Havel comes in the word breath.

[00:30:01]Just like a breath, right? You you you expel air, it's invisible, it just dissipates, it doesn't remain.

[00:30:09]So, Melech is making the point that material success by definition is temporary.

[00:30:18]It doesn't last.

[00:30:20]And you you don't devote your life to things that don't have any enduring value.

[00:30:26]So, going back to Havel, that first guy, or the second child, is called Havel.

[00:30:35]Futile. Now, perhaps there was some type of intimation that he would would killed.

[00:30:41]So, there may been a prophetic idea that Hava had calling him Hevel, but what was in her conscious thought? I mean, she didn't know consciously he was going to be killed. Why did she call him Hevel?

[00:30:54]So, the Shem Mishmuel suggests that Kayin and Hevel represent two different aspects of the human personality.

[00:31:06]That in Adam were merged, but in the children came out separate.

[00:31:12]And I'm going to combine the Shem Mishmuel with a very, very famous essay by someone much later, Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik.

[00:31:21]But I I think there's a perfect fit here.

[00:31:24]Uh one of the great uh articles or great essays that Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote, this is the one of in which you uh is the lonely man of faith. You can actually get it online.

[00:31:36]It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful essay.

[00:31:39]It's large enough that they printed it as a small book. It's around 120 pages, and then they add footnotes and stuff.

[00:31:45]So, it's it can be bought as a as a book, but you I think you can get the whole essay online now.

[00:31:49]And he points out that the biblical account of the creation of man appears twice.

[00:31:59]And in contradictory ways. That's why Bible critics will have there talk about different authorships.

[00:32:06]There is the account of man's creation in chapter 1 of Breishit.

[00:32:12]And then there's a different account of how man was created in chapter 2 of Breishit.

[00:32:19]Chapter 1 talks about God making man in his image.

[00:32:26]And it mentions zachar u nekevah bara'am.

[00:32:30]A simultaneous creation of man and woman. Zachar u nekevah b'ra otam.

[00:32:40]In chapter two, there's a whole discussion of God making man from the dust of the earth, from the mud.

[00:32:48]And then he saw that man was alone and had no partner. And he said it is not good for man to be alone, so he made him fall asleep, and he took the rib or the side.

[00:32:59]So, Hazal reconcile this. Hazal don't say there are two different accounts.

[00:33:02]They say, "Well, yeah, originally uh there was a bisexual creature that God separated. But if you simply read the pesukim, just read the pesukim, you see a contradiction in the creation of man.

[00:33:18]And that is Genesis 1, chapter 1, talks about man in the image of God.

[00:33:24]Genesis 2 talks about mud and dust of the earth.

[00:33:29]Chapter 1 talks about the simultaneous emergence of man and woman.

[00:33:34]Chapter 2 talks about the loneliness and despair of man, which had to be addressed by giving him a helpmate.

[00:33:42]Now, the Sovezhik offers a very important key here, which is very interesting, and perhaps it's a little non-traditional.

[00:33:51]What do you do when you have contradictions in a biblical narrative?

[00:33:59]Is it this or is it that?

[00:34:03]So, Hazal's approach is to try to find a way to reconcile.

[00:34:07]But al pi p'shat, there's another mahalach, and that is since the purpose of the Torah is not to teach you history, maybe the Torah is not even telling you what actually happens.

[00:34:22]But the Torah wants you to derive lessons in life from the differing accounts. Meaning, there are certain lessons I learn from the first account of man.

[00:34:33]And there are certain lessons I learned from the second account of man.

[00:34:37]Now, we actually don't know was it this way or that way?

[00:34:40]But that's not important.

[00:34:42]It is not so important that we know historically what happened.

[00:34:46]Hashem says, I want you to learn from version one and I want you to learn from version two.

[00:34:53]Again, this is a perhaps a non-traditional approach, but it is I mean some people might condemn it as it's an overly literary literary approach.

[00:35:04]But it is valid within the world of parshanut because the Tyra is communicating contradictory accounts because there are lessons to get from each account. So, based on this Rav Soloveitchik posits what he calls Adam one and Adam two.

[00:35:21]Not that there are two Adams. There's only one Adam Harishon.

[00:35:25]But perek aleph is describing one aspect of Adam which he calls Adam one.

[00:35:31]And perek bet is describing another aspect of Adam which he calls Adam two.

[00:35:36]And specifically he says Adam one is majestic man and Adam two [clears throat] is redemptive man.

[00:35:47]What does that mean?

[00:35:49]Because in in the in the human personality there are two ideas. We've talked about this This comes up a lot in many different parshas and it's coming up here again.

[00:35:59]Majestic man focuses on the greatness of the human being.

[00:36:05]We are made in the image of God.

[00:36:07]We have intelligence. We have creativity. We have free will. We have autonomy.

[00:36:13]We are given the mission I should also emphasize that in Genesis chapter one Bereshit perek aleph the Gan Eden mission is to conquer the earth.

[00:36:24]In perek bet it's to preserve and nurture.

[00:36:28]So, he says, Adam 1 emphasizes the godly nature of man.

[00:36:36]His greatness, his intelligence, his ability to master the raw materials of nature, to drain the swamps, to conquer disease, to create civilizations, to exercise his free will, and don't be passive in the face of nature or injustice.

[00:36:58]Don't just say God will take care of things.

[00:37:01]You are a partner of Hashem, and you have that responsibility.

[00:37:06]And that is why the mission is conquer and dominate the raw materials of the earth.

[00:37:12]And that is why it describes men and women coming together as a team, because indeed, by ourselves, we couldn't do it.

[00:37:20]It's describing the notion of man's majesty, man's control, man's power.

[00:37:27]But, there's another side of that.

[00:37:30]Majestic man can easily slide into arrogance, into gaiva, into thinking that they are the masters of everything.

[00:37:42]And we see this over and over and over again.

[00:37:45]So, side by side with Adam 1, Bereishit perek aleph, which is the majesty and power and godliness of the human being, there needs to be a counterbalancing portrayal of the lowliness of man.

[00:38:05]Man comes from the mud.

[00:38:08]And man in a state of aloneness, where he does not yet have a wife, is needy and fragile and and dependent.

[00:38:18]And he needs the grace of Hashem.

[00:38:22]And that's called redemptive. That is how the human being finds redemption by humility and submission to Hashem.

[00:38:31]So, the Torah describes the creation of man on two different levels because there are two aspects of human personality that have to be integrated.

[00:38:43]If all you have is majestic man you have arrogance, conceit, gaiva, hubris.

[00:38:53]If all you have is redemptive man which seems to be more righteous, certainly, what you have is passivity and despair.

[00:39:03]You look at poor people suffering you say, "Oh, may God help you."

[00:39:07]When in fact you have to take the initiative.

[00:39:11]Have to build up Eretz Israel, whatever it will be.

[00:39:14]So, you need the egotism of majestic man and the subservience of redemptive man.

[00:39:24]So, you see Rabbi Soloveitchik's interpretive point. It actually is a like to me this is a phenomenally beautiful and very interesting way to approach biblical interpretation generally.

[00:39:35]That is, if the Torah gives you contradictory accounts of a phenomenon the Torah is saying, "Well, I don't know [clears throat] Well, Hashem is not telling us what actually which one happened."

[00:39:46]But it's not important.

[00:39:48]Hashem is saying, "Learn from the first story and learn from the second story.

[00:39:55]The majesty of man and the redemptive quality of man subordinating himself to the the greatness of God."

[00:40:05]Now, so that's my digression from uh borrowing from Soloveitchik. Now, I want to go back to the Shemot because the truth of the matter is he's going in all in almost the the same direction without Rav Soloveitchik's more elaborate vocabulary.

[00:40:20]What was joined in the personality of Adam Harishon got separated out in the distinctive personalities of Kayin and Hevel.

[00:40:36]Kayin took on the role of Adam 1 and Hevel took on the role of Adam 2.

[00:40:45]How do you see this?

[00:40:47]The word Kayin, as I said, indicates creativity, acquisition.

[00:40:54]And that indicates that Kayin's personality was to try to dominate and control the world.

[00:41:01]That's why he became a farmer.

[00:41:04]What is agriculture >> [cough] >> but [clears throat] controlling the raw materials of nature to create produce.

[00:41:14]I don't just You don't just forage on wild fruit, you cultivate.

[00:41:20]Kayin was an innovator in a few different ways.

[00:41:23]Do you know that Kayin was the one who, at least according to the uh some chazals, created the idea of serving God by korbanos? It's true that his korban was inferior. Hevel brought a better korban.

[00:41:35]But Hevel didn't initiate. Hevel simply improved used to say this about the Japanese that they took American technology and they improved it.

[00:41:45]Right? So, Hevel did not innovate korbanos.

[00:41:48]Hevel improved an idea that Kayin had.

[00:41:53]According to some midrashim, Kayin even taught Adam Harishon the lesson of teshuvah.

[00:42:01]When Kayin killed Hevel and Kayin pleaded with God that how can I wander from place to place?

[00:42:08]And it mentions that God made a deal with Kayin. Kayin did So, Hashem said, "You will have your rest on Shabbat.

[00:42:16]On Shabbat, you will feel emotionally calm.

[00:42:21]And it is said that Kayin taught other Marishon who had been expelled from the Garden of Eden that there's such a thing as teshuvah.

[00:42:29]So, Kayin does represent in a positive way and a negative way the idea of acquisition, creativity, innovation.

[00:42:40]Hevel represents the sense of fragility, worthlessness, total submission to God, total submission to God.

[00:42:49]But, as a result, without being counterbalanced by Kayin, the Hevel personality is going to be passive and not proactive. God will take care of everything.

[00:43:02]Now, says the Shem Mishmuel, the Ari, of course, very much talked about gilgul, that different neshamos are reincarnated.

[00:43:14]So, he says that Moshe Rabbeinu was a reincarnation of Hevel.

[00:43:23]And Korach was a reincarnation of Kayin.

[00:43:29]And the fight between Moshe and Korach was a reenactment of Kayin and Hevel.

[00:43:36]But, this time the results were reversed.

[00:43:40]The first time around, it was Kayin who killed Hevel.

[00:43:44]This time around, Moshe, that is the reincarnation of Hevel, caused the destruction of Korach, who is the reincarnation of Kayin.

[00:43:56]Now, the purpose of reincarnation is to give your neshama a chance to rectify the unfinished business of the first times around.

[00:44:12]Cain and Abel both had unfinished business that needed to be rectified.

[00:44:19]Cain had the creativity, the innovation, the energy as as befitting Cain, but he didn't have the humility and submission to God.

[00:44:32]So, he needed to come back to acquire the Abel that is lacking in his personality.

[00:44:40]Abel had the opposite problem.

[00:44:44]Abel was totally subordinate to God, but Abel did not have a sense of initiative, of leadership, of innovation, of creativity.

[00:44:57]So, Abel had to come back to incorporate parts of Cain.

[00:45:02]Cain had to come back to bring some Abel into his personality.

[00:45:08]Abel had to come back to bring some Cain into his personality.

[00:45:14]So, Moshe is a reincarnation of Abel, because just as Abel represents humility, Moshe is the most humble person who ever lived. That's the Abel part.

[00:45:27]But that same Moshe that's Abel became a great leader who took command and was able to guide a nation of 3 million people for 40 years. So, Moshe rectified the defect of Abel by incorporating the positivities of Cain.

[00:45:47]Korah, on the other hand, just repeated the same problem.

[00:45:52]Korah >> [snorts] >> had the arrogance, had the creativity, the the wisdom, the knowledge, the initiative, the leadership abilities of Cain, But he did not submit to the humility of Hevel.

[00:46:07]And therefore Moshe Rabbeinu was able to destroy him because he did not create that that tikkun.

[00:46:13]So, based on this lengthy introduction, this explains the gematrias so perfectly.

[00:46:21]Korach had all of the talents of Moshe Rabbeinu.

[00:46:27]The wisdom, the leadership, the charisma, the ability.

[00:46:32]The one thing Korach didn't have was the hevel, the humility, and submission.

[00:46:40]So, now look at the math.

[00:46:42]Korach plus hevel, if you would add hevel to Korach, you would get Moshe.

[00:46:49]>> [snorts] >> Korach was everything Moshe was except for the quality of hevel.

[00:46:57]And if you took Korach and you added hevel to Korach, like a chemical mix, you would have Moshe.

[00:47:06]Because once again, Korach represented majestic man without the counterbalance of hevel.

[00:47:13]Hevel represented redemptive man without the counterbalance of Kayin, but Moshe Rabbeinu was mesaken Hevel's neshama by bringing in the leadership of Kayin into the neshama of Hevel. So, this is what the Shem MiShmuel says might be the explanation of the Arizal's very enigmatic uh gematria. And once again, it reminds us, and this comes Again, this comes out in many many parshios, the idea of humility and submission to God, but at the same time recognizing our greatness, recognizing our power, recognizing our abilities.

[00:47:53]Emunah in Hashem is not a passive virtue.

[00:47:59]It is an active virtue. What that I mean that in some some circles, some religions, faith in God means you don't do anything. You simply say, "Hashem will take care of everything."

[00:48:12]Emunah in Judaism is not an excuse for inaction.

[00:48:18]It is a call to take initiative having bitachon that Hashem will give you the abilities that you need to carry out your mission.

[00:48:28]Whether it's, as I say, fighting in the army, whether it's building Eretz Yisrael. And the truth of the matter is, even in pure Torah learning, there is that dimension.

[00:48:36]You know, um when a person learns Torah, right? So, a person thinks of an original idea, a new insight.

[00:48:44]They don't simply say, you know, people sometimes say, "Well, who are you to to ask questions on the Torah? It comes from I don't mean I don't mean philosophical questions, but regular questions. People like, "Why ask questions?"

[00:48:56]So, they have different Hasidic stories where uh cuz the truth is maybe an anti it may come from an anti-Hasidic source, in which a certain Hasidic Rebbe, this is a story, uh didn't want to learn Gemara because he says, "Too many questions. What type of chutzpah is it to ask all these questions?"

[00:49:14]But no, that's the whole point.

[00:49:16]Our understanding of Torah also requires that we push and we push and we push and we push.

[00:49:23]When we're sick, we go to doctors. When there are swamps, we drain them. We don't just say, "God will drain the swamp." When there are poor people, we have to help them. We don't just say, "Hashem will take care of it."

[00:49:36]Of course, everything comes from Hashem. Without Hashem, there is no success in life whatsoever.

[00:49:42]But emunah is not a call to passivity.

[00:49:46]Emunah is a call to action.

[00:49:50]Now, there are times in life when there's literally nothing you can do.

[00:49:55]So, at that point you turn to God and say, "This is beyond me." So, there is there is I am admitting that there is sometimes a very strong concept of turning it over to Hashem.

[00:50:08]And concentration camp, I mean, there are going to be those types of circumstances. But, for the most part, even when I turn something over to Hashem, there's a responsibility that I still have to do whatever it is that I can do.

[00:50:23]And emunah is not, to use a fancy English word, emunah is not quiescent or passive.

[00:50:31]And that is why the hevel has to be balanced with the kayin.

[00:50:36]The kayin is the ego that enables initiative.

[00:50:41]The hevel is the realization that all success comes from comes from Hashem.

[00:50:48]Now, just just end with one one idea of Chaim Shmuelevitz used to say, Now, the Torah says one one of the pesukim in parshas Korach is that if you remember the 250, they made a different faith. These are 250 distinguished people, and they wanted to bring incense, and they did not die by the ground opening. They died by when they brought incense with coals, a fire came out of the mishkan and consumed them.

[00:51:17]And the Torah then says that Hashem commanded Moshe that the utensils in which they were carrying the coals should be beaten as copper plates, and they should cover them as be'er so that everybody who goes to the mizbe'ach and sees the copper plates will remember that this was a consequence of the nasi'im rebelling against Aaron's authority. So, the netziv points out an interesting point.

[00:51:43]The netziv points out that in a sense, even though the Nesi'im died, but they're memorialized by being a very significant part of the Mizbe'ah.

[00:51:55]It's almost as if there's kind of a tribute here. They're being honored.

[00:52:01]And the Netziv makes an interesting point. He says, "The motivation of the 250 was different than the motivation of Korach.

[00:52:12]Korach was simply looking for a power grab.

[00:52:17]The 250 knew what they were doing was wrong, but they so much wanted that closeness to God of bringing the incense that they were willing to die for it.

[00:52:30]Meaning, it's like a person saying, 'I want to die just to have that one-second experience of closeness to God.'"

[00:52:42]So, the Netziv said in fact their death was like the neshama of the guf.

[00:52:46]So, the Netziv says, "Although this was a sin and their kavana was wrong, it was a kavana l'shem Shamayim, which is therefore memorialized on the Mizbe'ah itself."

[00:53:01]And the truth is, even Korach is not without redemption.

[00:53:04]It doesn't say it in this parashah, but in Parashat Pinchas, in a few weeks, it mentions the sons of Korach did not die.

[00:53:13]What does that mean?

[00:53:15]The ground opened up and everybody fell in, all of Korach's children, but they did teshuvah the last moment and there was a cliff or a ledge that they could hold on to and they climbed out.

[00:53:28]And you know, those children of Korach became the ancestors of Shmuel the Navi.

[00:53:36]And in Tehillim, there are 11 chapters of Tehillim that are compositions of Bnei Korach. It's this Korach, this one. There's not another Korach. The descendants of Korach were Levium who sang in the Beis Hamikdash, and they were the composers.

[00:53:53]If you remember the Tehillim, well, one of the Shiras Hayom is on the daily Korach and on Rosh Hashanah before Tekias Shofar, Lamnatzeiach Livnei Korach [snorts] Mizmor. So, even Korach had his uh his tikkun, at least via his children. So, perhaps the the hevel came in, not in him, but it came into his children. But, be that as it may, there is a possuk that says that there shall uh they should gaze at the copper plates, so there shall no longer be the situation of Korach and his congregation.

[00:54:33]Lo yihiyeh Korach v'cha'adaso.

[00:54:38]So, Rav Chaim Shmulevitz used to say, "What does the Torah mean when it says uh there will never be or there should never be a situation like Korach?" So, he translates it not that there should never be, but there will never be. And that is, Korach is the only machlokes in history where one side was totally right and the other side was totally wrong.

[00:55:01]Moshe right, Korach wrong.

[00:55:04]In every other machlokes, there's going to be truth on both sides.

[00:55:09]So, the Torah is really warning you, when you have a machlokes with somebody and you're so sure that that guy's an idiot and the the other person thinks the same thing about you, just remember there was only one situation where one side was all right and the other side was all wrong, and in every situation there's going to be truth to be learned on both sides, and we have to be open to it. We have to be open. And it's bad to come in and say it's very, very clear that if I can see the truth in your side, you will see the truth in my side." Now, that brings people together.

[00:55:43]When people feel they're being heard, they become much more receptive to hearing.

[00:55:51]And when people feel they're being ignored, they become much more intransigent in their positions. So, Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch says, "The Torah is telling us, remember, in every machlokes, there are going to be two sides." Now, again, maybe one side is 80% correct, that might be so, but there's still a 20% in which there are merits to the other side. This is a dimension that is totally lacking in Israeli politics, for sure, and in recent years in American politics as well. In Israeli politics, there is never a concept that there's some merit to the other side.

[00:56:27]Whether it's religious-secular or religious-religious or secular-secular, whatever combination it is, each side always says, "I am 100% right."

[00:56:38]And uh the other side is 100% wrong. And Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch said, "That is faulty thinking. You have to try to identify the points of emes that can exist in all of those things."

[00:56:48]So, b'ezras Hashem, uh may we be zocheh to bring ourselves together as a nation to try to see the good and validity in all of the different positions uh that are being stated, and in that way try to cure, try to heal the sinas chinam that was responsible for the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash and is still responsible for all of the suffering of the galus that we have even here in Yerushalayim, even here in Eretz Yisrael. Thank you.

[00:57:17]>> Yibaneh, yibaneh, yibaneh [music] Hamikdash, >> [singing] >> b'yameinu, b'yameinu, b'yameinu >> [music] >> b'yameinu b'yameinu b'yameinu b'yameinu b'yameinu b'yameinu >> [music] >> b'yameinu b'yameinu run. It's the only way to run.

[00:57:38]I'm a man, you better run because she ain't >> [singing] >> got time.

[00:57:42]>> [music] >> Oh, they run.