Korach: Feeling Out of this World!

Many would say Avraham, Yitzchak or Yaakov. Others might say Sara, Rivka, Rachel or Leah. Some might say Moshe or Aharon, Yocheved or Miriam. But never before had I heard this answer.

It was after the Shabbat meal on one of our trips away in seminary and groups of girls were chatting, singing and eating. The girls around me were discussing the profound seminary girl question of ‘If you could meet anyone from Jewish history, who would it be?’

My friend piped up and said ‘Korach.’ 

Not exactly a typical answer.

The episode of Korach is the quintessential example of ‘machloket lo l’sheim shamayim’ (Avot 5:17), a disagreement that was not for the sake of Heaven. Korach forms a rebellion, questioning and degrading the validity of Moshe and Aharon’s leadership. They are accused of hoarding honour and power for themselves, elevating themselves unfairly over the nation and reserving greatness only for their immediate family. As they cry out, כֻּלָּ֣ם קְדשִׁ֔ים, ‘they are all holy!’ (Bamidbar 16:3) We are all members of this sanctified nation. Why do Moshe and Aharon think they are better than everyone else? 

The parsha begins with the words ‘Korach the son of Yitzhar took…’ (16:1) What did Korach take? Rashi explains that he took himself. He took himself aside and separated himself from everyone else in order to stir up the fires of controversy and conflict. In order to fight about the leadership hierarchy, to claim it for himself.

Korach was not just your average man. Korach was the grandson of Kehat, who was privileged with carrying the Aron Kodesh (Holy Ark). He was from the most prestigious family in the Levite tribe and was one of the greats of learning in his own right. A true talmid chacham. More than that, the Priestly position Korach wanted never would have been his. It legitimately went to Aharon as the son of Amram, the eldest of the brothers in the family. Korach was the son of Yitzhar, the second brother. This was just a reality of the hierarchy. So what led him to this totally irrational behaviour of questioning Moshe and Aharon’s leadership? 

This entire episode is a living example of what the Mishna meant when it says ‘Jealousy, desire and honour remove a person from the world.’ (4:28) The Mishna does not mean that these three things are punishable by death, and thus remove the person from existence. The Mishna means, very literally, that a person suffering from one of these three things, is removed from reality. They are not living in the world, they cannot see straight. 

Each of the 12 tribes had a nasi, a leader which represented the tribe. The nasi of the tribe of Levi, the tribe which Korach belonged to, was Elitzafan the son of Uziel. Uziel was the youngest of the four sons of Kehat. Korach felt that since the eldest brother Amram already had his two sons, Moshe and Aharon, in power, his turn was next, as the eldest son of the next brother in line. This was an incredible blow to Korach’s pride, as he felt that it was unjust to put the younger brother over him. This led him to such intense feelings of jealousy, that he completely left reality and then began desiring positions that never would have been his. He began rejecting the leadership of Moshe and Aharon, a rejection that made no logical sense. Such is the poisonous effect of jealousy and honour. It completely robs a person of their intellect. 

If we think about the way that Hashem set up reality; the world and its natural laws, we see that there is really no room for jealousy at all. The Gemara (Talmud Yerushalmi Sanhedrin, end of Chapter 4) tells us that there is no fig or grain of wheat that looks the same as the others. We know that scientists nowadays have examined snowflakes, and have found that each snowflake is completely unique. If this is true of meaningless snowflakes, which dissolve and disappear into nothingness, how much more so is each human being valued as their own creation. We each have our own voice, our own face, our own mission.

Yes, Korach was a talmid chacham. Yes, he was from a prestigious family. Yes, his actions seem completely irrational. But this is what happens when a person suffers from jealousy. They are not living in the bounds of reality anymore, and they will deny things that are clearly true, and accept things that are clearly false. Korach’s end, being swallowed by a hole in the earth, an unnatural phenomenon, reflects how he was living outside of reality. Just as the strife he pursued was completely outside the realm of reality, his death was completely outside the realm of reality as well.

If we think about the way that Hashem set up reality; the world and its natural laws, we see that there is really no room for jealousy at all. The Gemara (Talmud Yerushalmi Sanhedrin, end of Chapter 4) tells us that there is no fig or grain of wheat that looks the same as the others. We know that scientists nowadays have examined snowflakes, and have found that each snowflake is completely unique. If this is true of meaningless snowflakes, which dissolve and disappear into nothingness, how much more so is each human being valued as their own creation. We each have our own voice, our own face, our own mission. Just as the reality of one snowflake falling in one country has no bearing on a snowflake descending elsewhere, so too, the status of one individual has no bearing on another. Our lives are completely custom-designed and have nothing to do with the lives of others. How can we then have questions of why someone is richer, prettier, more powerful? How can we have complaints about why her husband is nicer, her children are smarter, her in-laws more tolerable? We are each on our own paths, as separate as different snowflakes blowing across the globe, as unique as one grain of wheat from another. 

So, back to my friend who wanted to sit down with Korach and understand how he could question the legitimacy of Moshe and Aharon’s power. We can perhaps begin to see how such a distinguished talmid chacham (scholar) led what is probably the most infamous conflict in the Torah. His jealousy removed him from rational thinking, from all rhyme and reason. Away from the figs, wheat and snowflakes. He no longer had control over his intellect and since his mind was already out of this world, it was only time before his body left this world, through an unnatural hole in the earth. If we can catch ourselves when our honor is slighted, when our ego is hurt or when we are resentful about another person’s success, we can envision thousands of snowflakes falling from the sky, each on their own path. And we can realize that in this world, the track of each individual is unique, and the success of others brings us no harm. Instead of searching for the out-of-this-world experiences that our friends have, we can just be satisfied that our human reason and rationality is right where it should be. In this world. 

Based on Rav Aharon Zakkai in ‘Life Without Jealousy’