This week’s Parshas is about Korach and his challenges of Moshe and Aharon, and I think that when we read the story we’re so used to hearing it, that all the detail sort of feed into the background and we stop thinking about how strange the story is. And I think that if you look at the details closely you’ll see a lot of questions and things that don’t make sense. But I think that the Torah gives us the background that we need to make amazing sense out of the story and to allow ourselves to see a depth that we would not have seen otherwise.
So, the questions are as follows: First of all, Korach had a problem with Moshe’s leadership and he wasn’t so happy with his job, but what really let him to make an uprising like that? Why not confront Moshe privately? Why would he have challenged them in that way? Also, Hashem had tons of ways to kill them if they would deserve to die, why make the ground swallow them up? Especially because the מדרש tells us that the ground opening its mouth needed to be created in between Friday and Shabbos which means that it’s almost like outside of this world but why? And lastly, the מדרש says that they came to Moshe wearing blue clothes made completely of תכלת material. And he asked Moshe do these garments need tzitzis? The question is why do we care what they were wearing, and why wasn’t his verbal argument good enough? Why bring fashion into it?
I think all these questions lead us to try to find something about Korach that would make it easier to understand why he had these problems with Moshe, and what caused him to make an uprising.
Turns out if you look at the end of parshas bamidbar, it talks about the job of all the families of Levi’m with carrying the משכן. Korach came from the family of קהת, and it says that his job was to carry the holiest of holy’s, all of the holy vessels need to be carried by this family.
But after the Torah says זאת עבודת בני קהת באוהל מועד קדש הקדשים, it goes on to talk about how the Kohanim needed to come in and cover the כלים before קהת could carry them, and that is all it talks about. Its as if the job of קהת including letting the kohanim cover the כלים. Their job was to carry the greatest and holiest part of the משכן and they needed to see themselves as great, but they also needed to be able to see past themselves and to know that the kohanim were greater than they were.
And at the end of that command, Hashem warns Aharon and Moshe that they should not let the children of קהת die, because if they touch the כלים they will die. It also uses a strange language when saying that they can’t see the kohanim covering the כלים, it says ולא יבואו לראות כבלע את הקדש ומתו, they shouldn’t see the kodesh (the holy כלים) getting covered or else they will die. But that word בלע, that doesn’t really mean to cover, it means to swallow. If the Torah is talking about the כלים, why use that word? Vessels don’t get swallowed… we’ll come back to the whole swallowing thing soon.
The other strange thing about Korach’s claim is that he was right! He said the people are all holy and Hashem is among them, and this was true! Do you know how I know its true? Cause Hashem said so Himself. When Hashem commands to build the משכן, He says ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם, and we all know that chazal say that we are each supposed to be a mini משכן, we are each supposed to be holy, and hashem will dwell בתוכם, inside them in plural form, meaning inside of each Jew! So Korach was onto something here. And when Hashem tells Moshe to warn the people to stay away from Korach, He says, remove yourselves from the משכן of Korach, why use the word משכן? I think to tell us that Korach was correct to some extent that they were all holy.
Korach’s problem was that he saw himself as great and holy, but he didn’t see through himself, and the job of תכלת is to teach us not to see the surface but to see beneath the surface in a meaningful way. Yes, Korach was great but the depth there is that here is always someone greater than you. Korach was supposed to look up to the kohanim, the kohanim look up to Aharon and Aharon looks up to Moshe that he is greater than him. But Moshe looked back to Aharon and said that Aharon is greater than him!! True greatness is to see yourself as great, but then to look through yourself to someone else.
That is why תכלת on tzitzis reminds us of the sea which reminds us of the sky which reminds us of the כסא הכבוד which reminds us of Hashem. Why do we need to go from blue to blue to blue to blue to blue to Hashem? Wy not just go from תכלת to the כסא הכבוד? The answer I that we are not supposed to see ourselves as the greatest there is, we always need to see through ourselves. And that was Korach’s problem.
Now his wardrobe choice makes sense, he saw the blue coverings of the כלים as something which hid the כלים from him, so he symbolically pulled those coverings off of the כלים to show Moshe, if I am wearing this, that means that the כלים are uncovered and I can see them! They don’t need to be covered! But the problem for him was that they do need to be covered because not everyone can see them, only the people that Hashem said can see them. So, if he wants to ignore what Hashem said about the holy כלים being covered (pasuk from above) and consider himself too holy, then he will need you get swallowed, since holiness always needs to be hidden.
The message for us is to know that we are great and that we can look up to ourselves, but we also need to see through ourselves and know that Hashem gave specific people their specific jobs.