Lecture on Parashat Korach

[Music] okay everybody Shalom thank you for coming and uh today again for not Ben zisel as well as the liberation of er Israel uh from its enemy safe return home of the soldiers and the hostages lasting Unity of the people of Israel and for all of those whose Health has been affected by the war and dedicated to the release of the young man who was sentenced to death in Iran uh Arvin nanel Ben soniaa please note that we had previously said Sonia this is Sona is the full name uh as well uh we are dedicating the she for the AL of benar and finally there's an anonymous contribution for the of all as well as the to return safe and totally healthy and all of us pray for hashem's protection for all of is and for Theo uh in these in these days and um once again uh in in many many ways unfortunately the war has been dragging on for a very very very long time and uh what happens sometimes is what's what's called in we're not always thinking about what's going on because because in hashem's infinite most of Isel life has been allowed to go relatively normally this is a tremendous that's but the downside of those is that we stop thinking about those who are suffering and we have our mind is no longer involved in the that is facing so it's very important when Hashem has been so kind to us in many many ways that we do have to focus our on those who are still struggling and uh that beem uh they should achieve success release G and of course that the enemy should not spread its vicious poison uh further and and further um okay uh so uh this week we have pares korak pares korak once again is a fascinating fascinating paraa uh one can analyze it in so many ways one can analyze it uh cabalistic one can analyze it psychologically uh many many different things are going on again just to situate uh exactly where this is happening or when when this is happening this is actually happening after the most say it happened after the uh and but shortly after theim and many actually say that the impetus why K was able to attract a lot of people to go against Moshe is precisely because people are looking at mosha as a failed leader because moshe's whole job was to take us into ER Israel and now God decrees I mean they're blaming mosha for their a now God decrees that we have to wander for 40 uh years in the desert so you know something's wrong with mosha he didn't do the right uh he wasn't the right leader Etc interesting somebody uh it's brought down in differenta that somebody was a gilgal somebody was a Reincarnation of someone from the midor so he was asked you know uh what was what was it like during k Rebellion korak is making all of these arguments so the person said you know it was pretty tough we honestly didn't know which side to go with meaning in retrospect we obviously know who is right and who is wrong but it wasn't such a ped thing at that particular at the particular time now kak gathers a whole bunch of malcontents with him korak gathers d and a who are always ready to make trouble korak gathers many people from ruen 20 50 elders and they present a case to Moshe which might be called the egalitarian case who needs leaders they were anarchists Kad everybody is Holy all of us heard the first two Commandments I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt Thou shalt not have any other gods what gives you the right to assert leadership over us every Jew is Holy now politically this is exactly what Anarchy claims Anarchy basically says there is no legitimation for any type of leadership over people every person makes their own decisions of course I remember um around 20 years ago um there was an attempt to hold an anarchist convention in Seattle but they they couldn't get the people together because you know you know who's going to tell them when to show up so so it kind of kind of collapsed in in that way but essentially kak is what called The Common Sense Rebellion who needs kadum I can have my opinion about the Torah you have your opinion why is my opinion worse than yours why is your opinion better than mine yeah we believe in God we believe in Torah but we interpret what it means so here's the problem if korak's argument is there ought not to be leaders at all every Y is Holy every should interpret what the Torah means to him then M abu's answer is a nonse because if you look at Moser renu's answer mosu Renu is addressing korak who of course is a Ley and he says why are you seeking greater and more honor don't you have enough honor don't you have enough distinction God separated you God raised you from all of the tribes of Israel to serve in the mishan and assist the kohanim gam Kahuna and you're not happy with being Lev you also want to be the co now here's the problem that wasn't what korak was saying kak wasn't saying I want to be a Coen I'm a better Coen our and then mosha could say you have enough honor you have enough distinction be happy with what God gave you K is arguing there ought not to be a leadership structure at all so if my tinina is why have hierarchies you can't answer it by telling me Oh you're high enough in the position that's not my point my point was not I'm not high enough my point was there ought not to be distinctions at all so K is making one claim and mosenu is answering a different claim and the answer is very very clear even in mikra that we're dealing with hidden agendas that Moser Reno identified korak is arguing egalitarianism but really what he means is power for me like the time you say you know equality for everybody everybody will be equally miserable I'll be I'll be on top and therefore Moser who was looking at kak and saying you're making this argument that everybody is Holy in reality it is your jealousy your ego your covo that wants more and more and more and more and the way you're trying to put yourself in that position is by arguing there ought not to be any type of hierarchy of authority of all MOS rabenu saw through this immediately and one other person saw through it a person who's not even mentioned by name and this is the wife of on Ben pelis if you remember when it lists the revolutionaries who were ciding with korak 250 Elders Etc it mentions d a it mentions oh yeah an own Ben pelis from B ru he is only mentioned once in the whole Torah never mentioned again and in fact when it describes who died when the ground opened up or when the fire came out of the incense some people died to the fire some people died to the ground I'll get to that a little later it there's no mention of on Ben pelis what happened to him where did he go so the gamar says in Sanhedrin on Ben pelis was saved by his wife fact it contrasts the the difference between The Good Wife of on Ben pelis and the evil wife of korak who put gasoline on the fire on Ben pelis comes home after hearing one of kak speeches Every Man a king every man should be the authority and he comes in and says hey you know I'm going to be equal to mosh raenu and his wife tells him as good wives often tell their husbands you are an idiot he says what do you think is going on here who do you think is going to win this fight if Moshe wins for sure you're in trouble and even if korak wins you think you're going to be anybody it's just going to replace one boss with another boss you're going to be a nobody there too it's interesting she didn't use from arguments she didn't use the argument how can you deny the Torah she was she was dealing with this on a very very practical level says you're worried you're not getting enough codes in your subordinate it status don't think it's going to be any better either way and because of this she dis AED him from participating in that rebellion and his life was saved as opposed to korak's wife when he would discuss what his plans were she would egg him on yeah you're right you're right that MOS rabu and Aron you know the tax system fact the met even says a lot of it was taxation you know you're a farmer and you got to take off the truma and the Meer and all of these different things and she said you're right we got to replace this so the Mish says the wisdom of a good wife builds up a house Beth and a perverse wife be with her own hand she destroys it and the medra says is shal and the is is you know it's very reminiscent this idea of hidden agenda in fact the hidden agenda really permeated everybody the ezzar identifies like five different groups Each of which had their own agenda they're all coming together saying we want equality everybody should be equal in reality everybody is jockeying for power the levim were jealous of the kohanim they wanted to be shet ruen that originally was the first born was jealous of the Lev taking over from the from the kak is jealous of either Aon or Moshe or maybe both and and the like so each one is pursuing their own selfish agenda in the guise of a rhetoric of equality when each one is really only thinking about themselves this is a famous Miss the Miss says every that is sh when you have an argument in which they are truly arguing for the sake of God to understand the truth to understand the Torah eventually both sides are going to endure meaning we will study both sides we will learn from both sides because both protagonists we sh a that's not sh eventually gets destroyed now the mishna then gives an example what is a like and Sh and even though the is always like B but we continue to study B is studied we learn from it we think about it and of course and I'll emphasize this later as well is going to be like we we'll get to that but then it says what's an what's an example of a that's not and his Confederates now theer asks it's not symmetrical because when you talk about you give both sides versus when you're describing you only say you don't say the other side now maybe a simple answer would be well you're not going to say k because that would imply that Moshe was not Shay so you only identify the part of that's not that that's a simple answer but the gives a different answer the says when you have a not even the people on the same side are really arguing with each other meaning to say even though rhetorically they presented a unified front in reality each one was pursuing their own a indeed that's been said many times but regarding the state of Israel that one of the things that protects us throughh is that the Arabs you know hate each other as much well maybe not as much but almost as much as they hate the Jews so as a result uh even when they UniFi they're not really unified because each one is pursuing their own selfish end and as a result they're less effective than they might otherwise be because when it's not L shamay there can't really everybody is pursuing their own particularized agenda and therefore K and all of the groups is Aus they're all arguing uh with with each other you know if you remember the um well really this has kind of been the history of revolutions throughout history if you go back to the French Revolution right so the great uh rallying call liberte eal fraternity Liberty equality fraternity let us overthrow the monarchy Louis the 16th whatever whichever Louis it was I remember the number let's get rid of the tyrants and establish the universal Rights of Man but what who did you get replacing Louie you got robes Pierre people who were murderers people who were actually much worse than the people they replaced the Communist Revolution communism overthrow the Zar the Zars were awful to be sure we're not friends of the Zars but no one's going to tell me that Lenin and Stalin were any type of improvement over the uh situation of Zar so the calls for equality turned out to be totally fake they were power graps they were power grabs Paul pot's in Cambodia if you remember him Paul pot mild mannered elementary school or high school teacher mathematics teacher who really wanted to create a society of fairness equality uh where every person had opportunity and he wound up creating a regime that murdered Millions unbelievable numbers I mean uh I mean even God forbid even the Holocaust pales in numbers compared to the hashas that he did M Tong in China all of these revolutions had a common denominator that rhetorically they were seeking to increase equality freedom in reality they turned into oppression power grabs say kak was proceeding in the same direction and that is why mosenu responded in a way that was a nonse kak is arguing equality mosenu argues why are you pursuing ego gratification here accept the gift that God has given you uh some of you might that be familiar uh with a book uh written by George Orwell the author of 1984 which is the more famous book uh but this is a book animal farm and Animal Farm is uh a parody of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he describes a farm of kind of intelligent animals that are communicating with each other and they're not being treated very well so the animals Rebel and overthrow the human Masters and one of the animals becomes kind of a leader it was a pig named Napoleon that's the name of the of the person and Napoleon keeps on talking about equality and fairness and uh we have to treat everybody with dignity and it turns out that Napoleon becomes a dictator that was much worse than the human dictator that was overthrown this was Orwell's take on the Russian Revolution and in truth most revolutions were this way again the American Revolution might be an interesting exception although some people are even even debating that okay but the fact that there are exceptions does not detract from the fundamental General pattern that you see in history um so this is the notion of the the hidden agenda now cabalistic there's some deep things going on here and that is uh the zor understands that again exactly who does korak want to be does he want to be Moshe does he want to be Aon you know it's not clear really who he wants mosha himself says you're looking to be Coen uh that in fact kak wanted to be Coen korak wanted to be a Ken and he wanted shavy to be the kohanim and now there weren't that many kohanim there right you just had Aon two of his surviving sons elazar and is and Pinas was not yet consecrated as a all there were were were for kohanim at the time but kak wanted the leim to take over and calistic the argument is the following kohanim represent the maid of the of Le represent the mid of G thus we find by theel Iron the Coen was conciliatory and he tried to accommodate people even though it turned out not to be a right the right decision necessarily the Lev were the zealots who stood up so in cabala the Z says kohanim are leim are G the reason why the Kahuna was given to kohanim is based on the idea that God's original plan elim elim is midin God's original plan was to create the world with midin meaning you do good God rewards you you do bad you get sapped with lightning ra Hashem saw that the world could not survive un strict in so he moderated The Den with an infusion of RA and that's why initially the Tyra says in the beginning bar elim later it says beos has El is which is the ma of raim that the world should have been based on din but God had to deviate from his ideal plan to be to combine and then which means in many many ways this is is not an Ideal World din is actually the ideal raim is a compromise due to the inevitable Perfection imperfection of the human personality in fact the Shah Kadesh says a very fascinating thoughts if you remember when RAB AA was being tortured to death because he was teaching Torah and the Romans had him arrested and tortured and he died from that torture so as he was dying as his flesh was being combed with iron Combs the sh well well two things the T said to him is this the is this the reward for your Torah learning and RAB AKA said as he was dying all of his life he wanted to fulfill the verse of loving hasem with all your heart with all of your soul and now he has given a chance to give his soul to God he says to his Tom him do you want to take away that opportunity from me that's the discussion between Raba and his but the medra says there was a discussion between the Heavenly angels and the almighty where the Heavenly Angels said to Hashem Z this is Tyra and this is the reward for Tyra the person who gave his life to teach T and to learn Torah this is his reward and Hashem said enigmatically be silent this is my don't question my thoughts so the simple meaning is God simp saying don't ask questions the Shah Kadesh adds a very fascinating little deok here he says that God isn't simply saying don't ask me questions God is actually answering the question my M my original intention in creation was strict in it's only the compromise to human imperfection that I moderated the din with ra but that compromise only applies to regular people theim are still judged by the by the world of God's Divine thoughts and in strict in even RAB AA is not going to be immune so that's the that's the deeper explanation the Shah says of the famous teaching of that sadim are governed by a higher standard now you're going to have two people a regular person who does a certain thing which God may give him a pass and a sadic does the same thing and it's much much much worse because is judged by the standard of divine as opposed to most of us we are judged by the moderation of that by the mid now it's brought down in the name of the ARA that that this is why the is like B over B as it's no well known although it's not 100% inacurate description but it's a 99% pretty accurate description that when there's a m b Bai almost invariably B Hillel represents the more lenient position and be shami represents the stricter position this is well known just looking at the different M the Aral writes that is because the sh of B is rooted in the mid and therefore he will see through that prism ofid the is rooted in the mid so he will see through that prism I need to emphasize as a matter of process these are not self-conscious types of thought processes it's not that Bas hillo got up every every morning and figured out how can I make life easier for people and it's not that be sh I got up every morning and says I want to be mean today who can I hurt today by being M that's not how it works we have to believe that these great people were looking for truth they were looking for EMS however the way you perceive EMS is affected by the root of your Nish the These Are Spiritual connections if the is rooted in you will perceive Ms a certain way if your Nish is rooted in you will perceive Ms in a different way so the AR says the of is in the of is in the reason why in like is because in this world R becomes the dominant aspect so says the AR when mashia comes and the world reaches a perfected State an elevated State Hashem will be able to go back to his original plan the original plan was midin and in that original plan Thea is going to be like base shamai and therefore this is the source of the famous statement you probably have heard before that is a little ambiguous it doesn't mean necessarily as soon as mashia comes but at some point in theic Era there's going to be a major major change because the world will transition to of because hm's original perfect will be able to be implemented and carried out so therefore the Aral rights actually it's based on the Z but he he's explaining passages in the Z that the the Le will become the kohanim meaning essentially kohanim who are also levim will simply be assimilated into levim and leev will be kohanim because once again kohanim has a separate group represents leim represents m in this world the is secondary to the so do the main job will become kohanim who will become the L that's an interesting question but at least the leev will become kohanim and the zor goes further kak will be the k kak will be the Cen goto so according to the Z The Zo is Mazar it's a complicated AR I'm just touching the surface here that korak's mistake was he was jumping the gun he was anticipating a future that wasn't there yet korak sees the Miracles of the desert he sees the M he sees the traveling well of Miriam uh he sees the cloud of Glory he remembers the Miracles of The Exodus the splitting of the Red Sea and mimari kak feels this is the of G this is y now it's a little difficult for me how could he feel that way after the moram I understand before theam that we were going straight to Isel that's maybe an easier mistake to make and it might not even have been a mistake after the miraculum it's a little more difficult to justify why he saw it that way but he looked at this as the Messianic era and therefore the zor says his tiina was I'm entitled to be Coen because Le are becoming Kohan his mistake was we still live in an imperfect World particularly after theim and after for that matter too we're no longer in ganen uh we've been expelled from ganen and therefore we still need theim to be more powerful over the G over the powers of therefore Aron is still Co and you guys are and don't complain so this is a kind of a long mystical interpretation uh so the first uh thought I shared with you is more of a psychological idea of a hidden agendas people who call for equality often just mean their own power grab that's kind of maybe a petot on a deeper level korak was perceiving the doram midor as living in the Messianic age in which we can go back to God's original plan of mid and Le represent the of and uh they could overpower the these are called sweetened G meaning the gur are now sweetened and they can take take over and that's why the is going to be like be Shi when mashia comes uh because that was God's original plan and mistake was he jumped the gun so it's interesting that korak jumps the gun at really at both ends of the equation he's jumping the gun by looking into a future that's not yet here yet right he's looking ahead and he's trying to project that future back into the present but it's fascinating that the medr says he also made a mistake of looking into a more of a short-term future meaning you see you see another problem of projecting backwards and that is if you read sa for tahim there are 11 chapters of tahim that are assigned to the Ben uh one of the is and the Capal of that we say before seven [Applause] times misar there's a total of 11 now there is a what that means when it says to the conductor to the sons of kak are we saying they wrote theim or they were assigned to sing theim meaning that if this if the statement or is that referring to authorship or assignments but the one thing we know for sure from is that the main singers in the basa Mikes the Lev who sang were the descendants b b doesn't mean Sons descendants of kak and that korak is yeah the famous kak how did they how are they around so remember the Torah says in Paras that although when the ground opened up it swallowed kak and his sons but it mentions b k l the children of Kor the sons of kak actually didn't die they didn't die and Rashi brings the medish that basically they did fall into the ground but in that moment they did Sincere Chua and God gave them uh something to hold on to a ledge and they were able to climb out the power of Chua and their ancest their descendants rather were the Great Lev who sang songs of praise in the Bas amikas the B not only that but the nav who is a Ley and Shmo is considered to be equal in greatness to Moshe and Aon combined was a descendant of kak so the gar actually says I'm the med actually says that part of korak's arrogance was he was looking with rues and he saw thato would come from him who's greater than Moshe and Aon on some level and the Lev who will sing in the Bas mikdash come from him so he figured hey the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree he says I God such great descendants got to be based on me so you see that these are two examples of looking into the future the the the short term future of seeing Shi and the and the long-term future of yot mashia where K himself will have the role of K and shave Ley will take over Kahuna and this led him astray things have to come in their right time that's part of the lesson here besides the hidden agenda we got to understand there's a time for things you try to things they can be very very disastrous indeed the gamar uses this very L about mashia do not try to push the end of days so you bring mashia by mitos by Torah learning you know for sure but whatever mystical ways there are to bring mhia early you got to be careful because things have to come based on hashem's timing so and one it's a funny situation on one hand God will respond to our overtures even if it's not always good for us if that's what we want the way a person wants to go God will take him but we have to be careful what we ask for because as the saying goes you might get it and when you get it it may not not be what you need and it may not be what's good for you so it's a little a little tricky in that in that way and uh based on the zoa and the AR the story of kak is an example of trying to bring in a future situation that the world was not yet ready for and that is the kid would would take over in the in the world yeah criticizing the Jewish people say what are you waiting for why why are you building yeah that's regarding the building of the second temple yeah it's very true that after the 70 years of the Babylonian exile when the Jews were under Persian Rule and uh they had started building the Temple under Cyrus under kores and then Cyrus had issued an introdiction a ban for 18 years and uh there was no initiative on the part of the Jews to resend that band so we do find that the navi Haag and Zakaria those two NV both of them were very very critical of why don't the Jewish people take initiative to build the build a temple I know it is it is a good point but part of it might also be they weren't praying to Hashem about it they didn't care meaning uh the Novi wasn't necessarily talking about taking a physical initiative until God gave a green light but he's saying you should have cared why didn't you demonstrate that this was important to you uh now in terms of green light the Novi is giving him a green light right there he's saying now is the time but he's giving them this the the signal okay now I want to mention a a third as so I mentioned the hidden agenda aspect we mentioned the idea of anticipating the future before it's here uh there is a third point also from the Aro that the shame Mishu brings he brings a fascinating gatria but doesn't fully well the sh the brings the gatria the sh mm explains the gatria the AR's gatria is very enigmatic he points out that the gatria of korak is 308 K the gatria of Moshe is 345 okay the difference between 345 and 308 is 37 37 is the gatria of he vanity he therefore if you take those three gatus and you work with them we can make the following equations korak plus he equals motion or mosha minus he equals is the ARA right he's linking three grias the gatria of mosa the gatria of korak the gatria of he what's going on so the sh who was a great he was the son of the AER who was the son-in-law of the katar rebbi so the Sham ism is actually a grandson of the katar rebbi and his father theer borin the S was one of the great great greator in Europe recognized as such even among non he was one of the postor as well as being a great says the following explanation let's go back well actually it's the second crime of humanity but you know the first crime of humanity is the of the but the second crime is the murder Cen murders he murder murder out of jealousy out of anger out of Rage however you describe that initial murder and let's look at the names of cayen and hea has a son is are they Twins or not twins but whatever it is cenne is the first born even if it's the first of the twins so she calls him cenne because she says Ki is as Hashem Ki KI means I have created a person a man with God I have created a human being with God she kind of negates her husband's contribution there but she says it's me and God we created this human being and then she has a second son whether it's a twin or not that's a mlus and she calls him heo now there's no reason there's no reason that's given in the Torah for why he's called he now why we we're given a reason why Cen was called cayen we're not given a reason why he is called he but we know the translation of heav heav is vapor heav is breath heav is like mere air right in cois schl says over and over again vanity of vanity which really means emptiness of emptiness a cold heav right he's looking at the world and sees how many things in the world are just not worth it so it's a strange thing to name your child you name your child he nothingness futility it's almost as if maybe she had a prophetic intimation that he would be killed you know perhaps that that might be sh but the shame wants to say the following this reflects two aspects of a human being and in effect Cen and he are two halves of a Cen I have created man represents the aspect of a human being that needs to be creative needs to dominate needs to master nature needs to control te Ki I'm not just this helpless thing but I'm made in the image of God because I am supposed to create I am supposed to dominate I am supposed to control God did not want us to be just passive he wants us to drain the swamps build the cities create economic systems and political systems that we are supposed to be partners with God Kus hasem is partnership be a partner with Hashem in making this world this is very important amuna in Judaism is not passive or quiescent amuna doesn't mean I sit back as poor people are suffering and say God will take care of them I got to take responsibility I got to create Justice I got to try to create healing I got to try to make the world a better place you see auna if taken to an extreme could be a very passive idea a person might basically say God runs the runs the world I I really have no responsibilities but that would be derel the whole Torah is predicated on human responsibility even though the reform took over this word this phrase but I will use it because it's in kazal t to make the world a better place a Holier place a place of goodness a place of blessing even in the material sense to the extent that we're able to to do that so cayen represents the aspect of human personality that is creative that initiates that takes charge and this was reflected in Cayenne as a person Ken was actually a much greater innovator than he if we ask who was the first person at least in the PK who invented the idea of a Corban in aod hasem it was cayen he improved on cen's idea by the choicest but who was the one who thought of the idea of Corbin Ken was the madesh Ken was the innovator he simply reacted to what Cen did and tried to make it a better thing didn't Adam instigate the yeah there is there are M that say Adam that that is correct that's what I'm saying but according to theim it kind is the first one that it's mentioned in fact according to other MIM Ken taught adish the idea of chuva later after Ken killed Cen kind of invented shua and he told other marish said I didn't know there was such a thing so Cen with all of his flaws was the great innovator in life he kind of represents the notion of a human being recognizing that I'm really nothing without God I am just the heo so if you think about this each personality type has a Mila and Ain the cion of the world build the cities they discover cures for cancer they create you know hopefully good court systems and and Science and Technology and even in Torah learning they're the ones that are mades they build yesos and they write because they understand the power of their intellect and the power of their creativity but the character flaw of course is the potential for arrogance for GAA that it is my power and my might that accomplishes everything so the danger of the Cen is arrogance the heav of the world are a personality type that are exactly the opposite he recognizes their subservience their inferiority their helplessness they understand without God they're nothing and that's beautiful they have humility they submit to AES they know there is nothing besides God in the world but the downside of that is a passivity and a helplessness in which you don't take the initiative in life in both go and right if you're a he in fact it reminds me of something it's old story where uh they say a certain said I didn't want to learn gamarra why why don't learn gamar because gamar is full of questions you're asking questions he says Aid shouldn't ask what are you asking questions you know how could the mishna say this how could the Torah say this if that's what God Said don't ask questions he was basically saying there's no purpose of learning a Torah at all because you're asking questions on God right if you see that's reductive ad absur of I'm such a mind man I don't ask any questions about Torah and yet our whole learning is question probe understands so cayen represents creativity autonomy initiative he represents Faith humility submission but on the negative side the cion are prone to arrogance and the heav are prone to helplessness despondency and passivity ideally the human personality needs to be a fusion of the Cen and the Heen uh I'm going to insert a little bibliographical footnote here uh for those of you that are familiar with r Sal's writings if any of you have ever read The Lonely Man of Faith a very very famous essay these two aspects of the human personality are based on his writing but he he projected it much earlier he talked about the two accounts of the creation of Adam harishon and he called it Adam 1 and Adam 2 and he called Adam 1 Majestic man and he called Adam 2 a Redemptive man um I'm modifying this a little bit by applying this based on the shm applying this to cayen for he cayen would correspond to what D Salvia called adom one and he would correspond to what D called Adam two so if you're familiar with the lonely man of faith you'll know what I'm talking about if not it does not affect uh this this Devar Torah uh in that way so we know of course that the arizal developed the idea of Gilgo that when a Nisha does not complete its rectification it comes back to try to finish the task Ken left the world in a state of arrogance he left the world in a state of paity Cen and he needed to come back says r how in the shulan cayen was reincarnated in the Persona of korak he was reincarnated in the Persona of mosha rabena so korak is a gilgal of cayen Moshe is a gilgal of heaven and it's so interesting how the outcome of the story is literally a reversal first time around cenne kills he second time around he Moshe causes the death of Cen things got rectified in that mechanical way but spiritually as well he had a tikon to the life of mosha how is that so mosha Renu was described in the Torah as anav mikad the most humble of all people that's he and yet mosha rabenu was the leader of three three million people he made the decisions that had to be made he broke the lucos when they had to be broken he prayed for clausel he interceded Moser Renu in spite of that mid of he understood that way you nullify yourself before God that's not an excuse for passivity and inaction it's the other way around that energizes you to take the initiative to bring kadua into the world so mosha rabena Took The Reincarnation of he's Nish and he wasen what it was that he lacked korak unfortunately Incorporated the arrogance of cayen and his aod was to be subservient to Moshe and learn the lesson of humility but unfortunately the Cen in him stayed as it was and he died without that t although the first so I mentioned gives him that that be Co and God in the future indicates korak will have a Tien but in this para there's no tiken in this para so now the shame ISM says the gatria that the Aral mentioned are so beautiful and exact kak plus he equals mosha meaning or Moshe minus he equals kak korak and mosha in terms of their talents in terms of their abilities are equal they both had tremendous capacity for leadership they both had tremendous capacity for NAA remember korak is getting all these Nas about the future so what differentiates the korak personality from the Moshe personality korak didn't have he humility Moshe had he meaning if you took K and you added he you get Moshe if you took Moshe and you took away the he you'll get beautiful gatria that this was the Fatal flaw and in that sense similar to Bam which we'll talk about it's a very similar Paradigm kak is is an example of a tragic figure in the Greek sense of tragedy you know the the famous definition of Aristotle that we talk about a Greek tragedy where you're destroyed from within meaning if a person's in a building God forbid in a building collapses that is very very sad we mourn and we grief but in the Greek sense of tragedy that's not a tragedy that's a very very sad and unfortunate occurrence tragedy is when a person has greatness but they're destroyed not because a building falls on them they're destroyed because of a flaw in their personality that destroys like a worm Like A Parasite like a cancer it destroys the goodness that was in them that's a tragedy that's why Alicia Ben aoya is a truly tragic right reab AA is not a tragic figure this is you see it actually from kazal itself RAB AA died a horrible death and we grieve over Raba and is but we would not apply the word tragedy we wouldn't call reab AA a tragic figure who would we call a tragic figure Alisha binuya we would call a tragic figure Elisha B Aya was an enormously great Torah scholar enormously great but he was destroyed from within that's a tragedy korak was as great as Moshe that's what it's saying but lacking the he The Gua destroyed him The Gua destroyed him we're going to see billum is a very similar Paradigm Paradigm that way and this is the meaning of this particular uh this is particular gatria that K when you add in the he you will get Moshe Moshe if you subtract the he you will get and it's something we have to we have to remember fortunately even in this day and age we see it in the political world for sure but unfortunately we have a number of sad occasions we've seen it in the Torah world um again I'm not going to get into any detail but sometimes there are people who are very very learned and very very I I don't mean Mish gadolan but you know people who were you know very wellestablished and very capable teachers who had large followings and there was a GAA or a sense that I don't have to keep the rules that everyone else has to keep I'm kind of above that and unfortunately not not only did it hurt many many people but it also destroyed them it D I know people sometimes say why do you have rman for the truth is when maybe it's rabinal Fellowship I don't know but the truth is when a rabbi gets destroyed from within it is a tragedy because there was a potential for goodness a potential to reach people the potential to do good in the world and that's been totally destroyed and GAA is often that mechanism that triggers followup things like sexual abuse whatever it is but they they often emerge initially from a certain sense of GAA that I don't have to follow even the that other people have to follow really this is this was the mistake of schom you know thein says why the tah does not like to give reasons for Mitzvah so it says because when the Torah gives a reason people will start debating whether it applies them don't the king is not allowed to have a lot of horses lest he return the nation to MIT says oh that's not going to apply to me I'll have horses I won't return people to MIM of course what happens is he does uh a king cannot have a lot of wives lest he become distracted well that doesn't apply to me I'm the wisest of all people and he had his thousand wives and yeah what happened is what happened so Hashem basically said you know I'm not going to give you reasons for stuff once I giving you reasons you start debating uh whether it applies to you or it doesn't apply to you so it's the same thing it all comes from the GBA the GBA that I'm better than everybody else and therefore the rules that apply to everybody don't apply to me and that is what creates the coworks of the world who are great great people people who have greatness but they are destroyed uh from the flaw that is within so anyway have a good shabas and thank you for coming [Music] go

[Music] okay everybody Shalom thank you for coming and uh today again for not Ben zisel as well as the liberation of er Israel uh from its enemy safe return home of the soldiers and the hostages lasting Unity of the people of Israel and for all of those whose Health has been affected by the war and dedicated to the release of the young man who was sentenced to death in Iran uh Arvin nanel Ben soniaa please note that we had previously said Sonia this is Sona is the full name uh as well uh we are dedicating the she for the AL of benar and finally there&#39;s an anonymous contribution for the of all as well as the to return safe and totally healthy and all of us pray for hashem&#39;s protection for all of is and for Theo uh in these in these days and um once again uh in in many many ways unfortunately the war has been dragging on for a very very very long time and uh what happens sometimes is what&#39;s what&#39;s called in we&#39;re not always thinking about what&#39;s going on because because in hashem&#39;s infinite most of Isel life has been allowed to go relatively normally this is a tremendous that&#39;s but the downside of those is that we stop thinking about those who are suffering and we have our mind is no longer involved in the that is facing so it&#39;s very important when Hashem has been so kind to us in many many ways that we do have to focus our on those who are still struggling and uh that beem uh they should achieve success release G and of course that the enemy should not spread its vicious poison uh further and and further um okay uh so uh this week we have pares korak pares korak once again is a fascinating fascinating paraa uh one can analyze it in so many ways one can analyze it uh cabalistic one can analyze it psychologically uh many many different things are going on again just to situate uh exactly where this is happening or when when this is happening this is actually happening after the most say it happened after the uh and but shortly after theim and many actually say that the impetus why K was able to attract a lot of people to go against Moshe is precisely because people are looking at mosha as a failed leader because moshe&#39;s whole job was to take us into ER Israel and now God decrees I mean they&#39;re blaming mosha for their a now God decrees that we have to wander for 40 uh years in the desert so you know something&#39;s wrong with mosha he didn&#39;t do the right uh he wasn&#39;t the right leader Etc interesting somebody uh it&#39;s brought down in differenta that somebody was a gilgal somebody was a Reincarnation of someone from the midor so he was asked you know uh what was what was it like during k Rebellion korak is making all of these arguments so the person said you know it was pretty tough we honestly didn&#39;t know which side to go with meaning in retrospect we obviously know who is right and who is wrong but it wasn&#39;t such a ped thing at that particular at the particular time now kak gathers a whole bunch of malcontents with him korak gathers d and a who are always ready to make trouble korak gathers many people from ruen 20 50 elders and they present a case to Moshe which might be called the egalitarian case who needs leaders they were anarchists Kad everybody is Holy all of us heard the first two Commandments I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt Thou shalt not have any other gods what gives you the right to assert leadership over us every Jew is Holy now politically this is exactly what Anarchy claims Anarchy basically says there is no legitimation for any type of leadership over people every person makes their own decisions of course I remember um around 20 years ago um there was an attempt to hold an anarchist convention in Seattle but they they couldn&#39;t get the people together because you know you know who&#39;s going to tell them when to show up so so it kind of kind of collapsed in in that way but essentially kak is what called The Common Sense Rebellion who needs kadum I can have my opinion about the Torah you have your opinion why is my opinion worse than yours why is your opinion better than mine yeah we believe in God we believe in Torah but we interpret what it means so here&#39;s the problem if korak&#39;s argument is there ought not to be leaders at all every Y is Holy every should interpret what the Torah means to him then M abu&#39;s answer is a nonse because if you look at Moser renu&#39;s answer mosu Renu is addressing korak who of course is a Ley and he says why are you seeking greater and more honor don&#39;t you have enough honor don&#39;t you have enough distinction God separated you God raised you from all of the tribes of Israel to serve in the mishan and assist the kohanim gam Kahuna and you&#39;re not happy with being Lev you also want to be the co now here&#39;s the problem that wasn&#39;t what korak was saying kak wasn&#39;t saying I want to be a Coen I&#39;m a better Coen our and then mosha could say you have enough honor you have enough distinction be happy with what God gave you K is arguing there ought not to be a leadership structure at all so if my tinina is why have hierarchies you can&#39;t answer it by telling me Oh you&#39;re high enough in the position that&#39;s not my point my point was not I&#39;m not high enough my point was there ought not to be distinctions at all so K is making one claim and mosenu is answering a different claim and the answer is very very clear even in mikra that we&#39;re dealing with hidden agendas that Moser Reno identified korak is arguing egalitarianism but really what he means is power for me like the time you say you know equality for everybody everybody will be equally miserable I&#39;ll be I&#39;ll be on top and therefore Moser who was looking at kak and saying you&#39;re making this argument that everybody is Holy in reality it is your jealousy your ego your covo that wants more and more and more and more and the way you&#39;re trying to put yourself in that position is by arguing there ought not to be any type of hierarchy of authority of all MOS rabenu saw through this immediately and one other person saw through it a person who&#39;s not even mentioned by name and this is the wife of on Ben pelis if you remember when it lists the revolutionaries who were ciding with korak 250 Elders Etc it mentions d a it mentions oh yeah an own Ben pelis from B ru he is only mentioned once in the whole Torah never mentioned again and in fact when it describes who died when the ground opened up or when the fire came out of the incense some people died to the fire some people died to the ground I&#39;ll get to that a little later it there&#39;s no mention of on Ben pelis what happened to him where did he go so the gamar says in Sanhedrin on Ben pelis was saved by his wife fact it contrasts the the difference between The Good Wife of on Ben pelis and the evil wife of korak who put gasoline on the fire on Ben pelis comes home after hearing one of kak speeches Every Man a king every man should be the authority and he comes in and says hey you know I&#39;m going to be equal to mosh raenu and his wife tells him as good wives often tell their husbands you are an idiot he says what do you think is going on here who do you think is going to win this fight if Moshe wins for sure you&#39;re in trouble and even if korak wins you think you&#39;re going to be anybody it&#39;s just going to replace one boss with another boss you&#39;re going to be a nobody there too it&#39;s interesting she didn&#39;t use from arguments she didn&#39;t use the argument how can you deny the Torah she was she was dealing with this on a very very practical level says you&#39;re worried you&#39;re not getting enough codes in your subordinate it status don&#39;t think it&#39;s going to be any better either way and because of this she dis AED him from participating in that rebellion and his life was saved as opposed to korak&#39;s wife when he would discuss what his plans were she would egg him on yeah you&#39;re right you&#39;re right that MOS rabu and Aron you know the tax system fact the met even says a lot of it was taxation you know you&#39;re a farmer and you got to take off the truma and the Meer and all of these different things and she said you&#39;re right we got to replace this so the Mish says the wisdom of a good wife builds up a house Beth and a perverse wife be with her own hand she destroys it and the medra says is shal and the is is you know it&#39;s very reminiscent this idea of hidden agenda in fact the hidden agenda really permeated everybody the ezzar identifies like five different groups Each of which had their own agenda they&#39;re all coming together saying we want equality everybody should be equal in reality everybody is jockeying for power the levim were jealous of the kohanim they wanted to be shet ruen that originally was the first born was jealous of the Lev taking over from the from the kak is jealous of either Aon or Moshe or maybe both and and the like so each one is pursuing their own selfish agenda in the guise of a rhetoric of equality when each one is really only thinking about themselves this is a famous Miss the Miss says every that is sh when you have an argument in which they are truly arguing for the sake of God to understand the truth to understand the Torah eventually both sides are going to endure meaning we will study both sides we will learn from both sides because both protagonists we sh a that&#39;s not sh eventually gets destroyed now the mishna then gives an example what is a like and Sh and even though the is always like B but we continue to study B is studied we learn from it we think about it and of course and I&#39;ll emphasize this later as well is going to be like we we&#39;ll get to that but then it says what&#39;s an what&#39;s an example of a that&#39;s not and his Confederates now theer asks it&#39;s not symmetrical because when you talk about you give both sides versus when you&#39;re describing you only say you don&#39;t say the other side now maybe a simple answer would be well you&#39;re not going to say k because that would imply that Moshe was not Shay so you only identify the part of that&#39;s not that that&#39;s a simple answer but the gives a different answer the says when you have a not even the people on the same side are really arguing with each other meaning to say even though rhetorically they presented a unified front in reality each one was pursuing their own a indeed that&#39;s been said many times but regarding the state of Israel that one of the things that protects us throughh is that the Arabs you know hate each other as much well maybe not as much but almost as much as they hate the Jews so as a result uh even when they UniFi they&#39;re not really unified because each one is pursuing their own selfish end and as a result they&#39;re less effective than they might otherwise be because when it&#39;s not L shamay there can&#39;t really everybody is pursuing their own particularized agenda and therefore K and all of the groups is Aus they&#39;re all arguing uh with with each other you know if you remember the um well really this has kind of been the history of revolutions throughout history if you go back to the French Revolution right so the great uh rallying call liberte eal fraternity Liberty equality fraternity let us overthrow the monarchy Louis the 16th whatever whichever Louis it was I remember the number let&#39;s get rid of the tyrants and establish the universal Rights of Man but what who did you get replacing Louie you got robes Pierre people who were murderers people who were actually much worse than the people they replaced the Communist Revolution communism overthrow the Zar the Zars were awful to be sure we&#39;re not friends of the Zars but no one&#39;s going to tell me that Lenin and Stalin were any type of improvement over the uh situation of Zar so the calls for equality turned out to be totally fake they were power graps they were power grabs Paul pot&#39;s in Cambodia if you remember him Paul pot mild mannered elementary school or high school teacher mathematics teacher who really wanted to create a society of fairness equality uh where every person had opportunity and he wound up creating a regime that murdered Millions unbelievable numbers I mean uh I mean even God forbid even the Holocaust pales in numbers compared to the hashas that he did M Tong in China all of these revolutions had a common denominator that rhetorically they were seeking to increase equality freedom in reality they turned into oppression power grabs say kak was proceeding in the same direction and that is why mosenu responded in a way that was a nonse kak is arguing equality mosenu argues why are you pursuing ego gratification here accept the gift that God has given you uh some of you might that be familiar uh with a book uh written by George Orwell the author of 1984 which is the more famous book uh but this is a book animal farm and Animal Farm is uh a parody of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he describes a farm of kind of intelligent animals that are communicating with each other and they&#39;re not being treated very well so the animals Rebel and overthrow the human Masters and one of the animals becomes kind of a leader it was a pig named Napoleon that&#39;s the name of the of the person and Napoleon keeps on talking about equality and fairness and uh we have to treat everybody with dignity and it turns out that Napoleon becomes a dictator that was much worse than the human dictator that was overthrown this was Orwell&#39;s take on the Russian Revolution and in truth most revolutions were this way again the American Revolution might be an interesting exception although some people are even even debating that okay but the fact that there are exceptions does not detract from the fundamental General pattern that you see in history um so this is the notion of the the hidden agenda now cabalistic there&#39;s some deep things going on here and that is uh the zor understands that again exactly who does korak want to be does he want to be Moshe does he want to be Aon you know it&#39;s not clear really who he wants mosha himself says you&#39;re looking to be Coen uh that in fact kak wanted to be Coen korak wanted to be a Ken and he wanted shavy to be the kohanim and now there weren&#39;t that many kohanim there right you just had Aon two of his surviving sons elazar and is and Pinas was not yet consecrated as a all there were were were for kohanim at the time but kak wanted the leim to take over and calistic the argument is the following kohanim represent the maid of the of Le represent the mid of G thus we find by theel Iron the Coen was conciliatory and he tried to accommodate people even though it turned out not to be a right the right decision necessarily the Lev were the zealots who stood up so in cabala the Z says kohanim are leim are G the reason why the Kahuna was given to kohanim is based on the idea that God&#39;s original plan elim elim is midin God&#39;s original plan was to create the world with midin meaning you do good God rewards you you do bad you get sapped with lightning ra Hashem saw that the world could not survive un strict in so he moderated The Den with an infusion of RA and that&#39;s why initially the Tyra says in the beginning bar elim later it says beos has El is which is the ma of raim that the world should have been based on din but God had to deviate from his ideal plan to be to combine and then which means in many many ways this is is not an Ideal World din is actually the ideal raim is a compromise due to the inevitable Perfection imperfection of the human personality in fact the Shah Kadesh says a very fascinating thoughts if you remember when RAB AA was being tortured to death because he was teaching Torah and the Romans had him arrested and tortured and he died from that torture so as he was dying as his flesh was being combed with iron Combs the sh well well two things the T said to him is this the is this the reward for your Torah learning and RAB AKA said as he was dying all of his life he wanted to fulfill the verse of loving hasem with all your heart with all of your soul and now he has given a chance to give his soul to God he says to his Tom him do you want to take away that opportunity from me that&#39;s the discussion between Raba and his but the medra says there was a discussion between the Heavenly angels and the almighty where the Heavenly Angels said to Hashem Z this is Tyra and this is the reward for Tyra the person who gave his life to teach T and to learn Torah this is his reward and Hashem said enigmatically be silent this is my don&#39;t question my thoughts so the simple meaning is God simp saying don&#39;t ask questions the Shah Kadesh adds a very fascinating little deok here he says that God isn&#39;t simply saying don&#39;t ask me questions God is actually answering the question my M my original intention in creation was strict in it&#39;s only the compromise to human imperfection that I moderated the din with ra but that compromise only applies to regular people theim are still judged by the by the world of God&#39;s Divine thoughts and in strict in even RAB AA is not going to be immune so that&#39;s the that&#39;s the deeper explanation the Shah says of the famous teaching of that sadim are governed by a higher standard now you&#39;re going to have two people a regular person who does a certain thing which God may give him a pass and a sadic does the same thing and it&#39;s much much much worse because is judged by the standard of divine as opposed to most of us we are judged by the moderation of that by the mid now it&#39;s brought down in the name of the ARA that that this is why the is like B over B as it&#39;s no well known although it&#39;s not 100% inacurate description but it&#39;s a 99% pretty accurate description that when there&#39;s a m b Bai almost invariably B Hillel represents the more lenient position and be shami represents the stricter position this is well known just looking at the different M the Aral writes that is because the sh of B is rooted in the mid and therefore he will see through that prism ofid the is rooted in the mid so he will see through that prism I need to emphasize as a matter of process these are not self-conscious types of thought processes it&#39;s not that Bas hillo got up every every morning and figured out how can I make life easier for people and it&#39;s not that be sh I got up every morning and says I want to be mean today who can I hurt today by being M that&#39;s not how it works we have to believe that these great people were looking for truth they were looking for EMS however the way you perceive EMS is affected by the root of your Nish the These Are Spiritual connections if the is rooted in you will perceive Ms a certain way if your Nish is rooted in you will perceive Ms in a different way so the AR says the of is in the of is in the reason why in like is because in this world R becomes the dominant aspect so says the AR when mashia comes and the world reaches a perfected State an elevated State Hashem will be able to go back to his original plan the original plan was midin and in that original plan Thea is going to be like base shamai and therefore this is the source of the famous statement you probably have heard before that is a little ambiguous it doesn&#39;t mean necessarily as soon as mashia comes but at some point in theic Era there&#39;s going to be a major major change because the world will transition to of because hm&#39;s original perfect will be able to be implemented and carried out so therefore the Aral rights actually it&#39;s based on the Z but he he&#39;s explaining passages in the Z that the the Le will become the kohanim meaning essentially kohanim who are also levim will simply be assimilated into levim and leev will be kohanim because once again kohanim has a separate group represents leim represents m in this world the is secondary to the so do the main job will become kohanim who will become the L that&#39;s an interesting question but at least the leev will become kohanim and the zor goes further kak will be the k kak will be the Cen goto so according to the Z The Zo is Mazar it&#39;s a complicated AR I&#39;m just touching the surface here that korak&#39;s mistake was he was jumping the gun he was anticipating a future that wasn&#39;t there yet korak sees the Miracles of the desert he sees the M he sees the traveling well of Miriam uh he sees the cloud of Glory he remembers the Miracles of The Exodus the splitting of the Red Sea and mimari kak feels this is the of G this is y now it&#39;s a little difficult for me how could he feel that way after the moram I understand before theam that we were going straight to Isel that&#39;s maybe an easier mistake to make and it might not even have been a mistake after the miraculum it&#39;s a little more difficult to justify why he saw it that way but he looked at this as the Messianic era and therefore the zor says his tiina was I&#39;m entitled to be Coen because Le are becoming Kohan his mistake was we still live in an imperfect World particularly after theim and after for that matter too we&#39;re no longer in ganen uh we&#39;ve been expelled from ganen and therefore we still need theim to be more powerful over the G over the powers of therefore Aron is still Co and you guys are and don&#39;t complain so this is a kind of a long mystical interpretation uh so the first uh thought I shared with you is more of a psychological idea of a hidden agendas people who call for equality often just mean their own power grab that&#39;s kind of maybe a petot on a deeper level korak was perceiving the doram midor as living in the Messianic age in which we can go back to God&#39;s original plan of mid and Le represent the of and uh they could overpower the these are called sweetened G meaning the gur are now sweetened and they can take take over and that&#39;s why the is going to be like be Shi when mashia comes uh because that was God&#39;s original plan and mistake was he jumped the gun so it&#39;s interesting that korak jumps the gun at really at both ends of the equation he&#39;s jumping the gun by looking into a future that&#39;s not yet here yet right he&#39;s looking ahead and he&#39;s trying to project that future back into the present but it&#39;s fascinating that the medr says he also made a mistake of looking into a more of a short-term future meaning you see you see another problem of projecting backwards and that is if you read sa for tahim there are 11 chapters of tahim that are assigned to the Ben uh one of the is and the Capal of that we say before seven [Applause] times misar there&#39;s a total of 11 now there is a what that means when it says to the conductor to the sons of kak are we saying they wrote theim or they were assigned to sing theim meaning that if this if the statement or is that referring to authorship or assignments but the one thing we know for sure from is that the main singers in the basa Mikes the Lev who sang were the descendants b b doesn&#39;t mean Sons descendants of kak and that korak is yeah the famous kak how did they how are they around so remember the Torah says in Paras that although when the ground opened up it swallowed kak and his sons but it mentions b k l the children of Kor the sons of kak actually didn&#39;t die they didn&#39;t die and Rashi brings the medish that basically they did fall into the ground but in that moment they did Sincere Chua and God gave them uh something to hold on to a ledge and they were able to climb out the power of Chua and their ancest their descendants rather were the Great Lev who sang songs of praise in the Bas amikas the B not only that but the nav who is a Ley and Shmo is considered to be equal in greatness to Moshe and Aon combined was a descendant of kak so the gar actually says I&#39;m the med actually says that part of korak&#39;s arrogance was he was looking with rues and he saw thato would come from him who&#39;s greater than Moshe and Aon on some level and the Lev who will sing in the Bas mikdash come from him so he figured hey the Apple doesn&#39;t fall far from the tree he says I God such great descendants got to be based on me so you see that these are two examples of looking into the future the the the short term future of seeing Shi and the and the long-term future of yot mashia where K himself will have the role of K and shave Ley will take over Kahuna and this led him astray things have to come in their right time that&#39;s part of the lesson here besides the hidden agenda we got to understand there&#39;s a time for things you try to things they can be very very disastrous indeed the gamar uses this very L about mashia do not try to push the end of days so you bring mashia by mitos by Torah learning you know for sure but whatever mystical ways there are to bring mhia early you got to be careful because things have to come based on hashem&#39;s timing so and one it&#39;s a funny situation on one hand God will respond to our overtures even if it&#39;s not always good for us if that&#39;s what we want the way a person wants to go God will take him but we have to be careful what we ask for because as the saying goes you might get it and when you get it it may not not be what you need and it may not be what&#39;s good for you so it&#39;s a little a little tricky in that in that way and uh based on the zoa and the AR the story of kak is an example of trying to bring in a future situation that the world was not yet ready for and that is the kid would would take over in the in the world yeah criticizing the Jewish people say what are you waiting for why why are you building yeah that&#39;s regarding the building of the second temple yeah it&#39;s very true that after the 70 years of the Babylonian exile when the Jews were under Persian Rule and uh they had started building the Temple under Cyrus under kores and then Cyrus had issued an introdiction a ban for 18 years and uh there was no initiative on the part of the Jews to resend that band so we do find that the navi Haag and Zakaria those two NV both of them were very very critical of why don&#39;t the Jewish people take initiative to build the build a temple I know it is it is a good point but part of it might also be they weren&#39;t praying to Hashem about it they didn&#39;t care meaning uh the Novi wasn&#39;t necessarily talking about taking a physical initiative until God gave a green light but he&#39;s saying you should have cared why didn&#39;t you demonstrate that this was important to you uh now in terms of green light the Novi is giving him a green light right there he&#39;s saying now is the time but he&#39;s giving them this the the signal okay now I want to mention a a third as so I mentioned the hidden agenda aspect we mentioned the idea of anticipating the future before it&#39;s here uh there is a third point also from the Aro that the shame Mishu brings he brings a fascinating gatria but doesn&#39;t fully well the sh the brings the gatria the sh mm explains the gatria the AR&#39;s gatria is very enigmatic he points out that the gatria of korak is 308 K the gatria of Moshe is 345 okay the difference between 345 and 308 is 37 37 is the gatria of he vanity he therefore if you take those three gatus and you work with them we can make the following equations korak plus he equals motion or mosha minus he equals is the ARA right he&#39;s linking three grias the gatria of mosa the gatria of korak the gatria of he what&#39;s going on so the sh who was a great he was the son of the AER who was the son-in-law of the katar rebbi so the Sham ism is actually a grandson of the katar rebbi and his father theer borin the S was one of the great great greator in Europe recognized as such even among non he was one of the postor as well as being a great says the following explanation let&#39;s go back well actually it&#39;s the second crime of humanity but you know the first crime of humanity is the of the but the second crime is the murder Cen murders he murder murder out of jealousy out of anger out of Rage however you describe that initial murder and let&#39;s look at the names of cayen and hea has a son is are they Twins or not twins but whatever it is cenne is the first born even if it&#39;s the first of the twins so she calls him cenne because she says Ki is as Hashem Ki KI means I have created a person a man with God I have created a human being with God she kind of negates her husband&#39;s contribution there but she says it&#39;s me and God we created this human being and then she has a second son whether it&#39;s a twin or not that&#39;s a mlus and she calls him heo now there&#39;s no reason there&#39;s no reason that&#39;s given in the Torah for why he&#39;s called he now why we we&#39;re given a reason why Cen was called cayen we&#39;re not given a reason why he is called he but we know the translation of heav heav is vapor heav is breath heav is like mere air right in cois schl says over and over again vanity of vanity which really means emptiness of emptiness a cold heav right he&#39;s looking at the world and sees how many things in the world are just not worth it so it&#39;s a strange thing to name your child you name your child he nothingness futility it&#39;s almost as if maybe she had a prophetic intimation that he would be killed you know perhaps that that might be sh but the shame wants to say the following this reflects two aspects of a human being and in effect Cen and he are two halves of a Cen I have created man represents the aspect of a human being that needs to be creative needs to dominate needs to master nature needs to control te Ki I&#39;m not just this helpless thing but I&#39;m made in the image of God because I am supposed to create I am supposed to dominate I am supposed to control God did not want us to be just passive he wants us to drain the swamps build the cities create economic systems and political systems that we are supposed to be partners with God Kus hasem is partnership be a partner with Hashem in making this world this is very important amuna in Judaism is not passive or quiescent amuna doesn&#39;t mean I sit back as poor people are suffering and say God will take care of them I got to take responsibility I got to create Justice I got to try to create healing I got to try to make the world a better place you see auna if taken to an extreme could be a very passive idea a person might basically say God runs the runs the world I I really have no responsibilities but that would be derel the whole Torah is predicated on human responsibility even though the reform took over this word this phrase but I will use it because it&#39;s in kazal t to make the world a better place a Holier place a place of goodness a place of blessing even in the material sense to the extent that we&#39;re able to to do that so cayen represents the aspect of human personality that is creative that initiates that takes charge and this was reflected in Cayenne as a person Ken was actually a much greater innovator than he if we ask who was the first person at least in the PK who invented the idea of a Corban in aod hasem it was cayen he improved on cen&#39;s idea by the choicest but who was the one who thought of the idea of Corbin Ken was the madesh Ken was the innovator he simply reacted to what Cen did and tried to make it a better thing didn&#39;t Adam instigate the yeah there is there are M that say Adam that that is correct that&#39;s what I&#39;m saying but according to theim it kind is the first one that it&#39;s mentioned in fact according to other MIM Ken taught adish the idea of chuva later after Ken killed Cen kind of invented shua and he told other marish said I didn&#39;t know there was such a thing so Cen with all of his flaws was the great innovator in life he kind of represents the notion of a human being recognizing that I&#39;m really nothing without God I am just the heo so if you think about this each personality type has a Mila and Ain the cion of the world build the cities they discover cures for cancer they create you know hopefully good court systems and and Science and Technology and even in Torah learning they&#39;re the ones that are mades they build yesos and they write because they understand the power of their intellect and the power of their creativity but the character flaw of course is the potential for arrogance for GAA that it is my power and my might that accomplishes everything so the danger of the Cen is arrogance the heav of the world are a personality type that are exactly the opposite he recognizes their subservience their inferiority their helplessness they understand without God they&#39;re nothing and that&#39;s beautiful they have humility they submit to AES they know there is nothing besides God in the world but the downside of that is a passivity and a helplessness in which you don&#39;t take the initiative in life in both go and right if you&#39;re a he in fact it reminds me of something it&#39;s old story where uh they say a certain said I didn&#39;t want to learn gamarra why why don&#39;t learn gamar because gamar is full of questions you&#39;re asking questions he says Aid shouldn&#39;t ask what are you asking questions you know how could the mishna say this how could the Torah say this if that&#39;s what God Said don&#39;t ask questions he was basically saying there&#39;s no purpose of learning a Torah at all because you&#39;re asking questions on God right if you see that&#39;s reductive ad absur of I&#39;m such a mind man I don&#39;t ask any questions about Torah and yet our whole learning is question probe understands so cayen represents creativity autonomy initiative he represents Faith humility submission but on the negative side the cion are prone to arrogance and the heav are prone to helplessness despondency and passivity ideally the human personality needs to be a fusion of the Cen and the Heen uh I&#39;m going to insert a little bibliographical footnote here uh for those of you that are familiar with r Sal&#39;s writings if any of you have ever read The Lonely Man of Faith a very very famous essay these two aspects of the human personality are based on his writing but he he projected it much earlier he talked about the two accounts of the creation of Adam harishon and he called it Adam 1 and Adam 2 and he called Adam 1 Majestic man and he called Adam 2 a Redemptive man um I&#39;m modifying this a little bit by applying this based on the shm applying this to cayen for he cayen would correspond to what D Salvia called adom one and he would correspond to what D called Adam two so if you&#39;re familiar with the lonely man of faith you&#39;ll know what I&#39;m talking about if not it does not affect uh this this Devar Torah uh in that way so we know of course that the arizal developed the idea of Gilgo that when a Nisha does not complete its rectification it comes back to try to finish the task Ken left the world in a state of arrogance he left the world in a state of paity Cen and he needed to come back says r how in the shulan cayen was reincarnated in the Persona of korak he was reincarnated in the Persona of mosha rabena so korak is a gilgal of cayen Moshe is a gilgal of heaven and it&#39;s so interesting how the outcome of the story is literally a reversal first time around cenne kills he second time around he Moshe causes the death of Cen things got rectified in that mechanical way but spiritually as well he had a tikon to the life of mosha how is that so mosha Renu was described in the Torah as anav mikad the most humble of all people that&#39;s he and yet mosha rabenu was the leader of three three million people he made the decisions that had to be made he broke the lucos when they had to be broken he prayed for clausel he interceded Moser Renu in spite of that mid of he understood that way you nullify yourself before God that&#39;s not an excuse for passivity and inaction it&#39;s the other way around that energizes you to take the initiative to bring kadua into the world so mosha rabena Took The Reincarnation of he&#39;s Nish and he wasen what it was that he lacked korak unfortunately Incorporated the arrogance of cayen and his aod was to be subservient to Moshe and learn the lesson of humility but unfortunately the Cen in him stayed as it was and he died without that t although the first so I mentioned gives him that that be Co and God in the future indicates korak will have a Tien but in this para there&#39;s no tiken in this para so now the shame ISM says the gatria that the Aral mentioned are so beautiful and exact kak plus he equals mosha meaning or Moshe minus he equals kak korak and mosha in terms of their talents in terms of their abilities are equal they both had tremendous capacity for leadership they both had tremendous capacity for NAA remember korak is getting all these Nas about the future so what differentiates the korak personality from the Moshe personality korak didn&#39;t have he humility Moshe had he meaning if you took K and you added he you get Moshe if you took Moshe and you took away the he you&#39;ll get beautiful gatria that this was the Fatal flaw and in that sense similar to Bam which we&#39;ll talk about it&#39;s a very similar Paradigm kak is is an example of a tragic figure in the Greek sense of tragedy you know the the famous definition of Aristotle that we talk about a Greek tragedy where you&#39;re destroyed from within meaning if a person&#39;s in a building God forbid in a building collapses that is very very sad we mourn and we grief but in the Greek sense of tragedy that&#39;s not a tragedy that&#39;s a very very sad and unfortunate occurrence tragedy is when a person has greatness but they&#39;re destroyed not because a building falls on them they&#39;re destroyed because of a flaw in their personality that destroys like a worm Like A Parasite like a cancer it destroys the goodness that was in them that&#39;s a tragedy that&#39;s why Alicia Ben aoya is a truly tragic right reab AA is not a tragic figure this is you see it actually from kazal itself RAB AA died a horrible death and we grieve over Raba and is but we would not apply the word tragedy we wouldn&#39;t call reab AA a tragic figure who would we call a tragic figure Alisha binuya we would call a tragic figure Elisha B Aya was an enormously great Torah scholar enormously great but he was destroyed from within that&#39;s a tragedy korak was as great as Moshe that&#39;s what it&#39;s saying but lacking the he The Gua destroyed him The Gua destroyed him we&#39;re going to see billum is a very similar Paradigm Paradigm that way and this is the meaning of this particular uh this is particular gatria that K when you add in the he you will get Moshe Moshe if you subtract the he you will get and it&#39;s something we have to we have to remember fortunately even in this day and age we see it in the political world for sure but unfortunately we have a number of sad occasions we&#39;ve seen it in the Torah world um again I&#39;m not going to get into any detail but sometimes there are people who are very very learned and very very I I don&#39;t mean Mish gadolan but you know people who were you know very wellestablished and very capable teachers who had large followings and there was a GAA or a sense that I don&#39;t have to keep the rules that everyone else has to keep I&#39;m kind of above that and unfortunately not not only did it hurt many many people but it also destroyed them it D I know people sometimes say why do you have rman for the truth is when maybe it&#39;s rabinal Fellowship I don&#39;t know but the truth is when a rabbi gets destroyed from within it is a tragedy because there was a potential for goodness a potential to reach people the potential to do good in the world and that&#39;s been totally destroyed and GAA is often that mechanism that triggers followup things like sexual abuse whatever it is but they they often emerge initially from a certain sense of GAA that I don&#39;t have to follow even the that other people have to follow really this is this was the mistake of schom you know thein says why the tah does not like to give reasons for Mitzvah so it says because when the Torah gives a reason people will start debating whether it applies them don&#39;t the king is not allowed to have a lot of horses lest he return the nation to MIT says oh that&#39;s not going to apply to me I&#39;ll have horses I won&#39;t return people to MIM of course what happens is he does uh a king cannot have a lot of wives lest he become distracted well that doesn&#39;t apply to me I&#39;m the wisest of all people and he had his thousand wives and yeah what happened is what happened so Hashem basically said you know I&#39;m not going to give you reasons for stuff once I giving you reasons you start debating uh whether it applies to you or it doesn&#39;t apply to you so it&#39;s the same thing it all comes from the GBA the GBA that I&#39;m better than everybody else and therefore the rules that apply to everybody don&#39;t apply to me and that is what creates the coworks of the world who are great great people people who have greatness but they are destroyed uh from the flaw that is within so anyway have a good shabas and thank you for coming [Music] go

Transcript for:Lecture on Parashat Korach

Transcript for:
Lecture on Parashat Korach