Parshas Korach - Korach's incorrect understand of the mitzvos

The passuk says at the beginning of this week’s sedrah

וַיִּקַּח קֹרַח בֶּן יִצְהָר בֶּן קְהָת בֶּן לֵוִי וְדָתָן וַאֲבִירָם בְּנֵי אֱלִיאָב וְאוֹן בֶּן פֶּלֶת בְּנֵי רְאוּבֵן

And Korach the son of Yitzhar the son of Kehas the son of Levi took, and Dasan and Aviram the children of Eliav and On the son of Peles, who were descendants of Reuvain.

Rashi comments on this passuk

ומה ראה קרח לחלוק עם משה נתקנא על נשיאותו של אליצפן בן עוזיאל (תנחומא) שמינהו משה נשיא על בני קהת על פי הדבור. אמר קרח אחי אבא ארבעה היו שנאמר (שמות ו') ובני קהת וגו' עמרם הבכור נטלו שני בניו גדולה אחד מלך ואחד כהן גדול מי ראוי ליטול את השניה לא אני שאני בן יצהר שהוא שני לעמרם והוא מנה נשיא את בן אחיו הקטן מכולם הריני חולק עליו ומבטל את דבריו. מה עשה עמד וכנס ר"נ ראשי סנהדראות... והלבישן טליתות שכולן תכלת, באו ועמדו לפני משה אמרו לו טלית שכולה של תכלת חייבת בציצית או פטורה, אמר להם חייבת, התחילו לשחק עליו, אפשר טלית של מין אחר חוט אחד של תכלת פוטרה זו שכולה תכלת לא תפטור את עצמה

Why did Korach create an argument with Moshe? He was jealous because Elitzaphan the son of Uziel was appointed to be the prince of the family of Kehas, according to the instruction of Hashem. Korach said, “My father had four brothers. Amram was the oldest, and his two sons achieved greatness, one is the king and one is the kohen gadol. Who should take second place, surely I, for I am the son of Yitzhar who is second oldest after Amram, but Moshe has appointed as prince the son of the youngest of all of the brothers. I will argue with Moshe and prove that everything he says is wrong.”

What did he do? He stood up and he gathered together 250 heads of sanhedrin… and he gave each one of them to wear a tallis which was dyed entirely with techeles. They came and they stood before Moshe and they said to him, “Does the obligation to wear tzitzis apply to a tallis which is made entirely of techeles?”

Moshe told them that the obligation to wear tzitzis even to such a tallis.

They started laughing at him and said, “How could it be that we fulfil our obligation by adding just one thread of techeles to a tallis of a different colour, but this tallis which is entirely dyed techeles does not suffice to fulfil this obligation?”

The Medrash Rabbah (18:3) adds that Korach asked Moshe

בַּיִת מָלֵא סְפָרִים מַהוּ שֶׁיְהֵא פָּטוּר מִן הַמְּזוּזָה, אָמַר לוֹ חַיָּב בִּמְּזוּזָה, אָמַר לוֹ, כָּל הַתּוֹרָה כֻּלָּה מָאתַיִם וְשִׁבְעִים וְחָמֵשׁ פָּרָשִׁיּוֹת אֵינָהּ פּוֹטֶרֶת אֶת הַבַּיִת, פָּרָשָׁה אַחַת שֶׁבַּמְּזוּזָה פּוֹטֶרֶת אֶת הַבַּיִת

“If a house is full of sifrei torah does that absolve it from having a mezuzah?”

Moshe replied, “It still requires a mezuzah.”

Korach retorted, “If the whole Torah which contains 275 parshiyos is insufficient to fulfil the obligation on the house, how could one parsha which is in the mezuzah fulfil this obligation?”

• Why did Korach choose to argue that if an entirety does not fulfil the obligation then surely a detail cannot be used to fulfil the obligation, in order to challenge the leadership of Moshe and Aharon? 

The passuk continues (ט"ז, ד')

וַיִּשְׁמַע מֹשֶׁה וַיִּפֹּל עַל פָּנָיו

And Moshe heard and he fell on his face.

The gemara in Sanhedrin (110a) explains

מה שמועה שמע אמר רבי שמואל בר נחמני א"ר יונתן שחשדוהו מאשת איש

What rumour did Moshe hear? Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmeni said in the name of Rabbi Yonasan, “He heard that they accused him of infidelity.”

The Vilna Gaon explains (אדרת אליהו, בלק כ"ב, ל', מהדורא ג')

הכוונה הוא כי הם אמרו כל העדה כולם קדושים וכו' והשוו עצמם למשה וזהו שחשדוהו שנבואתו היה גם כן מאשת איש על ידי המלאכים שנקראו אישים שכל הנביאים מקבלים נבואתם מהם. ומה שאמרו מאשת לפי שהנביאים... מקבלים הנבואה ממלאכים.

[Allegorically nevi’im are compared to an אשת איש, because the malach is called an איש, and the nevi’im receive their nevuah through a malach. Therefore we can understand that the gemara means to say that] Korach and his followers thought that the nevuah of Moshe was of the same type as that of all other nevi’im, who receive nevuah through the intermediary of a malach and not directly from Hashem.

• Why would Korach have thought that a tallis which is entirely techeles should be patur from tzitzis, or that a house which is full of sifrei torah should be patur from a mezuzah, had Moshe received these mitzvos as an ordinary navi?

The Michtav Me’Eliyahu explains as follows:

The Maharal says (תפארת ישראל פרק ג')

ובמדרש (קהלת רבה פ"ו) גם הנפש לא תמלא - לפי שהנפש יודעת שכל אשר תיגע - לעצמה תיגע, לפיכך אינה שבעה מצוות ומעשים טובים. אמר רבי לוי: משל לעירוני שהיה נשוי בת מלכים, אף על פי שמאכילה כל מעדני מלך, אינו יוצא חובתו, למה? שהיא בת מלכים. כך כל מה שיפעל האדם עם נפשו אינו יוצא ידי חובתו. למה? לפי שהיא מלמעלה. עד כאן...

ודבר זה מחייב תורה מן השמים למי שיודע עניין הנפש ומדרגתה שהיא מן השמים והיא עצם בלתי מושלם ולכך השלמתה על ידי התורה ומצוות כמו שיתבאר בעזרת השם יתברך, כי נתן לה המעלה היותר על כל היא התורה להשלים חסרונה, בעבור שהנפש משתוקקת תמיד אל ההשלמה מפני שעומדת בתחתונים והיא מן השמים ומה שאפשר להשלימה נשלמה.

The passuk says in Koheles (6:7)

כָּל עֲמַל הָאָדָם לְפִיהוּ וְגַם הַנֶּפֶשׁ לֹא תִמָּלֵא

All that a man works is in order to be able to feed himself, and nevertheless the soul is not filled.

The medrash explains that this means that the neshama is never satiated from the Torah and mitzvos that a person performs. Rabbi Levi said, “A mashal to a villager who married a princess, even were he to feed her all the delicacies of a king, he has not fulfilled his obligation. Why? Because she is the daughter of a king (and does not belong in a village). So too, despite all the mitzvos that a person could ever do he would never fulfil his obligation to his own neshama, because the neshama is from above.”

This [that the neshama is never fulfilled in its station in olam hazeh] forces us to acknowledge that the Torah is from Hashem, because otherwise it would be impossible that the lack that the neshama feels due to its being situated in olam hazeh could be at all fulfilled through the observance of the Torah. [Only if the Torah were given directly from Hashem would it be possible for the neshama to feel that it had reconnected to olam habah through a person’s observing the Torah.]

According to the Maharal, the reason that it was necessary for Moshe to receive the Torah through an ispeklaria ha’meirah, is because the only way that it could ever be possible for the neshama to feel that it had reconnected to the עולמות העליונים despite having been brought into olam hazeh, is if the Torah that we keep comes directly from the mouth of Hashem כביכול, without any intermediary of a malach or of the personal understanding of the navi.

However, if this is so, then how could Korach possibly have thought that Moshe was not on a different level to all other nevi’im? If Hashem would not prepare a special navi who would receive nevuah through an ispekalria ha’meirah, how would it have been possible for the Torah that revitalises the neshama, to ever have been brought into olam hazeh?

Rather you see that if Korach did indeed conclude that Moshe had the same type of nevuah as all other nevi’im, it is evident that Korach had a different understanding of the Torah. This means to say that Korach did not think that the Torah was a vital element for the continued existence of the neshama in olam hazeh, instead Korach thought that it was possible to live without the Torah, and that the observance of the Torah only comes to grant a מעלה יתירה – a higher elevated madregah, to the person who chooses to be careful in the observance the Torah.

Because of his mistake, Korach did not understand that the mitzva of techeles is specifically one thread and not the whole tallis, and that the mitzvah of mezuzah is specifically one parshah and not the whole Torah. The fact that the object used to perform the mitzvah is specifically partial, denotes that the mitzvah only always represents a השתוקקות – a yearning, to reach out to the madregah from which the neshama emanates.

Since axiomatically it is never possible to totally acquire the level that a mitzvah represents, therefore a tallis that is entirely techeles or a house that is full of sifrei torah, whose physical completeness denote that the person has entirely accomplished the madregah that relates to that mitzvah, have no bearing on the השתוקקות represented by the mitzvos of tzitzis or mezuzah.

Hence we can understand that Korach used the argument of being able to achieve a mitzva in its entirety in order to disprove the special nevuah of Moshe. Exactly because Korach thought that achieving the madregah of a mitzva in its entirety is possible, therefore he did not understand that the Torah serves to meet the השתוקקות of the neshama to reconnect to Hashem. Subsequently he did not understand that there had to be a special navi, Moshe, who would bring such a Torah received directly from Hashem, into olam hazeh.