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Korach: He too is Deserving of Honour · A Thought for the Week

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to a Thought for the Week, a Torah in
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  Speaker 1: Motion podcast. I'm Jake Hellman, founding director of Torah in Motion,
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  Speaker 1: and it's a pleasure to have you here with us.
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  Speaker 1: Ben as I and Rebbyakiva, living in the second century
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  Speaker 1: of the Common Era, have a debate as to what
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  Speaker 1: is the most important verse in the Torah. I believe
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  Speaker 1: the view of Rebyekiva is relatively well known. A love
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  Speaker 1: your neighbors, yourself, that claud That is the fundamental principle
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  Speaker 1: of the Torah. However, ben as I says, we have
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  Speaker 1: a claude, go dooms. We have an even greater principle
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  Speaker 1: than this, and that is the verse. It's Biray sheet
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  Speaker 1: five one. Zes say, this is the book. The tor
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  Speaker 1: is a book of the legacy, the generations of man
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  Speaker 1: beyond Barallohima. When God created man, b Mud Tellohima. So
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  Speaker 1: God created man in the image of God. That's more important.
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  Speaker 1: This is if man and man are man in God.
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  Speaker 1: In truth, there is no debate. They are fundamentally saying
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  Speaker 1: the same thing. Because the opening message, and perhaps the
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  Speaker 1: primary overarching message of the Torah is that man is
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  Speaker 1: created in the image of God. That we've discussed this
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  Speaker 1: other times, this revolutionary idea. So how we treat man
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  Speaker 1: reflects how do we believe in God? You know, if
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  Speaker 1: we treat people inappropriately, the means that we don't really
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  Speaker 1: you know, we don't really believe that God created man
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  Speaker 1: in his image. That's wouldn't be so good. But that's
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  Speaker 1: the way it is. This idea is expressed many ways.
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  Speaker 1: But just let's just take a horizontal reading of the
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  Speaker 1: tank commandment. So first commandment, believe in God, I'm the
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  Speaker 1: Lord your God to get Egypt means believe in God
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  Speaker 1: in general. And the sixth commandment do not kill. Well,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the commandments can be read horizontally if we
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  Speaker 1: really believe man is creating leavings of God. As I
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  Speaker 1: just said, we treat people in uh, we treat them differently.
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  Speaker 1: The truth and matter belief in God and loving our
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  Speaker 1: fellow man flip sides on the same coin. Are I
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  Speaker 1: believe two of the hardest myths that we have. It's
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  Speaker 1: easy to say I believe in God.
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  Speaker 2: Yea.
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  Speaker 1: Most people are probably on earth to say they believe
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  Speaker 1: in God, and I don't think they're lying. I think
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  Speaker 1: they do believe in a God. But when Judaism says
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  Speaker 1: you have to believe in God. That doesn't mean, okay,
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  Speaker 1: I believe there's.
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  Speaker 2: A God in the world.
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  Speaker 1: It means day to day, it means you have to
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  Speaker 1: act in a way to demonstrate that I believe in God,
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  Speaker 1: like we keep shut out. Let's say, for example, the
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  Speaker 1: thank Commandment said we keep shabout to demonstrate our belief
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  Speaker 1: in God. Belief always belief in Judaism has to be
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  Speaker 1: expressed through action. Their belief without action and pretty much
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  Speaker 1: meaningless in many ways. You know, people are closet atheists,
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  Speaker 1: you know. And I'm not referring to doubts about God itself.
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  Speaker 2: People have.
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  Speaker 1: That's also true, people have doubts about belief in God.
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  Speaker 1: But leaving that aside, it's how we act. How we
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  Speaker 1: act often doesn't demonstrate true belief in God. For example,
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  Speaker 1: the Tumbel says, if we cheat in business, that demonstrates
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  Speaker 1: a lack of belief in Goduno does our business need
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  Speaker 1: we reflect the fact that we believe God is in
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  Speaker 1: control of the world. But as hard as it is
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  Speaker 1: to demonstrate believe in God Baha, treating other people properly,
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  Speaker 1: that's even harder. It's easy to you know, love God.
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  Speaker 1: He doesn't answer back, he doesn't. You know, it's abstract,
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  Speaker 1: but actually you know not to take revenge and not
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  Speaker 1: to gossip, and to treat people fairly and to treat
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  Speaker 1: them with tremendous dignity.
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  Speaker 2: That that's that's hard. That's hard.
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  Speaker 1: A matter of fact, it's so hard that it's impossible.
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  Speaker 1: And the tour doesn't even think you have to actually
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  Speaker 1: love somebody as much as you love yourself. The Ramban says, says,
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  Speaker 1: this is an exaggeration, it's not humanly posful. All it
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  Speaker 1: means is you should treat people the way you would
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  Speaker 1: want to be treated, or, as Hillo famously said, what
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  Speaker 1: is hateful to you don't do to others. That's the
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  Speaker 1: entire tour of the rest is commentary. You can't really
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  Speaker 1: love them, but have to treat them in a way
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  Speaker 1: I want wealth and honor and respect and all kinds
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  Speaker 1: of things you want. You want though for other people
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  Speaker 1: to but it's not easy. The extent that we should
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  Speaker 1: care about other people dignity and their honor and respect
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  Speaker 1: is said, and really in an amazing commutic application of
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  Speaker 1: the first Bahafta, l Tom says, what does it mean
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  Speaker 1: to lever your neighbors, yourself. So the tumb it says,
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  Speaker 1: it means when we're convicting somebody guilty of a capital offense,
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  Speaker 1: say a murderer who had a murderer just not anybody's
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  Speaker 1: a murderer, Not that he got angry and they, you know,
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  Speaker 1: murdered in this moment when he had a fit. No,
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  Speaker 1: it means a cold blooded premi meditated in front of
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  Speaker 1: witnesses being warned that type of murderer. We put him
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  Speaker 1: to death, which was very rare. Put him to death
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  Speaker 1: baror lo meta effect, give him a nice death, treat
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  Speaker 1: him with honor and respect. This is like an amazing
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  Speaker 1: an amazing law. Even the lowest of the low have
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  Speaker 1: to be treated respectfully upon death. Yes, we may have
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  Speaker 1: to carry out capital punishment, but how we do it
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  Speaker 1: is important. Now you might be wondering what does this
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  Speaker 1: have to do with Parsha Korak. So on one level,
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  Speaker 1: it's I think this is just a message that you know,
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  Speaker 1: has to be said over and over again. It's very
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  Speaker 1: important message that we kind of all know but we
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  Speaker 1: don't always think about. But I the reason I'm talking
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  Speaker 1: about it on Parsha Korak is because of a verse
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  Speaker 1: that appears in the in the Parsha that says like
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  Speaker 1: this and more that God spokes to Mosha and more
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  Speaker 1: Lasar Lasar the son of Ur and the coin to
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  Speaker 1: remove Vyareemahama venus rifabet they were halakika. They should to
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  Speaker 1: remove the fire pans that were not declared holy by God. Right,
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  Speaker 1: the Kora comes to attack Motion's leadership. He brings two
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty people with him. So God says, okay,
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  Speaker 1: we'll give you a little bit of a test. Everybody
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  Speaker 1: take a fire pan, put incests on it, and I
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  Speaker 1: will demonstrate Urn will do one and two hundred and
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  Speaker 1: fifty people there two hundred and fifty one pans, and
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  Speaker 1: I will choose the pan that who should be the leader.
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  Speaker 1: And of course the two hundred and fifty people are
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  Speaker 1: swallowed up, and obviously it's ron Is. God demonstrates to
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  Speaker 1: everybody that Ron is the person who should be chosen.
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  Speaker 1: So they want to remove all those other two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and fifty invalid fire pans. So the Torri tells, God tells,
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  Speaker 1: most tell allahs are the son of our un, but
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  Speaker 1: one not our run Iron is the high priest.
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  Speaker 2: Why does an urn return them.
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  Speaker 1: So many years ago we had the play page of
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  Speaker 1: Rabbi doctor J. J.
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  Speaker 2: Schachter spoke.
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  Speaker 1: We were running the Torah Ethics Project, a division of
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  Speaker 1: the Orthodox Caucus. This is going back over twenty five years.
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  Speaker 1: And the idea was that we take a theme for
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  Speaker 1: the year and try to teach in many communities with
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  Speaker 1: join together. And the first theme was Caboa bryot the
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  Speaker 1: dignity that we have to give to other people. And
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  Speaker 1: the Rabbi Schachtter that time was the Rabbi of the
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  Speaker 1: Jewish Center in New York City, came in and he
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  Speaker 1: gave really a wonderful talk. We speaking quoting a piece
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  Speaker 1: from one of his repaim from kan Shmulevitch, who was
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  Speaker 1: the worshashiva with the Miryeshiva, and from his secret Musser,
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  Speaker 1: and he explained that to do this with the slap
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  Speaker 1: in the face to Korak and his family and those
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  Speaker 1: who survived that yeah, Korak had a die, but you
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  Speaker 1: know for a run to take the FA's like that's
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  Speaker 1: like wow, that's like rubbing it in.
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  Speaker 2: That's like, you know, that's a that's.
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  Speaker 1: Giving him a shot in the dark, you know, an
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  Speaker 1: extra kick while he's dead, while he's already dead, and
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  Speaker 1: that cannot be done.
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  Speaker 2: We have to have the honor to Korak in his death.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, has to be treated with a certain degree of
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  Speaker 1: respect and think that you know it's inappropriate for our
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  Speaker 1: run one. Maybe he would cloak, he would feel, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: see I take somebody else to do it. And there
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  Speaker 1: are many many examples of this. Some of the other
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  Speaker 1: examples just very quickly is, for example, the donkey of
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  Speaker 1: Billam how to be killed less. People say, ah, that's
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  Speaker 1: the donkey that's smarter than Billam. We didn't want to
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  Speaker 1: Billim should be degraded like that, or even to want
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  Speaker 1: to take a Jewish example, so to speak, and the
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  Speaker 1: Jewish people at the beginning of Safer Davari, when Mosher
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  Speaker 1: rebukes the Jewish people, he doesn't rebuke them directly. As
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  Speaker 1: Russian points Phodential, you hint that things even when people sin,
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  Speaker 1: and even when people do terrible things.
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  Speaker 2: And Corek was a really bad guy.
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  Speaker 1: Cork is the symbol of debate of Mahloka, Chilolu Shimshamaim,
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  Speaker 1: of jealousy and personal honor, all these terrible things. And
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  Speaker 1: there's even a mist of naturrah not to be like
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  Speaker 1: corkluya ka cork. And some people actually count that as
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  Speaker 1: one of the six and thirteen meets foot. So nonetheless,
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  Speaker 1: nonetheless we can't rub it in and we have to
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  Speaker 1: give kavot even to krek, how much more so it's
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  Speaker 1: remember like, you know, we know how we have to
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  Speaker 1: treat the dead. Well, that just means we have to
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  Speaker 1: treat the living one hundred times better.
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  Speaker 2: Right, I have to. Oh, the person died, they treat
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  Speaker 2: with such great respect. It's very nice. He's dead.
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  Speaker 1: You treat a little bit of respect. This is what
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  Speaker 1: I mean a little bit of respect. The living has
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  Speaker 1: to be done much much more. And the even when
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  Speaker 1: they're dealing with people who are fundamentally evil, we have
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  Speaker 1: to as Bruria tried to teach Rameyor Ravemeyor was praying
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  Speaker 1: for the death of the sinners, and Burius his wife said, no, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: no no. We have to hate the sin but not
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  Speaker 1: the sinner. But that's something very hard to do, but
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  Speaker 1: again something we have to work upon on ourselves. The
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  Speaker 1: dignity everybody, even sinners, are created the image of God.
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  Speaker 1: And I think it's really to conclude by noting that
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  Speaker 1: the idea of a mignon that we need ten men
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  Speaker 1: for aminion is derived from a combination of the stories
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  Speaker 1: of Korak. We won't go into the details and the
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  Speaker 1: spies and the Marakling. So the idea how Jews come
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  Speaker 1: together to sanctify the name of Gods comes through Korak
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  Speaker 1: and I Rug and everybody has something to offer we
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  Speaker 1: can learn from. And we know even evil people often
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  Speaker 1: have usually have some good points about them. So Korak
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  Speaker 1: teaches us, don't focus what Cork is wrong, focus on
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  Speaker 1: what we have to do.
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  Speaker 2: Even to the chorus of the world. Yes, sometimes we
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  Speaker 2: have to eradicate evil.
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  Speaker 1: We always have to keep their dignity and all dignity
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  Speaker 1: of everybody in mind, because we are all created in
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  Speaker 1: the image of God. We hope you enjoyed a thought
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  Speaker 1: for the week at torah in Motion podcast. If you
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  Speaker 1: you very much, looking forward to learning with you next week.