BS”D
JUGGLING JEALOUSY – PARSHAS KORACH
Shira Smiles Shiur
June 21, 2009/Sivan 29, 5769
Summary by Channie Koplowitz Stein
Korach was a very spiritual, holy man. He himself
was a prophet, and saw that among his descendents would be the great prophet
Samuel. As a member of the tribe of Levi, he also had the exalted job of
carrying the Holy Ark in the desert. What prompted such a man to challenge the
authority of Moshe and precipitate his fall?
It is obvious from reading the content of his dialogue with Moshe that
Korach was motivated by jealousy. It was not enough for him that his tribe was
exalted over the other tribes, and that he personally had such a significant
responsibility, but he also wanted Aharon’s position,
that of High Priest.
One could argue that Korach’s motivation was
spiritual. One could say that Korach saw the level of
intimacy with Hakodosh boruch
Hu the high priest would attain, and his soul yearned
for this relationship. Indeed, our sages laud this kind of jealousy as helping
to bring an individual closer to achieving his spiritual potential. But if we
examine Korach’s speech and actions more closely, and even compare them to the speech and actions of
others, we are more likely to get a clearer understanding of the difference
between positive jealousy and negative jealousy, and which one actually
motivated Korach.
Let us study the first instance of jealousy, one that also ended in death.
At the very beginning of human history we have the incident between the first
two brothers, Cain and Abel. Cain is the first to recognize his Creator and
wish to bring Him an offering. While his gift may have been mere flax seed, it
was nevertheless a manifestation of his desire to be closer to Hashem. When Abel saw this, he recognized the beauty of his
brother’s motivation and action and became jealous of the intimacy with Hashem that this act would generate. He aspired to the same
intimacy, and so he searched among his possessions for an appropriate gift and
offered the best of his sheep to Hashem. He used his
brother’s example as a springboard for his own improvement without belittling
Cain’s accomplishment. This is the example of positive jealousy, the feeling
that arouses one to look inward and find the resources to better oneself so
that he can integrate within himself that which he admires in another. Hashem saw Abel’s gift and accepted it.
Now Cain became jealous. Certainly his first moment of jealousy was
positive, for he valued a relationship with the Ribono
shel olam. But instead of
looking inward to examine where he had failed, he projected his disappointment
outward, against his brother. And from that moment, he began the downward
spiral that ended in his killing his brother. It begins with disappointment,
continues with a stingy and narrow vision of not wanting someone else to have
that which you don’t have, moves to being dissatisfied with whatever gifts you
personally do have until these gifts become meaningless, and may finally end in
depression.
It was within this spiral that Cain found himself isolated, out in the field
with his brother, that he could not bear the thought of his failure, and took
action to destroy the evidence of that failure. He arose and killed his
brother. Instead of trying to improve himself and grow in his own right, he
compared his shortcoming to Abel’s accomplishment. The only way he felt he
could come out ahead was to put down Abel’s success by killing him.
Now let us return to Korach, the main subject of
our discussion. He too started out feeling that he wanted a very special
relationship with Hashem. But he went further in this
desire. He felt he deserved this gift more than Aharon
did, for he would be the ancestor of the prophet Samuel. This feeling of
entitlement led to his being blind to the great gifts he himself had been
given. Indeed, his tribe’s elevation and his personal stature and responsibility
became so meaningless and valueless to him that he challenged Moshe’s
leadership and, by extension, the Sovereignty of Hakodosh
boruch Hu, thereby bringing
about his own destruction, the destruction of his family (albeit his sons did teshuvah and were saved), and the deaths of
two-hundred-fifty followers.
What Korach failed to realize, as Cain before him,
was that the path before him was the path he needed to follow to approach
spiritual perfection. One cannot usurp someone else’s mission and expect to
reach the goal set for you; you cannot arrive home by following the path to
your neighbor’s house. As Rav Zushiya
said, when our soul returns to its Maker, He will not ask why you were not like
Moshe; He will ask why you were not like you, why did you not strive to
actualize your potential with your personal gifts. Korach
should have taken that desire for an even closer relationship with Hashem and used it to find ways to embrace his mission with
total commitment and love. Each of us is judged only by the measure of
ourselves, not in comparison to others.
Korach erred in yet another area. He trivialized
the process and made the desired result all-important. His initial question to
Moshe represents this reasoning. Does a tallit made
completely of techeilet require a specific
fringe of techeilet as well, he asked? In
other words, he reasoned, if the blue fringe is supposed to ultimately remind
one of Hashem through association with the color of
sea and sky, a garment that is all blue should serve the same purpose. But
improvement and perfection are not achieved in one step. They require many
small steps toward ultimate fulfillment. That is why Hashem
gave His beloved people so many mitzvoth, so that by the process of doing them
and subordinating their will to His will, they would slowly perfect themselves
and achieve spiritual heights they would not achieve without the struggle and
the process. Korach wanted to jump toward the goal
and eliminate the steps, so he missed that top step and fell.
To help ourselves in our own mission, we must take some of the lessons of Korach’s failure to heart. It is commendable to aspire to
improve ourselves when we see an admirable quality in someone else. But we must
do so by working on ourselves and not make ourselves appear greater by
denigrating someone else. On the flip side, we must recognize our own
capabilities and work on maximizing those without comparing ourselves or our
children to others. This realization will keep us happy and content as we work
on the process to achieve our personal success.
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