I have shared with the readers a personal story about my great uncle Rav Yom Tov Lipa Drisinger, z”l, who was a talmid muvhak of the Galante Rav z”l. When he left Europe and accepted a shteller in the Bronx, he felt very unsettled, and he wrote a letter to his Rebbe, expressing how much he missed his Rebbe, and describing the challenges of being a Rav in America. The Rebbe sent him a timely response based on the mesorah quoted in the Baal Haturim in the beginning of this week’s parsha. ובקשתם גם כהונה– ובקשתם גם אותי – .ובקשתם אותי משם Korach seemingly had a strong claim: he wanted to be like Aharon the Kohen Gadol. However, there was a great flaw in his request that is hinted to in the two other sources quoted by the Baal Haturim. ובקשתם אותי if you are seeking Me, then בקשתם אותי משם seek Me from there, meaning, seek Me from where you are positioned now. By this the Galante Rav was telling his talmid to seek Hashem from his present position in America.
As we began to explain last week, the main source of destruction of the Jewish people was lack of emunah and trust in Hashem, which leads to things such as the sin of the meraglim or, as we see here, the rebellion of Korach. These things seem to be built on a positive argument, but ultimately they are flawed by the lack of trust and emunah that Hashem knows where and when to position a person, and that is from where He wants us to call and serve Him.
The Bais Halevi in his powerful essays on bitachon echoes the same message in his 24th essay. He explains that when a person has bitachon he won’t come to flattery of the rich or nivul peh – unclean language. To a baal emunah, there is no room for jealousy either, since he knows that all that Hashem does is for his best.
Let’s begin this new month with a hischadshus in emunah that אין עוד מלבדו –it’s all from Hashem and we trust Him completely. When we find ourselves in a very challenging time and place, we will rise to the challenge, and get even closer to Hashem.
Good Shabbos and Good Chodesh
by Rabbi Daniel Coren
