THE THREE DISPUTES WITH KORACH
The Abarbanel is puzzled by the nature of the Torah’s description of Korach’s dispute with Moshe at the beginning of the parsha. First, the Torah states that Korach, along with Datan, Aviram, and Ohn from the tribe of Reuven, separated himself. The Torah then states, in a seemingly repetitive manner, that they stood before Moshe with two hundred and fifty men and that they gathered together again before Moshe and Aharon. The whole confrontation could have been reported in one sentence.
The Abarbanel explains that there were actually three separate disputes. First, Korach claimed that the office of the kohen gadol should have gone to him, not to Aharon. Leadership went to Moshe, as he was the son of Levi’s firstborn, Amram. The office of kohen gadol should have then gone to Korach, the son of Levi’s second-born, Yitzhar. The second dispute was between the firstborn of all the tribes and the tribe of Levi. At least some of them were angered by the fact that the privilege of serving in the Tabernacle was taken away from the firstborn and given to the tribe of Levi. The third dispute involved the tribe of Reuven, as represented by Datan, Aviram, and Ohn, who claimed that the privilege of royalty should have gone to them as offspring of Yaakov’s firstborn, and not to the tribe of Yehuda. This analysis explains a difficulty in the simple translation of the opening verse of the parsha, which states simply “And Korach took” without explaining just exactly what he took. The Aramaic translation of Onkelos takes this to mean that “he separated himself.” However, with the Abarbanel’s analysis, we can now understand the simple meaning as well — that Korach took along with him representatives from the tribe of Levi and the firstborn from the rest of the tribes to strengthen his own challenge by demonstrating that others had a problem with Moshe and Aharon as well.
The Abarbanel is also puzzled by Moshe’s immediate response to the challenge. Rather than admonishing them first for their brazen disrespect, he tells them that G-d will be the one to choose who is correct. He tells them to take the special utensils known as “fire-pans,” place incense in them, and bring them the following morning. G-d will either accept their offering or the offering of the Levites by bringing down a fire to ignite the incense. The Abarbanel points out that they were coming to Moshe with their challenge in the afternoon at the time of the Mincha offering and that their irrational behavior could be attributed to intoxication. Perhaps, by the following morning, they would realize the folly of challenging what Moshe knew was G-d’s will. Moshe also realized that it would be useless, and even counter-productive, to immediately criticize them at a time when they were clearly angry. He would probably only make the situation worse. Only after deflecting the challenge away from himself and Aharon and making it clear that G-d would be the one to decide, Moshe goes on to admonish directly by telling them, “You and your entire assembly who are joining together are against G-d!”
Moshe and Shmuel
This week’s haftarah requires no deep analysis to understand our Rabbis’ choice of the eleventh and twelfth chapters of Shmuel Aleph for today’s haftarah. The rebellion of Korach and his followers against the leadership of Moshe and Aharon read in today’s parasha was not simply a denial of Hashem’s choice but also a reflection of a blindness to His guiding hand and His ongoing miracles. The rebels' refusal to recognize the Divine choice of Moshe would also mean a denial of the Divine hand in the miracles Moshe had performed. In today’s haftarah, we read of the people’s request for a king to replace Shmuel HaNavi, a request that G-d Himself states is a rejection of His leadership.
The two stories, that of the parasha and that of the haftarah, underscore the parallels between the two stories in the very language that is used. Moshe proclaims his innocence before Hashem with the argument “Lo chamor echad me’hem nasati” (“I have not taken even one donkey from them”), while Shmuel asks the people “...vachamor mi lakachti...” (“...and whose donkey have I ever taken...?”). Shmuel reviews the kindnesses G-d had done for the nation by beginning “Hashem, who made Moshe and Aharon (your leaders),” a phrase implying that G-d chose Shmuel to be their leader as well. Nor should we ignore the irony of the haftarah story in which Shmuel, a direct descendant of Korach himself, is now forced to defend his actions as the nation’s leader just as Moshe was forced to defend his leadership from the accusations of Shmuel’s ancestor, Korach.
But we would be remiss were we to see these two stories as perfect parallels, for there is an essential difference between them. The Israelites of Shmuel’s time had no intention of rebelling against Shmuel’s leadership or questioning his being chosen by G-d. They accepted Shmuel as their prophet, their “religious” guide. Indeed, they loved him, but they desired a king to serve as military/political leader. As they saw it, they were fulfilling a mitzvah given in the Torah: “You shall certainly place a king over you,” one of the three commandments required upon settling the land, according to the Rambam.
The nation’s mistake, I would suggest, is that they believed that the king would “fight our battles,” implying that victory would depend upon the monarch and not upon G-d Himself. This is why Hashem comforts Shmuel by telling him that the people had rejected Him, the Al-mighty, and not Shmuel. The gravity of their sin is that it reflected their blindness to the miraculous victories Hashem had wrought against their enemies, including the victory over the Plishtim whom He had just vanquished. In doing so, the nation repeated the very same sin committed by Korach and his followers, a blindness to the miracles performed by G-d through His chosen leaders. Ingratitude is more than a refusal to pay thanks. It is a selfishness that refuses to allow one to recognize an act of generosity and care. And that was shared by both Korach’s followers and the nation of Shmuel.
RABBI PINCHAS KASNETT OHR.EDU
RABBI NACHMAN WINKLER
