הבדלו מתוך העדה הזאת ואכלה אותם כרגע
“Dissociate yourselves from this congregation, and I will consume them in an instant.” (Bamidbar 16:21)
Hashem wanted to destroy the entire nation because of the machlokes of Korach. Machlokes poses the greatest dangers. R’ Moshe Sternbuch relates two story which bring out how careful and to what extent must one go to avoid machlokes.
When Rav Aharon Cohen, the Chofetz Chaim’s son-in-law, came to live in Yerusholayim, a comfortable apartment was located for him in Sha’arei Chesed, but then he suddenly moved to Yaffo. People enquired why he had left, and he replied that before he had taken leave of his father-in-law, the latter had made him promise that if there would be any machlokes where he lived he should leave his place of residence, and so he had fled from his home in Sha’arei Chesed because a machlokes had erupted within the community there.
Rav Sternbuch heard from an elderly Jew that there was a person in Brisk who was considered to be a talmid chochom and yorei shomayim, but Rav Chaim Brisker by virtue of his Torah insight realized that he had false views, and said that he was treif and had contaminated his mind with false views. However, when that person passed away, Rav Chaim participated in his levyah [funeral]. When someone asked him what he was doing there, since he himself had said that that person was treif, Rav Chaim responded that he knew that if he would not come to the funeral it would cause a machlokes in the town, and since that talmid chochom had not influenced others to adopt his false views, and since he had passed away and could now no longer harm others anyway, he wanted to participate in his levayah in order to prevent a machlokes in the town.
