Rabbi
Chaim Lifshitz
Weekly Reading:
Korah
Essays and Articles:
Go
to Hebrew site
|
Korah (Croesus)
Translated
from Hebrew by DR. S. NAthan
l'ilui
nishmat Esther bat mordechai
l'ilui nishmat mayer
hirsh ben laibel
While they had anulled the evil inclination which
leads to overt idolatry, the sages of the Talmud never
uprooted the underlying yetser hara that is the basis of
all covert idolatry.
THE
SIN OF SYSTEMIZATION GIVES BIRTH TO –
THE DEMOCRATIC FRAMEWORK.
Our sages anulled the "urge to create evil" that leads
to the sin that
tops the scale of all sins –
the tendency toward idolatry. They anulled this
urge in recognition
of the
fact that it is a tendency too difficult to
overcome. It is a
temptation too great and too unrelenting. It is
a tendency that
does not
derive from any specific rational or emotional
source. Rather, it
comes from laziness, from weakness of character and of
midot – and
these
exist at the very infrastructure of human
character. Their source
lies in fatigue, caused by the incessant need to
confront – and it is a
confrontation that is unrelenting – man’s spiritual
part as it is
forced to live the life of coarse and materialistic
physical
matter. Not only is man compelled to live with
it, as its
neighbor, but also to confront it and to conquer it,
until coarse
physical matter shall become the container and the
indentured servant
of the spirit.
One of the expressions of weakness, of allowing
inertia the upper hand
– is reducing the scope of the problem, to the point
that one
“pronounces the insect kosher.” One proclaims
that a certain
force of nature is proper and fitting to the point of
turning it into
one’s chosen life style, one's optimal modus operandi,
one of life’s
necessary and inevitable rules, an
elemental need without which life is impossible.
Temptation
endows this rule with a law-governed, legitimate
coloration.
This tendency to turn a temptation into a law exists,
and cannot be
ignored, because there is a need for method and for
order, without
which life is nothing but hefker, chaos and
abandon. Man accepts
order and method upon himself in order to spare
himself the need to
make a decision about every detail. A
generalized attitude toward
everything spares him the need to weigh and to relate
to every aspect
of every arbitrary detail. This is indeed a more
economical
approach, for the sake of efficiency, and it does
indeed prevent a
state of hefker. For without law, everything is
given over to the
worst method of all, the state of hefker, or worse yet
– random,
arbitrary chance. The Torah after all would be
the first to
object to this, to the random anarchy of “no judgment
and no judge,”
and Rabbi Yochanan long ago warned his students of
this: “Pray for the
peace of the regime, for were it not for the fear of
it, every man
would swallow his fellow alive.”
“All is foreseen” after all, and anything that has any
value is
designated within a plan, and this assists man to
predict things in
advance, for it is written: “All is foreseen.”
Some tend to forget the second part of this mishna:
“And permission is
granted.” This means that while it is true that
all is foreseen,
it is not to such an extent as to strangle an
individual’s personal
view of things.
If the rule that “all is foreseen” diverges from its
framework, which
is charged only with the duty of imposing order, if it
prevents a
necessary, creative divergence, then it has invaded
the private domain,
and then it obliterates this domain, and then – better
had the
framework never been born.
In our own era, we have witnessed the danger of the
all-consuming
order, in Nazism and in the disasters it brought upon
the world.
Presenting the rule, or the nationalistic ideal, or
any ideal as
valuable as it may be, as being so all-important as to
consume the
private domain – there can be no exaggerating the
peril this poses for
the human race.
We are witness to this plague of idolatry in the
modern era, for it is
a plague that managed to survive Chazal’s annulment of
the yester hara,
the evil urge of idolatry. This teaches you that
while our Sages
did succeed in abolishing the form of idolatry, they
did not tear out
and uproot the essential elemental tendency toward
laziness,
superficiality, and the denial of the private
individual.
The response is oft-repeated, though the details vary,
in reply to the
claim that the educational system must consider every
student’s
individual needs, and that such consideration is every
student’s basic
right: It is not practical, the cost is too high,
there are not enough
teachers, etc. What is to become of that weak
student, and what
is to become of that other gifted one? The
reality is that their
qualities are to be sacrificed for the good of the
superficial
majority, in whom no qualitative product lies hidden:
Banality’s
victory over quality.
Such laziness, which has no right to exist, relies on
the tendency
toward order and method, in the name of practical
utility, and
pragmatic reality, which brings results, and you shut
your mouth and
leave everybody alone. It’s no mitzvah to be
always criticizing
everyone.
Even this claim exists in the name of practicality,
and it even has a
rule attached to it: Don’t be right: Be smart.
Do not demand your
right to individuality. Do not express – your
own needs.
Merge with the masses and get off your – personal
quality. That
way you won’t be a nuisance and you won’t arouse the
ire of the masses.
Be smart! The great danger of systemization,
aside from being the
basis of idolatry, is that it takes over and devours
every expression
of value.
A Degenerate with the Torah’s Permission
Even man’s Godly expression, systemization wishes to
devour. Even
religion is comprised of rules, laws, ceremonies and
customs.
These exist on the external side of religion.
They have nothing
to do with the personal connection between the Creator
and the work of
His hands. The whispered yearning of a private
individual’s
prayer is worth ten times the value of a ceremonial
participation that
is hollow and meaningless. (See more on this
distinction as seen in
Rabban Gamliel’s formalistic approach to the
requirement of the prayer
of “eighteen blessings,” which he stipulates as
replacing the
sacrifices, whereas Rabbi Eliezer’s objects to this
approach.)
The Jewish religion aspires to the art of symbiosis,
the art of
creating balance between the private domain and the
public domain:
Between prayer from the depths of an individual’s
heart and the
participation in public prayer – without the latter
taking the place of
the former, God forbid, for the private individual’s
prayer is the
truest and most direct expression of the connection
between God’s
servant and his Creator. It rises out of the
knowledge that the
Master of the universe and all it contains is able to
bend His ear to
the distress and yearning of every individual at every
level.
As the Creator, so the creant, who is commanded to
attach and to cling
to the characteristic traits of the Creator.
Just as He
encompasses both the group and the individual, so you
too, do as He
does. Protect your personality and its private
quality within the
general public of Israel. This is a blessed
cooperation that goes
against superficial logic, which often sacrifices one
side at the
expense of the other.
Korach was the first to discover and to teach and to
preach the
priority of the group over the individual.
Korach even sought to
obscure and to void the uniqueness of the universe
within the group,
seeking thereby to prioritize the general public of
Israel over the
Creator of the universe – to cancel out quality
through quantity.
He preferred rules that require the ‘everything and
everybody’ approach
over the authority of the Creator of the Universe,
which is above
everything and above everybody.
Korach was espousing authority by the group, which
would erase within
itself the uniqueness and quality of a leader such as
Moshe, and erase
even the authority of the Creator of the universe:
“All of the group,
everybody is holy, and God is within them.”
Within them rather
than above them. Korach “who was clever” does
not deign to bestow
supreme authority upon God. In his great
kindness, he accepts Him
with open arms – within the group.
One of the leaders of the Religious Kibbutz movement
once told me –
during the era when there was not a rabbi to be found
in the Religious
Kibbutz for love or money – that they would agree to a
rabbi, but they
would not grant him any priority or authority.
His opinion would
not weigh more than the raised hand of any one of the
kibbutz comrades
at any general meeting – held in the lunchroom.
Korach’s cunning expressed itself in an ability to
garb himself
beautifully in the values of the group and the rights
of equality – for
the private individual. These beautiful garments
envelop one in
their suffocating embrace, strangling the needs of the
private
individual.
In the western world, talk about the rights of the
individual rules the
airwaves: The private individual’s right to dignity
and to
freedom. However, they impose these rules of
appropriate behavior
by force – the rules of what is acceptable.
Whoever deviates from
them is punished by a rejection that borders on
excommunication and
even outcast status – by the group, by society.
Under such
circumstances, the rights of the individual are pushed
aside and
shelved.
Korach even sought to trample “what is between man and
God” in the name
of democracy, the goal of which is supposedly to
benefit the private
individual. “God is within them.” The
glory of the
omnipresent One is given equal rights with the last of
the idiots.
Moshe sensed the danger hidden in this shrewd strategy
and asked of God
that He too act accordingly, and teach Korach a lesson
that would
diverge from any of the predictable, accepted
punishments.
The punishment of being swallowed by the earth would
be a swallowing
that would not strangle his private, personal
place. Korach and
his congregation are alive and well and fully
conscious, learning the
lesson of their error. Chazal tell us that from
inside the earth
they can be heard professing: “Moshe is true and is
Torah is true.”
Indeed, “there is such a thing as a degenerate with
the Torah’s
permission,” says the Ramban. He is a degenerate
because of his
strange intention, which he has covered and concealed
with a mantle of
Torah.
Strange Incense
Moshe acts out of character in face of the danger
threatening the
individual through society’s stranglehold embrace, but
he acts with no
feeling of bitterness or vengefulness. It might
seem that he was
tricking them into stumbling, by suggesting that they
offer “strange”
(not commanded by God) incense. Such offering
transgresses a
severe prohibition, and indeed they were burned by the
fire that broke
out.
Yet it appears to me that Moshe did not intend to
trick them into
stumbling, but rather to demonstrate the element that
proves the rank
and place of the private individual opposite the
Creator. There
is no expression so direct – of the bond between God’s
servant and his
Creator – as the offering of incense.
Incense does not compare in any way with the other
sacrifices.
With the other sacrifices, a human being offers real
and tangible
physical matter, which parallels the physical matter
within the human
being. The blood of the animal parallels one’s
own blood,
etc. Incense has only “a pleasing fragrance,”
and the smoke of
the incense curls upward in a direct line to
heaven. Incense
expresses the uniqueness of God, through the direct
intention and
cavana of the offerer, whose mind and emotions are
free of the weight
of flesh and blood. Only one’s thought in all
its purity
determines God’s uniqueness, and breaks forth to soar
to the lofty
heights, by way of the smoke and the fragrance of the
incense.
Perhaps Moshe was reasoning – hoping – that the
sanctity of the incense
would open the eyes of the incense offerers, and it
was for this
purpose alone that he suggested that they offer
incense.
(The miracle of the incense contrasts with the miracle
of Aharon’s
staff that blossomed. There no new creation was
innovated.
Aharon’s miracle did not diverge from any other
miracle in terms of the
extent to which it diverged from the routine of
natural process.
A miracle that transpires within nature comes to prove
the will of the
supreme One: Which among the two is the sacred one who
has been
chosen. Who among all the public of Israel has
been chosen to
serve in the worship of the mishkan, or to be more
precise, who has
been chosen to manage and to lead those who bear the
responsibility for
the sanctity of the mishkan and of God’s worship that
takes place
therein.)
It is important to mention, parenthetically, that
systemization
generally preens itself with the mantle of “scientific
method.”
This is true even in the medical field, whose
fundamental purpose is to
extend relief and healing to the private
individual. The truth of
the matter is that medicine especially serves as a
guinea pig for
proving “scientific” rules that are incompatible with
human beings due
to the nearly infinite complexity of the human being,
in spirit, life
force and body. This complexity and
compoundedness is constantly
creating new combinations – “there are new ones every
morning” – which
the rules of science could harm because of their
tendency to
reductiveness, aspiring to shrink everything to the
common denominator
that creates the group and ignores the exception.
So too with the legal system, and so too with the
educational
system. These systems were invented with the
claim that they were
there to help, yet ultimately they harm.
How deep this goes, for anyone truly impenetrated with
the influence of
the sin of systemization, can be demonstrated by the
seductive
systemization of our political government. Based
on the idol of
socialism, it establishes the value of the sacred
egalitarian society
as being high above the right of the individual.
My son Rav Yitzchak shlita, an acknowledged expert in
halacha and psak
(the rulings of Jewish law) published a work of
research that proves –
with a rigor and thoroughness that render his
conclusions incontestable
– the right of the individual to the money he has
amassed through
honest means. The halacha views an individual’s
right to his
properties and to his monies as a legitimate
matter. Society has
no right to extract this private money, despite the
halacha that gives
society the right to compel the wealthy to give of
their money to
support the poor, by the authority of the mitzvah of
tzedaka.
It is a common error among Israeli researchers, who
have been raised in
the lap of socialism and who lack a professional level
of scholarship
in the fundamentals of Jewish jurisprudence – to view
the right of the
public sector to compel tzedaka as evidence that the
Torah supports
socialism. Their enraged response to the
findings produced by my
son, who is considered a professional scholar by all
criteria, proves
that they have been blinded by worship of the idol of
socialism, and
that no evidence in the world, as professionally
rigorous as it might
be, can possibly budge them from their position that
is utterly without
basis. They do not budge, despite the fact
that the halacha
views public expropriation of private monies as
robbery in every sense
of the word.
Summary
Korach’s sin expresses the fundamental human tendency
to remove from
the rules of the game anything not subject to logical
process.
Logical process is a cognitive tool that is subject to
enslavement by
man. In his great arrogance, man heretically
casts off the
supreme authority any time it does not yield to human
logic. This
tendency exists in our own day as well. There is
no book dealing
with scientific description that does not open every
paragraph with
those charmed words: “Research has proven…” even if
the topic is
football. This is not to mention the popular
health and wellness
books. No one (of the masses) would take them
seriously if they
did not use this or a similar device.
A preference for research, which bestows the crown of
“science” upon
its own head, has pushed aside not only authority, and
with it, the
supreme authority as well, but also common sense, the
secret of human
wisdom. For without a supreme authority, we are left
with mere random
chance, and with it come wantonness and abandon,
running riot, merging
nicely with logical process, which knows how to get
along with any
tendency man might have.
|
|