Judaism and Jewish Teaching on Korach – Torah & Why Korach’s Jewish Rebellion Is Still Dangerous Today

0:00 SPEAKER_00: There are two guys marching on a protest of thousands in New York.

0:05 SPEAKER_00: They know each other, one's Chinese and one's Jewish, and they know each other, they don't like each other very much.

0:11 SPEAKER_00: And they're walking along, suddenly the Jew turns around to the Chinese man and says, I don't like the Chinese.

0:18 SPEAKER_00: The Chinese man turns around and says, Why not?

0:20 SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, you guys bombed Pearl Harbor.

0:24 SPEAKER_00: The Chinese man turns around and he says, What are you talking about?

0:27 SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the Chinese that bombed Pearl Harbor, it was the Japanese.

0:31 SPEAKER_00: And the Jew says, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, you're all the same.

0:36 SPEAKER_00: The Chinese man, of course, quite rightly, is very, very insulted.

0:40 SPEAKER_00: They carry on walking, and the Chinese man turns around and he says, Well, I don't like Jews.

0:45 SPEAKER_00: And the Jew says, Why not?

0:47 SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, you guys sunk the Titanic.

0:50 SPEAKER_00: And the Jews outraged.

0:51 SPEAKER_00: The Jew says, What are you talking about?

0:53 SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the Jews that sunk the Titanic, it was an iceberg.

0:57 SPEAKER_00: The Chinese guy turns around and he says, Iceberg, Rosenberg, Goldberg, you're all the same.

1:04 SPEAKER_00: So, of course, this week's Pasha is a protest.

1:08 SPEAKER_00: It's Korach and the people that follow him.

1:11 SPEAKER_00: And it's a devastating episode.

1:14 SPEAKER_00: He challenges Moshe Naran's leadership, and it ends up with him and the direct people around him being swallowed up by the ground, and 250 leaders of Klali Shael get consumed in a fire.

1:28 SPEAKER_00: And then there's a plague in which 14,700 people die.

1:33 SPEAKER_00: It's a devastating episode.

1:36 SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting, of course, is that you think about 40 years in the Midbar in the wilderness, how many other protests were there?

1:44 SPEAKER_00: I mean, we don't know.

1:45 SPEAKER_00: The Torah's not a history book.

1:47 SPEAKER_00: The Torah only tells us things that we need to know about.

1:50 SPEAKER_00: So how many protests we don't know.

1:52 SPEAKER_00: But we know about this one.

1:54 SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting is the Torah spends 63 Pasukit on Korach's rebellion and the aftermath of it.

2:02 SPEAKER_00: Which means it's important.

2:04 SPEAKER_00: Which means there are lessons to be learned.

2:07 SPEAKER_00: And I think when we look at Korach's rebellion, the reason why the Torah spends so long on it is not for the challenge to Moshe and Aaron's leadership, because if it was merely that, I'm not sure it would get covered at all.

2:21 SPEAKER_00: But actually, it's that not only does Korach challenge Moshe and Aaron's leadership, but the way he does it challenges the very fabric of Judaism.

2:31 SPEAKER_00: And I would go further and say the fundamentals of creation itself, and therefore the lessons that we learn from what Korach does, and the takeaways that we must have from the pasha and use in our own lives become so vitally important.

2:50 SPEAKER_00: So of course, Korach, who's a genius of communication, turns round to Moshe and Aaron.

2:57 SPEAKER_00: And what does he say?

2:58 SPEAKER_00: He says, Kulam Kurashim, we're all holy.

3:02 SPEAKER_00: Everyone's holy.

3:04 SPEAKER_00: And of course, it's such a palatable message.

3:07 SPEAKER_00: You think for every Jew to hear Korach saying, everyone's holy, people want to buy into that.

3:13 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're all holy.

3:14 SPEAKER_00: And you go, where does that come from?

3:16 SPEAKER_00: So Rashi on that brings down from the Midrash in Tanchumah that when Korak says everyone's holy, he's saying, Because every Jew is a Hasina.

3:27 SPEAKER_00: Every Jew experienced Matan Torah, the greatest revelation in the history of the world.

3:32 SPEAKER_00: And every Jew heard Hashem say at least the first two of the Iserat Adibrat of the Ten Commandments.

3:39 SPEAKER_00: Every Jew heard that.

3:41 SPEAKER_00: And so every Jew is holy.

3:43 SPEAKER_00: Every Jew is special.

3:45 SPEAKER_00: Of course, it's a very palatable message.

3:48 SPEAKER_00: And then it's what Korak says next.

3:51 SPEAKER_00: And therefore, if every Jew is holy, Moshe and Aaron, why do you, and the word he uses is titnasu, why do you raise yourself or elevate yourself above the rest of the kahal, about above the rest of the congregation?

4:07 SPEAKER_00: In other words, if every Jew is holy, then we're all the same.

4:12 SPEAKER_00: And if we're all the same, Moshe and Aaron, why do you get to lead?

4:16 SPEAKER_00: Why are you telling us what to do?

4:18 SPEAKER_00: Why are you deciphering halacha?

4:21 SPEAKER_00: And of course, in that one assumption, Korach then challenges distinctions and boundaries and the different functions that people have.

4:32 SPEAKER_00: And actually he attempts to undo the foundation of Judaism and creation itself.

4:40 SPEAKER_00: And the worst thing about this, of course, is if Korach was making some moral argument, if Korach was doing this from beliefs and convictions, then we might say, okay, he's wrong, he's mistaken, but this is his views in the world.

4:58 SPEAKER_00: But of course, our understanding is that ultimately Korach had an ulterior motive.

5:03 SPEAKER_00: Korach wanted to be Koengadot.

5:06 SPEAKER_00: Korak wanted Aaron's position.

5:09 SPEAKER_00: And therefore, this isn't even being said out of conviction.

5:13 SPEAKER_00: This is being said because he wants to be Koen Gadot.

5:17 SPEAKER_00: In other words, everyone's holy, but actually, I would like to be the high priest.

5:21 SPEAKER_00: I would like to be the Koengadot.

5:24 SPEAKER_00: And so it's a terrible thing that Korak does.

5:27 SPEAKER_00: And it brings Klali Shael to its knees.

5:30 SPEAKER_00: We see 14,700 people die in a plague.

5:34 SPEAKER_00: So let's unpick what Korach does and let's understand why it's so bad, and so we can take these lessons away into our own lives.

5:43 SPEAKER_00: So he says, Kulam Kurashim, everyone is holy, comes along Rav Shim Sham Raphael Hirsch, and he explains if you look at Pasha Yitra before we receive the Asarat Adibra, before Matan Torah, and what does Hashem say?

6:00 SPEAKER_00: He says, You shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

6:05 SPEAKER_00: You shall be or you shall become.

6:09 SPEAKER_00: In other words, Hashem doesn't say you are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

6:14 SPEAKER_00: He said you shall become a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

6:18 SPEAKER_00: We're not there yet.

6:20 SPEAKER_00: We have the potential to get there.

6:22 SPEAKER_00: And that's repeated in Pasha Mishpatim when Hashem says you shall be holy, you shall become holy.

6:28 SPEAKER_00: And of course, in Seifa Vayikra, in Pasha Kadoshin, Hashem says, You shall be or you shall become holy, for I, Hashem, your God, am holy.

6:39 SPEAKER_00: In other words, Hashem says, I'm holy.

6:42 SPEAKER_00: Hashem is holy.

6:43 SPEAKER_00: And he says, You shall become holy.

6:45 SPEAKER_00: It's an unbelievable idea.

6:48 SPEAKER_00: We have the ability to become holy.

6:50 SPEAKER_00: We have the ability to elevate ourselves spiritually.

6:55 SPEAKER_00: But what Korach does is deliberately confuse potential with achievement.

7:01 SPEAKER_00: We have the potential to be holy, but we're not yet holy.

7:06 SPEAKER_00: And that means we have to strive and we have to grow and we have to learn and we have to listen to Moshe and Aaron and today are abonim.

7:14 SPEAKER_00: Of course, what Korach is saying is we've already arrived.

7:18 SPEAKER_00: We're already there.

7:20 SPEAKER_00: So why do we need to strive?

7:21 SPEAKER_00: And why do we need to grow?

7:23 SPEAKER_00: And why do we need to have the authority of Moshe and Aaron?

7:26 SPEAKER_00: Because we're already there.

7:28 SPEAKER_00: And of course, we live in this world today.

7:32 SPEAKER_00: We live in this world today where everyone's holy, everybody's equal, everybody counts.

7:37 SPEAKER_00: And social media does a beautiful uh way of managing that.

7:42 SPEAKER_00: So we have a situation today where you have people putting their views on social media, YouTube channels with thousands, tens of thousands, millions of viewers, some of whom are real experts and have real authority in what they're saying.

7:56 SPEAKER_00: And some people who have no right to be having these channels, but because they have extreme views, they get lots of clicks, it's newsworthy, and they become authorities with no substance at all.

8:07 SPEAKER_00: And then you have shows.

8:08 SPEAKER_00: I don't know if anybody's seen Piers Morgan, but Piers Morgan has shows where he interviews people on very controversial subjects, but they'll often have subject matter experts who really understand what they're talking about.

8:19 SPEAKER_00: Whether you agree with them or not doesn't matter.

8:22 SPEAKER_00: Alongside people who are nobody's, they just have a lot of followers online.

8:27 SPEAKER_00: But everybody's holy, everybody's equal.

8:30 SPEAKER_00: And so we now live in a world where everybody's opinion has value, has equal value.

8:38 SPEAKER_00: Everybody's perspective has equal authority.

8:42 SPEAKER_00: Everybody's truth is an equal truth.

8:44 SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's not the case.

8:47 SPEAKER_00: And it just leads to a world of confusion.

8:50 SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows what's right and wrong anymore.

8:52 SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows what to believe, and of course, it produces a cynicism in authority generally in the breakdown of many institutions, which is what we see in the Western world.

9:01 SPEAKER_00: That's what Korak does.

9:03 SPEAKER_00: Everyone's holy, so why Moshe and Aaron get to elevate themselves?

9:07 SPEAKER_00: Why should we be listening to them?

9:09 SPEAKER_00: We're all here, we're all equal, we've all arrived.

9:12 SPEAKER_00: It's a very, very sinister idea, but so palatable because people want to believe they're already there.

9:18 SPEAKER_00: Growth and learning is hard.

9:20 SPEAKER_00: Saying you're already there makes life easier.

9:24 SPEAKER_00: And if we understand that, we can then understand these stories about Korach, very famous.

9:31 SPEAKER_00: So we have the first one, they're both in the Midrash, but the first one is actually in the Gomorrah in Sanhedrin in 110 Ahmed Alf.

9:39 SPEAKER_00: And it says, Korach says, a beged, a garment made entirely of Techylet.

9:45 SPEAKER_00: Does it need the four strings of Sitzit of Techelet on each corner?

9:50 SPEAKER_00: And of course Moshe turns around and says, Yes.

9:53 SPEAKER_00: And Korach mocks him.

9:55 SPEAKER_00: How can that be?

9:56 SPEAKER_00: How can you have an entire garment made of Techelet and then it needs an extra four strings, one on each corner, for it to be elevated to be holy?

10:05 SPEAKER_00: That's nonsense, Moshe.

10:07 SPEAKER_00: And then the second story, which follows in the Midrash in Bamid Barabah and Tanchuma, it's not in the Gomorrah, is Korach says a room full of Sifre Torah.

10:18 SPEAKER_00: Does it need to have a mezuzah on the door?

10:20 SPEAKER_00: And of course Moshe says yes.

10:22 SPEAKER_00: And Korach Moksim, what do you mean?

10:24 SPEAKER_00: You've got all these Sifre Torah, hundreds, maybe thousands, depending on how many Sifre Torah you have, of Pasukim.

10:30 SPEAKER_00: And you're telling me you need the two paragraphs of the Shema in a mezuzah on the door to make the room holy?

10:36 SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about, Moshe?

10:39 SPEAKER_00: And of course, this whole perspective of Korach is the Jewish people are already holy.

10:45 SPEAKER_00: They don't need to be elevated.

10:46 SPEAKER_00: And the beggat that's made of Tachelet is already holy.

10:50 SPEAKER_00: It doesn't need any distinctions or boundaries, these four corners, to become holy.

10:56 SPEAKER_00: And the room full of Sifray Torah, it's already holy.

11:00 SPEAKER_00: Of course, the Sifre Torah are holy, but the room itself isn't sanctified.

11:04 SPEAKER_00: But Korah says it is.

11:05 SPEAKER_00: It doesn't need the mezuzah on the door, the boundary, the distinction, to then make it holy.

11:10 SPEAKER_00: And so what Korach is doing is getting rid of boundaries and distinctions and limitations.

11:18 SPEAKER_00: And of course he's getting rid of limitations because he wants to be Cohen Gadol and he's a levy.

11:23 SPEAKER_00: He can't be Kohen Gadol.

11:25 SPEAKER_00: But his whole argument is why can't anyone be a Kohen?

11:29 SPEAKER_00: Why can't anyone bring Khatoret, bring an incense offering?

11:33 SPEAKER_00: Why is every tribe limited to their own roles?

11:36 SPEAKER_00: Why can't anybody do anything?

11:38 SPEAKER_00: He doesn't accept the limits.

11:40 SPEAKER_00: He sees limits as preventing holiness.

11:44 SPEAKER_00: But it's the opposite.

11:45 SPEAKER_00: Limits and boundaries and distinctions is what allow holiness to emerge.

11:51 SPEAKER_00: And it's the whole fabric of creation itself.

11:54 SPEAKER_00: Because when Hashem creates the world, what does he do?

11:58 SPEAKER_00: He separates light from darkness.

12:00 SPEAKER_00: They're distinctive and distinguished between each other.

12:03 SPEAKER_00: He separates the heaven and the earth.

12:06 SPEAKER_00: He separates dry land from the sea.

12:08 SPEAKER_00: And then a little bit later on he separates Shabbat from the rest of the days of the week.

12:14 SPEAKER_00: And then he separates the Jewish people, Klali Israel, from the rest of the nations.

12:19 SPEAKER_00: And then within the Jewish people, he separates the Kohenim and the Leviim and the Israelim.

12:24 SPEAKER_00: And those things matter because you cannot experience light if it's not separated from darkness.

12:31 SPEAKER_00: You cannot experience dry land if it's not separated from the sea.

12:36 SPEAKER_00: You cannot experience Shabbat if it's not separate from the rest of the days of the week.

12:41 SPEAKER_00: You can't have a Jewish people if there's no non-Jews in the world.

12:45 SPEAKER_00: You can't have Koanim if there are no non-Kohenim.

12:49 SPEAKER_00: This separation, the distinctiveness, actually is required for us to experience the world, for the world to actually function and work.

12:57 SPEAKER_00: And holiness emerges from those distinctions.

13:01 SPEAKER_00: Shabbat allows an encounter with Hashem that you couldn't have at any other time, but it emerges because there are limits.

13:08 SPEAKER_00: Because Shabbat is only 25 hours of week.

13:12 SPEAKER_00: One day of the week because the other days are whole.

13:15 SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, it can't emerge the holiness.

13:18 SPEAKER_00: And so Korah is not just challenging the leadership of Moshe and Aaron.

13:23 SPEAKER_00: He's challenging the very fabric of Judaism and the very fabric of creation itself.

13:29 SPEAKER_00: And that's why Moshe does something unusual and seemingly out of character, although it isn't.

13:35 SPEAKER_00: Moshe is the great lover of the Jewish people.

13:38 SPEAKER_00: Moshe is the great defender of the Jewish people.

13:42 SPEAKER_00: And so what happens at Haita Egel, the sin of the golden calf?

13:46 SPEAKER_00: Moshe defends the Jewish people and dovens for them, he prays for them.

13:50 SPEAKER_00: And when the Moruglims sin, Moshe dovens and prays for the Jewish people.

13:55 SPEAKER_00: And yet this time what does Moshe do?

13:57 SPEAKER_00: Moshe prays to Hashem that the offering that the 250 leaders are going to make is not accepted.

14:05 SPEAKER_00: And then he also dovens that an unusual death should happen and Korak and his small band should be swallowed up by the ground.

14:13 SPEAKER_00: This is the lover of Klali Ishrael.

14:16 SPEAKER_00: Why would Moshe doven for that?

14:18 SPEAKER_00: Because this isn't about Moshe's leadership.

14:20 SPEAKER_00: If this was about Moshe and Aaron's leadership and just his own hold on power, Moshe wouldn't have dovened for that.

14:27 SPEAKER_00: Moshe was too humble, too great a human being.

14:30 SPEAKER_00: Moshe realizes what's at stake.

14:33 SPEAKER_00: What's at stake is the fabric of Judaism itself, the fabric of creation itself.

14:39 SPEAKER_00: And therefore, as a lover of the Jewish people, he has to make sure that this rebellion doesn't succeed.

14:44 SPEAKER_00: And so he asks Hashem to not accept the offering of the 250, and he asks Hashem for a supernatural death to occur of Korach.

14:53 SPEAKER_00: And so the people can see that Korach and his followers are in the wrong.

14:59 SPEAKER_00: And there what we have and we can understand is this whole situation with the Khatoret, with the incense, which becomes so important in this week's pasha.

15:09 SPEAKER_00: So Moshe says to these 250 leaders, bring an incense offering, and then we'll see who Hashem chooses, Korach or me.

15:17 SPEAKER_00: And will you say, why the incense?

15:20 SPEAKER_00: Because the incense represents boundaries and distinctions.

15:24 SPEAKER_00: Because Nadavanavihu died when they brought incense, the inauguration of the Mishkan, which wasn't accepted, it wasn't allowed.

15:34 SPEAKER_00: They crossed the boundary.

15:36 SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, they crossed the boundary out of love, not out of rebellion.

15:39 SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, they crossed the boundary, and unfortunately, they paid for it with their lives.

15:44 SPEAKER_00: And so Moshe is telling them to take the Khutareth because he's reminding them.

15:48 SPEAKER_00: Remember what happened to Nadava Navihu.

15:51 SPEAKER_00: There are boundaries, there are distinctions in life.

15:54 SPEAKER_00: You can't cross them.

15:55 SPEAKER_00: You can't bring the Khtoret.

15:57 SPEAKER_00: You say you can because everybody's equally holy, but you can't.

16:01 SPEAKER_00: And of course they bring it, and the 250 are consumed by a fire that comes down.

16:07 SPEAKER_00: And then Kurach is so persuasive with this palatable egalitarian argument that everyone is holy, that the people say to Moshe and Aaron, when Korak and these leaders of Klali Shael die, you have killed the people of Hashem.

16:23 SPEAKER_00: And then a plague breaks out, and Aaron has to stop the plague.

16:27 SPEAKER_00: And how does he stop the plague?

16:29 SPEAKER_00: With the Qataret.

16:30 SPEAKER_00: Why with the Qataret?

16:32 SPEAKER_00: Because he wants to know the Khtoret represent boundaries, but the very Qataret that killed these 250 people are now going to save the rest of Klali Shrael because it's not the Qatar itself that kills.

16:46 SPEAKER_00: It's the crossing of boundaries.

16:48 SPEAKER_00: And then the Torah tells us something that seems so innocuous and is so important because, of course, the Torah doesn't waste words.

16:55 SPEAKER_00: We're told that Aaron takes the fire pan of Khutoret and it tells us in the Torah he stands between the living and the dead.

17:04 SPEAKER_00: Why do we need to know that?

17:05 SPEAKER_00: He takes the Khatoret and the plague stops and he saves Klalia Sha'el.

17:09 SPEAKER_00: Why do we need to be told he stands between the living and the dead?

17:14 SPEAKER_00: What's important about that?

17:15 SPEAKER_00: Because that's a distinction.

17:17 SPEAKER_00: He's standing between the living on one side and the dead on the other.

17:21 SPEAKER_00: That is a distinction.

17:22 SPEAKER_00: And of course, everybody wants to be on the side of the living.

17:26 SPEAKER_00: It's the representation of these boundaries, of these distinctions that cannot be crossed because it's the way that the world functions.

17:34 SPEAKER_00: And so he it's a lesson to the rest of Klali Shrael, what's gone on.

17:39 SPEAKER_00: This is the distinction.

17:40 SPEAKER_00: And he brings the Qatar into that place, and thankfully the plague stops, even though 14,700 people die.

17:50 SPEAKER_00: And the point is when Korak says everyone is holy, we have to understand.

17:56 SPEAKER_00: Everyone is equal in value.

17:59 SPEAKER_00: Everyone is made but Selemelokim.

18:02 SPEAKER_00: Everyone has a tough kid, a mission, a role, a purpose in life that no one else can do.

18:10 SPEAKER_00: Everybody's special.

18:12 SPEAKER_00: But what you cannot confuse is value of human beings over function.

18:20 SPEAKER_00: Every human being has equal value, but that doesn't mean they're equal they have an equal function.

18:26 SPEAKER_00: Right?

18:27 SPEAKER_00: Khal Yisrael, Am Yishrael can't have 15 million Moshe Rabinus.

18:32 SPEAKER_00: And so some people's roles are very public and seemingly very important.

18:36 SPEAKER_00: And other people's roles are much more private and seemingly on face value, less important.

18:42 SPEAKER_00: But everybody has their special role to do.

18:45 SPEAKER_00: Everybody has a tough kid that no one else can do.

18:48 SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem.

18:50 SPEAKER_00: Once you say that everybody's equal, not just in value but in function, everybody's the same, then actually what you say is, so how come Moshe and Aaron are elevated above everybody else?

19:04 SPEAKER_00: And what Korach implies, and we live in the modern world that says this, is if everybody's the same and everybody's equal, then if people rise above others, it must be because of discrimination and inequality.

19:17 SPEAKER_00: It can't be for any other reason.

19:20 SPEAKER_00: How can it be?

19:21 SPEAKER_00: So Moshe and Aaron have cheated the system, they've discriminated, there's an inequality, and they're above everybody else.

19:27 SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's the world we live in today.

19:30 SPEAKER_00: And I'll just give you one example.

19:33 SPEAKER_00: But you take the STEM subjects.

19:35 SPEAKER_00: So the STEM subjects are science, technology, engineering, and maths.

19:39 SPEAKER_00: Those are the STEM subjects.

19:40 SPEAKER_00: And they have been overwhelmingly dominated by men in the world.

19:45 SPEAKER_00: And so there's been a movement for a very long time in the Western world to use all sorts of policies and education and other things to even up the field because, of course, it's discriminatory and there's inequality, which is why more men are doing STEM subjects than women are doing.

20:02 SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, if women want to go into STEM, they should be allowed to.

20:06 SPEAKER_00: That's not what we're talking about.

20:08 SPEAKER_00: But what we're talking about this idea that if there's more men in STEM than women, it must be because of discrimination and inequality.

20:16 SPEAKER_00: So this has been going on for a very long time in the West.

20:19 SPEAKER_00: And where are we currently?

20:21 SPEAKER_00: 70%, so over two-thirds, of all STEM jobs are still done by men.

20:27 SPEAKER_00: So of course people want to say there's still inequality and still discrimination.

20:31 SPEAKER_00: But as a psychologist, let me give you a different view.

20:34 SPEAKER_00: If you look at the psychology of men, and of course there are differences and there are outliers, and women are allowed to go into STEM subjects.

20:42 SPEAKER_00: But we're trying to explain why so few do compared with men.

20:46 SPEAKER_00: If you look at the psychology of men, in general, men like things.

20:52 SPEAKER_00: They like stuff, they get intrigued by how stuff works and things.

20:57 SPEAKER_00: And therefore we have a phrase boys and their toys, because men tend to like gadgets.

21:02 SPEAKER_00: You look at women, women in general are much more motivated by people.

21:07 SPEAKER_00: So of course, men are attracted to science and technology and engineering and maths.

21:13 SPEAKER_00: Things that are about stuff, about how stuff works, about how you put together, about innovation.

21:19 SPEAKER_00: Women are more interested in people.

21:21 SPEAKER_00: And actually, if you look at the social sciences, if you look at things like sociology and psychology, those jobs are overwhelmingly dominated by women.

21:31 SPEAKER_00: Why?

21:31 SPEAKER_00: Because they're about people.

21:33 SPEAKER_00: And women are much more motivated by people in general.

21:37 SPEAKER_00: So when you have this difference of who's in social sciences and who's in STEM, you can say it's because of discrimination and inequality, but you can also say it's just because men and women are different.

21:51 SPEAKER_00: They have different motivations, and we need difference in the world.

21:56 SPEAKER_00: Difference is good.

21:57 SPEAKER_00: If you look at a safe Torah, it's It's not written with one letter.

22:01 SPEAKER_00: It's written with all the different letters in the alphabet.

22:04 SPEAKER_00: And all of those letters come together to produce a unified document called a seifora.

22:10 SPEAKER_00: There's unity in the difference.

22:13 SPEAKER_00: You can produce oneness in the difference.

22:15 SPEAKER_00: And you look at the human body, and we have lots of different things that have different functions: eyes and ears and a nose and a mouth and arms and legs and a heart and a brain.

22:24 SPEAKER_00: But all of those things, all those different things can come together to produce oneness, to produce unity, a single human being.

22:32 SPEAKER_00: And therefore, in Khlal Israel, every person is different.

22:36 SPEAKER_00: Every person has a different job to do.

22:38 SPEAKER_00: Every person has a different tough kid, a different mission and purpose.

22:42 SPEAKER_00: But when everybody fulfills their mission and purpose, what you have is one people, one nation, Khlal Israel, doing and fulfilling the mission that Hashem has given them.

22:54 SPEAKER_00: And when you say everybody's the same, it's actually sinister.

22:58 SPEAKER_00: Because if everybody's the same, then nobody's special.

23:02 SPEAKER_00: Everybody's replaceable.

23:04 SPEAKER_00: And that's not what we say in the Jewish world.

23:06 SPEAKER_00: We say that everybody has their own tough kit, their own mission that no one else can do.

23:12 SPEAKER_00: And therefore, what that means, and some of these roles might be seemingly more important than others, but what that means is everybody is irreplaceable.

23:21 SPEAKER_00: Everybody is special, and that is the dignity of difference.

23:26 SPEAKER_00: That we're all different, and we're all special because we have a different role to play.

23:34 SPEAKER_00: Once Korah has undermined all of this, of course, the last thing that gets undermined by all of this is the challenge to authority itself.

23:43 SPEAKER_00: Because he says to Moshe and Aaron, why do you, Titna Su, why do you elevate yourself above everybody else?

23:51 SPEAKER_00: In other words, who are you to decide for Halacha?

23:53 SPEAKER_00: Who are you to decide what happens?

23:57 SPEAKER_00: And of course, this is such a fundamental challenge to Judaism.

24:00 SPEAKER_00: So we have a very important pasuk in Pasha Bashalh, after Kriyat Yam Suf, the crossing of the Red Sea.

24:07 SPEAKER_00: It says, and they believed in Hashem and his servant Moshe.

24:13 SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, we all need to believe in Hashem, we understand that.

24:16 SPEAKER_00: Why did we need to believe in his servant Moshe?

24:20 SPEAKER_00: Because Moshe wasn't just leader of the Jewish people, he starts, he's the starting point of rabbinic Judaism.

24:27 SPEAKER_00: So we have this idea that Kotskarebbi puts beautifully.

24:31 SPEAKER_00: The first four books of the Torah, Bareshit, Shemot, Vahitkara, Bamidbah, is the word of Hashem.

24:37 SPEAKER_00: Hashem speaks, Moshe writes it down and he says, Amen.

24:41 SPEAKER_00: But Seifah Devorim?

24:43 SPEAKER_00: Seifer Devorim is the words of Moshe.

24:46 SPEAKER_00: And the Kotskarebbi says, Moshe speaks, and Hashem says, Amen.

24:50 SPEAKER_00: In other words, that fifth book is ratified by Hashem.

24:53 SPEAKER_00: Hashem is the one that said it should go into the Torah.

24:56 SPEAKER_00: But it's actually the words of Moshe, even though it's vindicated by Hashem.

25:00 SPEAKER_00: And what we have in that last book of the Torah, then, is we have a transition going from the word of Hashem directly in the first four books to the words of Moshe ratified by Hashem, because that is the link, the evolution into then what becomes rabbinic Judaism.

25:16 SPEAKER_00: Because if a posek follows the methodology given to Moshe at Hasini and follows all of that when he's trying to decipher new halacha, as long as he follows the process and is searching for emet, searching for truth, whatever decision he comes to, we understand that Hashem accepts.

25:36 SPEAKER_00: And we need that idea in Judaism because it's what allows Judaism to live and thrive, because it allows halacha to react to all new sorts of new things.

25:45 SPEAKER_00: Whether it's the invention of electricity or new developments in medicine, or whether it's self-driving cars or AI, Judaism can react because we have the ability of a POSEC to sit down and decipher what the halacha should be.

26:02 SPEAKER_00: But if we don't allow that, then Judaism's stuck.

26:06 SPEAKER_00: It can't operate anymore.

26:08 SPEAKER_00: It becomes an anachronism.

26:10 SPEAKER_00: It can't move forward.

26:12 SPEAKER_00: We can't react to the modern world.

26:14 SPEAKER_00: And so we need to have this acceptance of rabbinic authority.

26:18 SPEAKER_00: And of course we'll all say, well, we're not Korakh, we don't challenge it like that.

26:22 SPEAKER_00: But of course we do really, because we live in the most amazing world.

26:26 SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing.

26:28 SPEAKER_00: But if you go back 50 years, 100 years, someone couldn't learn Gomorrah on their own.

26:33 SPEAKER_00: It would be impossible.

26:34 SPEAKER_00: But today we have the Koran Gomorrahs and we have uh the art scroll, and they have all of this commentary in them.

26:42 SPEAKER_00: And therefore, still better to learn with someone else, by the way, but therefore you can pick up a Gomorrah today, and with the commentaries and the explanations, you can understand it.

26:52 SPEAKER_00: And then of course we go online and look up so many things.

26:55 SPEAKER_00: And we have Rabbi Google and Rabbi ChatGPT and Rabbi Claude and all the other AI models.

27:01 SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying any of those things are not good.

27:04 SPEAKER_00: The fact that we can learn better, learn deeper, there's more access to knowledge in Yiddishkite is amazing.

27:11 SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that isn't.

27:13 SPEAKER_00: But what we have to be careful of is that we don't then use that to challenge rabbinic authority.

27:19 SPEAKER_00: Because reading a medical paper doesn't make you a surgeon.

27:23 SPEAKER_00: Reading a legal document doesn't make you a judge.

27:26 SPEAKER_00: But you know, you do hear people all the time say, Well, my rabbi said this, but I went on Google and I'm not sure I agree.

27:33 SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?

27:35 SPEAKER_00: We have to be very, very careful.

27:37 SPEAKER_00: Yes, we should embrace all this new learning and all these new opportunities.

27:41 SPEAKER_00: Nobody's saying otherwise.

27:43 SPEAKER_00: But we also have to respect rabbinic authority.

27:46 SPEAKER_00: And Korach wanted to undo that almost before it began.

27:51 SPEAKER_00: And so we learn tremendous things in this week's pasha.

27:55 SPEAKER_00: This idea of Kulam Kuroshim, we're all holy.

27:58 SPEAKER_00: No, we're not all holy.

28:00 SPEAKER_00: We all have the potential to get there, but we have to strive and we have to learn and we have to grow and we have to listen to our rabbonim and do our very best.

28:07 SPEAKER_00: And then Bizraq Hashem, we should all get there.

28:10 SPEAKER_00: We should all get to fulfill our potential and be holy.

28:13 SPEAKER_00: And when Qrach says we're all holy, and the implication is we're all the same, with that, he undermines any sort of authority.

28:20 SPEAKER_00: He actually undermines the specialness of every Jew.

28:24 SPEAKER_00: Because then he's saying we're all the same, we're all replaceable.

28:27 SPEAKER_00: And that isn't the dignity of difference.

28:28 SPEAKER_00: The dignity of difference is that we're all irreplaceable.

28:32 SPEAKER_00: We're all special.

28:33 SPEAKER_00: We all have our own mission and tough kid to do.

28:36 SPEAKER_00: And that's a phenomenal thing.

28:38 SPEAKER_00: And he and he undoes the fabric of creation because these boundaries, these distinctions are important because it's the way that we experience the world.

28:48 SPEAKER_00: It's the way that holiness emerges because sit are distinctive because they have the strings attached to their corners.

28:55 SPEAKER_00: Shabbat is distinctive because it's separated from the rest of the week.

28:59 SPEAKER_00: The chagim, the special holidays we have, are separated from the other times.

29:04 SPEAKER_00: That's how holiness emerges.

29:06 SPEAKER_00: The Bait Knesset is separated from all the other buildings.

29:09 SPEAKER_00: So when we go to shul, it's holy, it's special.

29:12 SPEAKER_00: It means something.

29:13 SPEAKER_00: That is how holiness emerges.

29:15 SPEAKER_00: Korach was going to undo that entire project, and that's why it's given 63 pasukim.

29:21 SPEAKER_00: Because it allows us to understand these things and take them on board and not repeat these mistakes.

29:29 SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the ultimate tragedy of Korach, though, is that Korach thought that to be his best, to fulfill his potential, he had to be someone else.

29:39 SPEAKER_00: He had to be the Koen Gagol.

29:41 SPEAKER_00: He had to be Aaron.

29:43 SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's not true.

29:45 SPEAKER_00: Korach, to be his very best, had to be the best version of himself.

29:50 SPEAKER_00: And of course, we do make the same mistake.

29:52 SPEAKER_00: Thank God none of us are Korach, but we do make the same mistake.

29:56 SPEAKER_00: Because we look around and we go, how come they got that income that we don't have?

30:01 SPEAKER_00: How come they got the new car that we don't have?

30:03 SPEAKER_00: How come they got that opportunity that we don't have?

30:06 SPEAKER_00: How come they managed to get on that holiday that we'd have liked to have gone on?

30:10 SPEAKER_00: We do sometimes look at other people, and that's a dangerous thing to do because ultimately greatness comes from fulfilling your own potential and be the best version of you that you can be.

30:23 SPEAKER_00: Rav Susha said it the best.

30:26 SPEAKER_00: Rav Susha said, when you go up to Shemayim, you won't be asked why you weren't Moshe Rabbein.

30:32 SPEAKER_00: You won't be asked why you weren't Avrahamavina.

30:35 SPEAKER_00: You'll be asked why you weren't you.

30:38 SPEAKER_00: Bezra Hashem.

30:40 SPEAKER_00: We can understand the differences in humanity.

30:43 SPEAKER_00: We can celebrate those differences.

30:45 SPEAKER_00: We can all focus on our own tough kid, our own mission and purpose, whatever that is.

30:51 SPEAKER_00: We can be the best versions of ourselves we can be.

30:55 SPEAKER_00: And in that way, everyone can achieve their own greatness that Hashem has given them.