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Korach 5786 | Rabbi Dani Zuckerman · Kerem B'Yavneh Parsha Podcast

• 0:07
  This week in חוץ לארץ,
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  כלל ישראל is reading פרשת קרח,
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  and one of the most fascinating elements in the episode of קרח and his
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  rebellion is a small statement that garners a lot of attention.
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  משה רבינו calls to דתן and אבירם in פסוק י"ב.
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  He calls to דתן and אבירם,
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  וישלח משה לקרוא לדתן ולאבירם בני אליאב.
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  And what is their response?
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  ויאמרו,
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  they said,
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  לא נעלה,
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  we will not come up.
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  And the question is what do you mean come up?
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  We would have expected that דתן and אבירם would say לא נלך,
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  לא נבוא,
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  we won't go,
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  we won't come.
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  But what is this up?
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  Where are they refusing to go up somewhere?
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  So כפשוטו,
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  there are a few possibilities.
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  The אבן עזרא and others say that לא נעלה is used because the משכן,
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  where משה רבינו was,
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  was at a higher elevation than the rest of the מחנה.
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  Just like ירושלים is at a higher elevation and ארץ ישראל is at a
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  higher elevation,
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  so places that are קדוש are meant to be at a higher elevation.
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  So the משכן was also at a higher elevation.
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  So they meant they're not going to come to the משכן and when one
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  goes to the משכן he goes up.
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  The רשב"ם and others say that the word לעלות is used sometimes in the
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  context of a court.
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  So for example,
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  in ספר דברים it says ועלתה יבמתו השערה,
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  when the יבמה goes to court to בית דין she goes up.
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  That's the word used when a person goes to the בית דין they go
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  up.
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  So they're saying,
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  דתן and אבירם were saying,
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  we're not going to go up to your בית דין משה רבינו.
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  Parenthetically,
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  רב הירש points out that based on the רשב"ם's פשט,
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  something very interesting about דתן and אבירם's response.
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  משה רבינו was not necessarily summoning דתן and אבירם to a דין תורה.
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  He sent messengers,
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  וישלח משה לקרוא,
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  he sent messengers to call them.
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  Maybe it could have been a very friendly invitation to dialogue.
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  רב הירש points out in other places where וישלח לקרוא,
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  that combination is used in a friendly manner.
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  For example,
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  in פרשת יתרו when יתרו calls people,
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  and in פרשת כי תשא,
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  in a bit of a sinister context,
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  the תורה says don't intermarry or be careful not to intermarry that the people,
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  you know,
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  your if your מחותן who's not Jewish calls you to invite you to a
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  סעודה of עבודה זרה.
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  So that's a friendly invitation.
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  So here as well,
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  רב הירש says משה רבינו was issuing a not a summons,
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  he sent a messenger to you know have a nice dialogue,
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  a calm,
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  friendly dialogue with דתן and אבירם to hear what's on their mind.
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  And their response is,
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  how dare you summon us to בית דין?
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  לא נעלה,
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  we're not going to appear at your summons,
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  right?
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  So they are immediately treating him with a lot of suspicion and accusing him
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  of you know wielding authority when he just wants to dialogue.
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  That's a parenthetical point.
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  רש"י,
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  however,
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  back on the לא נעלה,
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  רש"י says in מדרש context,
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  לא נעלה,
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  פיהם הכשילם,
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  their mouth messed them up.
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  אין להם אלא ירידה,
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  they're only going down.
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  So when they say we won't go up,
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  when we're not going to go up,
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  the מדרש is לכאורה bothered by the question we asked before.
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  Why didn't they just say we won't come,
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  לא נלך,
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  לא נבוא?
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  Why did they say we won't go up?
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  So מדרש says that this is a רמז to the fact that they're going
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  down.
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  They're going down,
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  where they're going down?
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  We know later in the story that דתן and אבירם at least and you
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  know perhaps others as well,
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  but certainly דתן and אבירם are swallowed up by the earth.
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  That is the you know most famous part of the story probably,
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  the punishment of being this unique punishment being swallowed up by the earth.
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  So it's very interesting that that punishment is hinted to at this early stage
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  in the story in this phrase לא נעלה.
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  So to understand why is that important to be hinted to here in this
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  phrase לא נעלה,
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  well we have to ask a different question which is why is it important
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  that דתן and אבירם and perhaps קרח as well and families were swallowed up
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  by the earth?
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  This strange punishment.
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  The רמבן over there in פסוק כ"ט asks this question,
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  he says,
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  you know we have other unfortunately we have other examples of rebellions in the
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  מדבר,
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  we have other examples of clashes between משה רבינו and individuals or groups of
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  כלל ישראל,
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  sometimes even all of כלל ישראל,
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  and we never have such an extreme punishment.
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  What's unique here?
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  So רמבן says and others say as well that this is a different type
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  of rebellion because in this case it was not just a matter of we
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  don't have water,
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  we don't have food,
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  this weekend in ארץ ישראל we're reading חוקת and we have two examples of
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  rebellions where people used pretty similar language.
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  למה,
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  why'd you take us out of מצרים?
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  We're not even ארץ ישראל.
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  The same kind of טענות that דתן and אבירם are making we find in
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  חוקת,
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  and yet in חוקת,
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  you know,
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  there's punishment.
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  not pretty,
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  but nothing of the nature,
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  nothing of the sort like the ground opening up and swallowing anybody.
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  רמב"ן says the difference is that here דתן and אבירם particularly,
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  we actually don't see it as much in the words of קרח,
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  but we see particularly in the words of דתן and אבירם.
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  That דתן and אבירם were not just voicing any old complaint.
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  They were undermining the very authority of משה רבנו.
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  They were questioning whether he was a divinely inspired leader in the first place.
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  דתן and אבירם,
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  if we go back to our פסוקים right after they say לא נעלה,
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  they say it's not enough that you took us out of ארץ זבת חלב
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  ודבש מצרים,
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  it's not enough that you didn't bring us to ארץ ישראל to a place
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  of a real ארץ זבת חלב ודבש,
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  but you're even תשתרר עלינו גם השתרר,
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  you even dare to lord over us.
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  דתן and אבירם are questioning what they're saying is that unlike קרח and the
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  250 men who joined him,
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  they're not complaining about the religious authority in כלל ישראל or which part of
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  שבט לוי should get the נשיאות.
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  They're saying our complaints משה רבנו,
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  they go back to your leadership in מצרים.
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  We don't think that you have been a correct leader for us all the
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  way since מצרים.
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  And that,
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  says the רמב"ן,
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  that's כפירה because משה רבנו was appointed by הקדוש ברוך הוא Himself.
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  Where does רמב"ן see this in the פסוקים?
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  When משה רבנו says,
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  when he introduces this supernatural,
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  the supernatural punishment of the ground swallowing,
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  he says בזאת תדעון כי ה׳
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  שלחני,
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  that ה׳
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  sent me לעשות את כל המעשים האלה,
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  כי לא מלבי.
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  This will prove that ה׳
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  sent me to do all these things,
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  that I didn't כי לא מלבי,
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  this is not my individual choice.
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  רש"י says which מעשים are we talking about?
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  The מעשים of אהרן being a כהן גדול,
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  and אהרן's children being כהנים,
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  and אליצפן being the נשיא,
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  right?
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  Responding to קרח's טענות.
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  רמב"ן says כפשוטו no no no,
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  that's not what משה was talking about.
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  He's talking about taking us out of מצרים.
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  The לשון of שליחות,
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  כי ה׳
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  שלחני,
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  we find that all over the place in reference to משה רבנו as the
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  שליח of הקדוש ברוך הוא to take us out of מצרים,
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  all the way back to פרשת שמות,
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  זה לך האות כי אנכי שלחתיך,
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  right?
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  ה׳
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  says to משה,
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  the sign that I sent you,
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  or וישלח מלאך ויוצאנו ממצרים,
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  ה׳
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  sent a מלאך,
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  he sent משה רבנו to take us out of מצרים.
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  Or at the very end of the תורה,
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  in the הספד for משה רבנו,
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  אשר שלחו ה׳
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  לעשות בארץ מצרים,
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  ה׳
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  sent משה רבנו.
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  That שליחות,
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  that unique status that משה רבנו has,
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  that he was a שליח of הקדוש ברוך הוא to take us out of
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  מצרים,
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  to bring us to הר סיני,
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  to give us the תורה,
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  to be the agent of תורה שבכתב,
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  תורה שבעל פה,
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  everything.
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  That is what משה רבנו is defending.
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  And who accused him of never being a divinely appointed leader?
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  דתן and אבירם.
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  דתן and אבירם,
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  they're the ones.
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  קרח maybe got dragged along by them into the ground,
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  if he did,
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  if he went into the ground,
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  it was because he was dragged along with them.
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  They're the ones who were most deserving of the supernatural punishment to demonstrate that
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  their טענה against משה רבנו was completely unfounded.
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  Which words subtly hint to the point that דתן and אבירם were challenging משה's
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  leadership from the very beginning?
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  לא נעלה.
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  When they said לא נעלה,
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  perhaps as רב הירש says,
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  they're saying to לא נעלה,
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  they're saying who are you to summon us to a בית דין?
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  Are you the leader of כלל ישראל?
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  Who appointed you?
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  From the very beginning we question your leadership,
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  all the way back from the time you took us out of מצרים.
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  The רשב"ם,
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  we'll end with this,
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  the רשב"ם says that there's a כלל ופרט וכלל,
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  right?
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  Something we find in halakhic contexts.
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  רשב"ם finds here in this story.
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  כלל,
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  לא נעלה.
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  פרט,
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  כי העליתנו ארץ זבת חלב ודבש וכולי.
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  And what's the חוזר וכולל at the end of פסוק י"ד?
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  לא נעלה.
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  So they begin and end their טענה with לא נעלה,
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  and in the middle they say because you took us out of מצרים.
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  We're not going to respond,
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  so what are they saying?
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  We're not going to respond to your summons because you took us out of
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  מצרים?
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  They're undermining,
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  they're trying to undermine משה רבנו's leadership from the very beginning.
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  And that is why the מדרש says לא נעלה,
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  פיהם הכשילם,
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  אין להם אלא וידוי.
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  You see from their words לא נעלה that they are questioning משה רבנו's leadership
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  from the very beginning.
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  They're not like קרח.
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  They are trying to argue that משה רבנו is not a divinely appointed שליח
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  in the first place,
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  and for that,
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  and we see that from the way they say לא נעלה,
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  and from that,
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  the מדרש foreshadows that eventually they will have to be punished in a unique
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  way.
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  אין They have to disappear entirely from the face of the earth because because
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  it has to be so clear to us forever and ever the authority of
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  משה רבינו as הקדוש ברוך הוא'ס שליח.