כֹּֽה־אָמַ֨ר יְהוָ֧ה מֶֽלֶךְ־יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל וְגֹאֲל֖וֹ יְהוָ֣ה צְבָא֑וֹת אֲנִ֤י רִאשׁוֹן֙ וַאֲנִ֣י אַחֲר֔וֹן וּמִבַּלְעָדַ֖י אֵ֥ין אֱלֹהִֽים׃
Beginilah firman Yang Mahakekal, Raja Israel, dan Penebusnya, Yang Mahakekal semesta alam: Akulah yang pertama dan Akulah yang terakhir, dan selain Aku tidak ada Allah.
Kedushat Levi
Numbers 15,1. “Korach, son of Yitzhar, son of Kehat, son of Levi, and Datan and Aviram took, etc;”
[At this point there appears to me to be a major error in our editions when the author claims that Nachmanides wrote that the spies had been aware that the Israelites would not enter the Holy Land. According to my understanding of Nachmanides on 15,1 he refers to the people having been aware of this decree, seeing that the spies were dead already. Ed.]
Nachmanides writes that seeing that the (spies) people knew that the members of their generation would not enter the Holy Land, the Israelites’ love of Moses had already been undermined so that the people would be more receptive to criticism of him. This is also the reason why this episode was written in the Torah immediately following the story of the spies. There had been several instances since the sin of the golden calf when many people had died without Moses having been able to prevent this, so that Korach felt that an attempt at insurrection could meet with broad support.
Basically speaking, the generation of the Israelites who had left Egypt as adults was of a spiritual level that enabled them to perform the commandments by merely using their power of speech, i.e. prayer alone. The next generation was of a lower spiritual level, requiring action in addition to prayer.
[Presumably the difference of the spiritual level of these two generations was due to the older generation having been addressed by G’d directly at the revelation on Mount Sinai. Ed.] The author cites as proof of this distinction the fact that Joshua when battling the 31 kings of the land of Canaan, had to perform some action with the javelin signaling to the ambush (Joshua 8,19) in order to secure victory. Moses, on the other hand, did not have to perform such actions, but accomplished his task by utterances emanating from his mouth alone. If you were to argue that Joshua conquered Jericho relying only on דבור, the power of speech, as pointed out in the Jerusalem Talmud Moed katan chapter 2 halachah 4, the reason for this was that Jericho was captured on the Sabbath, and the Ari’zal has pointed out already that the intellectual capacity of the Rabbi on a weekday is attained by his disciple on the Sabbath. Similarly, the relationship between Moses’ intellectual capacity and that of Joshua was like that of the teacher compared to the student. Moses had been able to accomplish everything he set out to do by relying exclusively on the power of the word. [Perhaps Moses’ failing to speak to the rock when commanded to and striking it instead, represented this desecration of G’d’s name in public that G’d accused both him and Aaron of. Ed.]
Both at Ai as well as during subsequent battles, Joshua had to employ other parts of his body in addition to the power of speech.
The Torah Moses presented to the Jewish people reflected the power of the word used by G’d when He created the universe; however, in common with other forms of energy emanating from G’d’s essence which had to be “screened” in order that their impact would not prove harmful instead of beneficial, even in our world of the עשיה, where matter appears as if it is “real,” this is so only because what we see with our three-dimensionally oriented eyes has already undergone such a process of being screened before we see it. According to our author this has been alluded to when the prophet Isaiah 44,6 quoted G’d saying: אני ראשון ואני אחרון, “I am no different at the end from the way I was at the beginning.” [The usual translation, is, of course: “I am first and I am last,” but I changed it to fit the author’s interpretation. Ed.]
G’d meant that if He employed “screens” to protect us from His outpouring of Divine energy at the beginning of creation, He did the same when He came to the final stage of His creative activity, i.e. earth and man. The form that these “screens” take in our material world is the attributes through which we try to understand the nature of the Creator, His מידות.
When Korach had realized that the generation of which he was a part would not be granted residence in the land of Canaan, he no longer accepted Moses’ Torah as something to be understood as having been “screened” by G’d before He entrusted it to us in the format that we are familiar with.
When G’d punished Korach by making the earth open its “mouth” to swallow him and his followers alive, He actually paid him back מידה כנגד מידה, “tit for tat,” seeing that Korach had refused to believe that the earth as we see it is not the “real thing;” he was taught at the last moment of his life how wrong he had been, and that the earth had hidden dimensions he had never dreamed of.
This has all been hinted at when the Torah listed as Korach’s antecedents, i.e. Yitzhar-alluding to brightness, light, Kehat- and Levi. The word יקהת alludes to “unity” as we know from Genesis 49,10 where Yaakov blessed Yehudah by saying that the other tribes would rally around him. The word לוי derived from ילוה, when his mother Leah, at his birth, expressed her hope that this son would be the cause of her husband spending more time with her; (Genesis 29,34) When looking at the three names together, they suggest that Korach only believed in the world of the power of speech, the world that we know as the three-dimensional world, and could not believe that behind what we see with our physical eyes there is hidden another dimension, one which makes it far easier to relate to the home of the Creator and the army of angels with whom He has surrounded Himself. [some of these words are mine. When someone insists on believing that the world we see is all there is in the universe, so that physical death is the end of all life, he has made the beginning of life equally irrelevant. Ed.]
The words of Isaiah 44,6 are therefore most important if we wish to understand G’d’s actions in creating different sections in His universe.
[At this point there appears to me to be a major error in our editions when the author claims that Nachmanides wrote that the spies had been aware that the Israelites would not enter the Holy Land. According to my understanding of Nachmanides on 15,1 he refers to the people having been aware of this decree, seeing that the spies were dead already. Ed.]
Nachmanides writes that seeing that the (spies) people knew that the members of their generation would not enter the Holy Land, the Israelites’ love of Moses had already been undermined so that the people would be more receptive to criticism of him. This is also the reason why this episode was written in the Torah immediately following the story of the spies. There had been several instances since the sin of the golden calf when many people had died without Moses having been able to prevent this, so that Korach felt that an attempt at insurrection could meet with broad support.
Basically speaking, the generation of the Israelites who had left Egypt as adults was of a spiritual level that enabled them to perform the commandments by merely using their power of speech, i.e. prayer alone. The next generation was of a lower spiritual level, requiring action in addition to prayer.
[Presumably the difference of the spiritual level of these two generations was due to the older generation having been addressed by G’d directly at the revelation on Mount Sinai. Ed.] The author cites as proof of this distinction the fact that Joshua when battling the 31 kings of the land of Canaan, had to perform some action with the javelin signaling to the ambush (Joshua 8,19) in order to secure victory. Moses, on the other hand, did not have to perform such actions, but accomplished his task by utterances emanating from his mouth alone. If you were to argue that Joshua conquered Jericho relying only on דבור, the power of speech, as pointed out in the Jerusalem Talmud Moed katan chapter 2 halachah 4, the reason for this was that Jericho was captured on the Sabbath, and the Ari’zal has pointed out already that the intellectual capacity of the Rabbi on a weekday is attained by his disciple on the Sabbath. Similarly, the relationship between Moses’ intellectual capacity and that of Joshua was like that of the teacher compared to the student. Moses had been able to accomplish everything he set out to do by relying exclusively on the power of the word. [Perhaps Moses’ failing to speak to the rock when commanded to and striking it instead, represented this desecration of G’d’s name in public that G’d accused both him and Aaron of. Ed.]
Both at Ai as well as during subsequent battles, Joshua had to employ other parts of his body in addition to the power of speech.
The Torah Moses presented to the Jewish people reflected the power of the word used by G’d when He created the universe; however, in common with other forms of energy emanating from G’d’s essence which had to be “screened” in order that their impact would not prove harmful instead of beneficial, even in our world of the עשיה, where matter appears as if it is “real,” this is so only because what we see with our three-dimensionally oriented eyes has already undergone such a process of being screened before we see it. According to our author this has been alluded to when the prophet Isaiah 44,6 quoted G’d saying: אני ראשון ואני אחרון, “I am no different at the end from the way I was at the beginning.” [The usual translation, is, of course: “I am first and I am last,” but I changed it to fit the author’s interpretation. Ed.]
G’d meant that if He employed “screens” to protect us from His outpouring of Divine energy at the beginning of creation, He did the same when He came to the final stage of His creative activity, i.e. earth and man. The form that these “screens” take in our material world is the attributes through which we try to understand the nature of the Creator, His מידות.
When Korach had realized that the generation of which he was a part would not be granted residence in the land of Canaan, he no longer accepted Moses’ Torah as something to be understood as having been “screened” by G’d before He entrusted it to us in the format that we are familiar with.
When G’d punished Korach by making the earth open its “mouth” to swallow him and his followers alive, He actually paid him back מידה כנגד מידה, “tit for tat,” seeing that Korach had refused to believe that the earth as we see it is not the “real thing;” he was taught at the last moment of his life how wrong he had been, and that the earth had hidden dimensions he had never dreamed of.
This has all been hinted at when the Torah listed as Korach’s antecedents, i.e. Yitzhar-alluding to brightness, light, Kehat- and Levi. The word יקהת alludes to “unity” as we know from Genesis 49,10 where Yaakov blessed Yehudah by saying that the other tribes would rally around him. The word לוי derived from ילוה, when his mother Leah, at his birth, expressed her hope that this son would be the cause of her husband spending more time with her; (Genesis 29,34) When looking at the three names together, they suggest that Korach only believed in the world of the power of speech, the world that we know as the three-dimensional world, and could not believe that behind what we see with our physical eyes there is hidden another dimension, one which makes it far easier to relate to the home of the Creator and the army of angels with whom He has surrounded Himself. [some of these words are mine. When someone insists on believing that the world we see is all there is in the universe, so that physical death is the end of all life, he has made the beginning of life equally irrelevant. Ed.]
The words of Isaiah 44,6 are therefore most important if we wish to understand G’d’s actions in creating different sections in His universe.
Bat Ayin
And the reason is that the concept of a king can only exist over one who has a semblance of similarity to the king. For is it conceivable that a person would be called a king over animals that have no similarity to him? Rather, only one who is king over human beings like himself is called a king. Therefore, it is also not appropriate that the Holy One, blessed be He, be uniquely established as King over flesh and blood who have no comparison to Him at all and no similarity whatsoever. Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, in His abundant mercy and abundant kindness, desired to uniquely establish His Kingship specifically over Israel, His holy people, as the verse states (Isaiah 44:6): "Thus says the Lord, King of Israel, etc."—specifically Israel, who are called "adam" (Yevamot 61a), an expression of "I will be like (adameh) the Most High" (Isaiah 14:14), the aspect of similarity to the aspect of supernal holiness, for they are stripped of physicality and cleave to His attributes, blessed be He, as the verse states (Deuteronomy 4:4): "And you who cleave to the Lord." And our Rabbis of blessed memory expounded (see Shabbat 133b, Sotah 14a, Tanchuma Vayishlach 10, Vayikra Rabbah 25:3, see Mekhilta Shirata 3): "Cleave to His attributes—just as He is merciful, so too you be merciful, etc." Meaning that through this they are somewhat similar to the supernal aspect. And through this, the Holy One, blessed be He, uniquely establishes His Kingship over us and gave us the Sabbath. But a gentile who keeps the Sabbath is liable to death (Sanhedrin 58b), for the gentile has no similarity to the aspect of holiness. And when he observes the Sabbath, he makes himself similar to the aspect of holiness, for the Sabbath is the aspect of resemblance. Just as the Holy One, blessed be He, did His work for six days and on the seventh day rested, so too Israel do likewise—they rest on the seventh day and remove their minds from physicality as if all their work is done, and they attach their thoughts to the aspect of holiness. And this is what the verse says (see Exodus 31:17): "It is a sign between Me and the Children of Israel, etc." Meaning that it is an aspect of similarity, as it were. That is, since Israel are in the aspect of holiness and stripping away of physicality, therefore they can also receive and observe the Sabbath in the aspect of resemblance and acceptance of the Kingship of Heaven completely. But a gentile who observes the Sabbath is like a blemished person who makes himself similar to the king, and it is a disgrace to the king—so too, as it were, against His Kingship, blessed be He. Therefore, when a gentile makes himself similar to the King and keeps the Sabbath, he is liable to death.
The Gate of Unity
The first light of the simple unity of HaShem-יהו״ה, who is called, “The Cause of all causes”1See Zohar Bereshit 22b is also called “First” or “Preceding,” as stated,2Isaiah 44:6 “I am first and I am last.”