Musar к Бамидбар 11:29

The second: He [should] accustom himself to internalize the love of people into his heart - and even the evildoers - as if they were his brothers, and even more than this; until he fixes the love of all people into his heart. And he [should] even love the evildoers in his heart and say, "Who will give that they all be righteous penitents, and all be great ones and desirable to the Omnipresent," like the statement of the trusted friend of all of Israel. He stated (Numbers 11:29), "and who will give that all of the people of the Lord be prophets, etc?" And with what (how) will he love [them]? When he mentions in his thought the good [qualities] that they have and covers their blemish, and he not gaze at their scabs but rather at the good traits that they have. And he [should] say in his heart, "If this disgusting poor man was a man of much money, how happy I would be with his friendship - as I am with the friendship of x. And behold, if they would dress this one with nice clothes like x, behold there is no difference between them. If so, why [should] he lack honor in my eyes? And behold, in the eyes of God, he is more important than I - as he is stricken and downtrodden with poverty and afflictions, and [so] cleaned of iniquity. And why would I hate one that the Holy One, blessed be He, loves?" And through this, his heart will turn to the side of the good and accustom himself to think about all the good traits that we mentioned.

Moses had not been careful in this respect, had said "please kill me." The previous occasion had not been so serious, since Moses asked to die if G–d would not forgive the Jewish people for their involvement in the golden calf. It was part of his prayer for someone else. This is why his punishment at that time consisted only of his name not being mentioned when the work of the Tabernacle was carried out. This time, however, there were no such extenuating circumstances. The reason that caused Joshua to report to Moses what Eldad and Meydad had said, was that they did so within the camp. He asked Moses to prevent them from prophesying. The word כלאם is the same as in Genesis 8,2, or in Exodus 36,6. In either case it means that something was prevented from happening. Moses did not want to prevent them from saying what was on their minds, and said to Joshua: "why are you jealous on my behalf?"

The three groups of rebels we have mentioned represented the three negative virtues of קנאה, תאוה, and כבוד, jealousy, greed, and craving for honour. These are the traits that contribute to man losing his life (both here and in the Hereafter). They are the very opposites of the good characteristics described earlier. Korach was afflicted by jealousy, Datan and Aviram were affected by greed, and the two hundred and fifty men suffered from the desire to achieve higher status. We shall now elaborate on this: Korach's jealousy was a trait due to the original serpent. The serpent had denied creation ex nihilo by holding out the hope that Eve would become like G–d, and suggesting that G–d had created the universe only after having eaten from that tree. Anyone who denies creatio ex nihilo, is in effect denying the existence of G–d and the existence of a system of justice and fairness, and therefore accountability, supervised by the Creator. When Cain had started his quarrel with Abel he had said that there was no judge, no justice, and no Hereafter, as is evident from the Targum Yonathan on Bereshit 4,8. Korach also denied the prophetic powers of Moses, that the Torah originated in Heaven and that the earth had been created because of the merit of Moses, as we have been told בראשית, בשביל משה, שנאמר וירא ראשית לו (Deut 33,21). Moses represented the very opposite of jealousy as we know from when he said to Joshua: "Are you going to practice jealousy on my behalf?" (Numbers 11,29) He was anxious that the spirit of prophecy should proliferate throughout the Jewish nation.