Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Mga Kawikaan 14:30

Korach’s personal grievance was twofold. 1) He was “dressed” in jealousy, a negative character trait, a disease for which there is no known therapy. 2) He misinterpreted the meaning of the vision in which he had foreseen that his descendants would achieve outstanding greatness. Concerning the first reason, i.e. his jealousy, this is a very vicious disease. One starts by scheming until one achieves whatever it is that his fellow owns and he does not. Even if one achieves this goal and therefore should cease to be jealous, one has in the meantime become addicted to the craving for personal honour, a desire to lord it over others, a craving for power, until eventually all this becomes similar to עבודה זרה, a form of idolatry. On the other hand, if the jealous person fails in his attempt to equal the one he is jealous of, his whole life is one of frustration and it may, G’d forbid, result in his murdering the object of his jealousy. Solomon already referred to this phenomenon in Proverbs 14,30 when he said: “envy is like rottenness of the bones.” Also Eliphaz is quoted in Job 5,2 as saying: ”jealousy kills the fool.” If someone allows himself to be seduced by jealousy it will eventually kill him. Our sages in Avot 4,28 have said that the three traits “jealousy, greed, and the thirst for personal honour” contribute to man’s premature demise.”
When one displays jealousy of one’s fellow one will eventually hate him and possibly become guilty of murder. The Torah describes this graphically in Deut. 19,11: “if someone hates his fellow, sets an ambush for him, and rises up and slays him.” Concerning such saddening phenomena Solomon commented in Kohelet 4,4: וראיתי אני את כל עמל ואת כל כשרון המעשה כי היא קנאת איש מרעהו, גם זה הבל ורעות רוח, “I have also noted that all labor and skillful enterprise come from men’s envy of each other — another futility and pursuit of the wind.” When Solomon speaks of עמל, labor, he refers to the material possessions, honor, and the other exterior paraphernalia denoting personal power. When he speaks of כל כשרון המעשה, he refers to Torah, repentance, and good deeds.” The word “Hevel” is a reference to Kayin’s brother who had observed his older brother offer a sacrifice and wanted to outdo him as he was jealous of his having preceded him with a good deed. He therefore emulated his father Adam and offered a living creature (as opposed to Kayin who had only offered vegetable matter. compare Tanchuma Bereshit 9 and Bereshit Rabbah 22,15) [This is based on the Torah reporting Kayin as being the first of the brothers to offer the sacrifice, Genesis 4,4. It helps explain why G’d tolerated Hevel being murdered. Ed.] The jealousy led to Kayin and Hevel developing mutual hatred until Kayin murdered his brother. This character trait contains within it the potential destruction of the universe.
The trait of jealousy is not limited to human beings. Even the ministering angels are reported as having been jealous of Adam until they succeeded in seducing him into sinning and he was forced to exchange the “garments” of intelligence for garments made of inferior materials (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer chapter 13). The word בגד “garment,” is related to בגד, “betray.” In other words man’s clothing may betray him. Adam’s superior “garments” were the cause of the angels’ jealousy. The result of this was that the Shechinah departed from him and therefore from mankind on earth.
Korach’s jealousy also resulted in his being expelled from the universe. The immediate focus of Korach’s jealousy and that of his sympathizers was the manner in which Israelites had been appointed to high office. He saw in this high-handed action by Moses, nepotism of a kind. When Moses, in answering Korach’s accusations, says כי לא מלבי, “I did not do these things arbitrarily” (verse 25), it is clear that this was his response to Korach’s accusation. Korach and company had even suggested that the appointment of all the Levites to their position and their replacing the function of the firstborn had only been a device by Moses to elevate members of his own tribe to a higher social status. If even Levites also took part in that uprising it was because they perceived that Aaron and his family, Moses’ closest relatives, had been given the highest rank of all. Korach also believed that Moses had appointed Elitzafan ben Uzziel as prince of the tribe of Levi seeing that Uzziel had been one of Moses’ uncles, though the most junior in age (Numbers 3,19). Korach was particularly irked by the fact that he felt he had been passed over in the sharing out of honors though he was senior to Uzziel, being a son of Yitzhar who was older than Uzziel. In his mind, Amram, Moses’ father had been the firstborn (an honor), whereas his two sons had taken for themselves the highest positions, King and High Priest. Korach felt that the second of these honors should have been his, seeing that he was the son of Yizhar, who was next in line to Amram. When he found that the next highest honour had been given to Elitzafan, son of the younger Uzziel instead, he started the uprising.
How did Korach secure support for his demagoguery? He assembled 250 heads of the respective tribal supreme courts, most of them from the tribe of Reuven; he clothed all of them in talitot made completely of blue wool, תכלת; this is the meaning of “Korach took”, i.e. he took his talit and came to Moses wearing it. The other 250 men did the same. They all asked Moses whether such a talit required tzitziyot in order for it to be fit to wear. When Moses said that indeed even a talit made exclusively of blue wool required tzitziyot these people all started laughing, saying: “if a white talit can be converted into an halachically sound garment by means of a single thread of תכלת, blue wool, surely a talit which is completely of blue wool does not need an additional blue thread in order for it to be fit to be worn!” They then asked a similar question pertaining to the affixing of a mezuzah on a house filled with sacred texts. Moses ruled that such a house too is not absolved from the need to have a mezuzah affixed to its entrance. Thereupon the rebels said that if affixing two paragraphs out of a total of the 275 paragraphs contained in the Torah can make such a house fit to live in, surely when the house contains all 275 paragraphs, seeing that there is a Torah scroll inside, this must be enough to absolve such a house from the need to affix another two of these paragraphs to its door post! They concluded that Moses’ ruling was arbitrary and could not represent instructions he had received from G’d. Korach had asked these questions using his intelligence to make Moses look ridiculous.
There is another nuance contained in these questions, i.e. Korach used the simile of the house full of sacred texts and the talit made completely of blue wool as a parable describing the Jewish people. He meant that seeing the Jewish people are all holy, there was no need to appoint a High Priest who would perform the function for the people which the tzitzit performed for the talit. He compared all the fringes to the religious dignitaries who are part of the oligarchy of the Jewish people. He implied that a nation such as the Jewish nation should be a totally egalitarian society with no special duties or privileges for anyone, especially no hereditary ones.
Korach’s second mistake, one which led him to vent his jealousy, was that he erred in interpreting the chain of prominent people who would be descended from him. Our sages (Tanchuma Korach 5 and quoted by Rashi), say. He was deceived by foreseeing that the prophet Samuel would be descended from him, a prophet who has been described as equal to Moses and Aaron combined, as we know from Psalms 99,6: “Moses and Aaron among His priests and Samuel among those who call upon His name.” He reasoned that he had to be saved as otherwise this prophecy could not be fulfilled. He also foresaw that 24 groups of Levites would be descended from him all of whom prophets, sons of Heiman (Chronicles I 6,18). Seeing that he foresaw such a brilliant future for his descendants he said to himself: “how can I remain silent and not challenge the present hierarchy?” He thought that his speaking up would ensure that the future he foresaw would materialise. This is why he tried to force the issue. He had heard from Moses that everyone of the present hierarchy would perish and only one would be saved. This is how he interpreted Moses’ words אשר יבחר ה' הוא הקדוש, “the one whom the Lord will choose he is the holy one (verse 9).” He thought there would remain only a single person fit for the description “holy,” i.e. himself.

The Torah goes on to write אם בעל אשה הוא ויצאה אשתו עמו. The Torah alludes to a profound mystical element here. There are people who acquire their soul by dint of their good deeds so that such a person (personality) is transformed into the "owner" of its holy soul. In order to understand this concept one has to refer to the Zohar volume three page 91 on Leviticus 22,27 where the Torah discusses that when an ox or sheep is born it is to remain with its mother for seven days before it could be offered on the altar as a sacrifice. According to the Zohar animals acquire their intelligence at the moment of birth. [This is why the Torah refers to the ox as "ox" already at birth not as calf, for instance. The animal does not develop its personality, though it may develop its body. Ed.] Animals are different from human beings in this respect. Human beings acquire their souls only in ratio to the good deeds they have performed. The greater the number of good deeds performed by man the higher quality is his soul (or after having been alive at least for one Sabbath). The soul which such a מצוה -observant Jew acquires is called אשה in our context. Kabbalists such as the author of Tikkunyey Hazohar chapter 50 describe the soul as אשה. The Torah tells us here that if a person has acquired his "wife" i.e. soul, by reason of the performance of good deeds, his wife will remain with him also after death. Shabbat 152 tells an interesting story in this regard. There were certain grave-diggers who dug up the earth belonging to Rabbi Nachman. In the process they happened to disturb the grave of Rabbi Achai bar Yoshia. The latter protested that the diggers were disturbing his rest. The grave-diggers told Rabbi Nachman that they had been rebuked by a man. Rabbi Nachman went to investigate and asked the person in question who he was. He identified himself as Achai bar Yoshia. Thereupon Rabbi Nachman asked Rabbi Achai: "did not Rabbi Mori say that the truly righteous will turn to dust" [as opposed to decaying and becoming worm ridden Ed.], (so how come your body is intact)? Achai retorted: "Who is this Mori whom I have never heard of (that I should be concerned with his pronouncements)?" Thereupon Rabbi Nachman quoted a verse from Kohelet (inaccurately quoted and applied) according to which a body will return to the earth in the condition it had come from it. Rabbi Achai responded that whereas Rabbi Nachman appeared to be familiar with the verse composed by Solomon in Kohelet, he was apparently unfamiliar with a verse by the same Solomon in Proverbs 14,30 according to which "envy is like rottenness of the bones." The meaning of that verse is that people who harboured envy or jealousy in their hearts will experience that their bones decay and rot; those who did not harbour such feelings during their lives on earth will be spared this experience. Thereupon Rabbi Nachman touched Rabbi Achai and found that his body was indeed real. He suggested that Rabbi Achai get out of his grave and go home. Thereupon Rabbi Achai told Rabbi Nachman that he had just revealed that he had not even studied the Book of Prophets properly. We read in Ezekiel 37,13: "you will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, O My people." Rabbi Nachman countered that it is written in Genesis 3,19: "dust you are and to dust you will return!" Upon hearing this Rabbi Achai explained that the verse in Genesis was meant to apply only one hour before the arrival of the final resurrection. At that time all the dead would return to dust. The gist of the story is that the righteous are called alive even when they are in their graves (Berachot 18).

drive a man from the world: As these three traits are in the category of major sins. Another explanation: "drive a man from the world" - envy, as it is stated (Proverbs 14:30), and rot to the bones is envy"; lust, as it is stated (Proverbs 21:25), "The lust of a lazy man kills him"; and honor, as we have found with Yosef who died twelve years before his brothers, because he comported himself with lordship (Berakhot 55a).