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By Rabbi Naftoly Bier
In תהלים פ״ה:יא-יב, Psalms 85:11-12, it states: ״חסד ואמת נפגשו, צדק ושלום נשקו: אמת מארץ תצמח וצדק משמים נשקף.״ “When loving-kindness and truth have met together (then) righteousness and peace have kissed each other: Truth must spring from earth and righteousness still looks down from Heaven.”
Rashi explains that to earn Hashem’s kindness necessitates a life of integrity, the kindness that Klal Yisroel does will earn harmony from Hashem. When truth abounds, “shalom” will spread.
The Medrash בראשית רבה ח:ה interprets it in the following manner: When the Almighty decided to create אדם הראשון, “First Man”, the angels had a discussion if it’s prudent! Some argued, yes, the human being will constantly occupy itself with performing kindness, while others argued that the essence of the human will be falsehood. Due to the latter opinion, Hashem took אמת, truth and sent it down to earth. The angels asked, aren’t You disgracing Your essence, you are אמת, truth, integrity, for “Your seal is truth, חותמו של הקב״ה אמת״? Hashem said, “תעלה אמת מן הארץ, truth will spring from from the earth.”
HaRav Shlomo Wolbe זצ״ל, explains that this Medrash is teaching us one of the most fundamental concepts of human nature. Due to a person being created from Earth, a manifestation of one’s physical essence, it inherently is the opposite of the soul, the spiritual component. In contradistinction to the angels who are heavenly in nature, a human has an internal conflict between the physical which is termed false due to being incompatible with Hashem who is by definition exact and pure. (This “falsehood” is a direct result, due to the dynamic that the earth is mundane, physical and therefore limited compared to spirituality that is not governed by space, place or time.)
In order to enable humans to excel, Hashem “planted” His Torah, His guide to living, the Torah being an expression of His essence, on earth. It is only through the true study of Torah, done with true, unbridled effort and determination for the exact lesson, that one can develop into a person of integrity.
The lesson we are being taught is that the catalyst to defining all action in life is the source of one’s focus; is it engendered from an essence of truth or non-truth.
Rabbeinu Yonah (1200-1263) in Gates of Repentance, Section 3, Paragraph 184, writes, “One who fools someone, saying that he did one a favor or spoke favorably about him, but he did not do so; we are taught (Chullin 94a) that it is forbidden to deceive all people, even a non-Jew. Chazal considers this worse than theft, for lying is a great “guilt”; for we are obligated to be extremely careful with speaking truth, for it is the basic fundamentals of oneself.”
The key to success is one’s essentiality: honesty!
In this week’s portion we are taught this elemental concept. Korach, who was a צדיק, a person who had רוח הקודש, Divine Inspiration, an ancestor of שמואל הנביא, Shmuel the Prophet, created a rebellion against משה רבינו, Moses our great leader.
Initially he argued that there is no need for leadership, for all the Jewish people had witnessed the giving of the Torah by Hashem to all, thereby raising them to the highest level of spirituality possible. He proved his point by asking if a house has a ספר תורה, a complete Torah scroll inside it, does it need a מזוזה, a mezuzah? Of course not; a Mezuzah just contains two chapters of the whole Torah; what can it add? A Mezuzah is a mitzvah only for one is lacking- one doesn’t have the Sefer Torah. In the same manner, if the purpose of תכלת, the blue-green dye that a ציצית strand is dyed with in order to make one cognizant of the presence of Hashem, could it be possible that a garment that had this color would need an extra strand with the same color? Obviously not. He argued that in the same manner we don’t need leadership from anyone!
On the other hand, he felt that he was robbed of the opportunity of leadership, which due to the extreme responsibility it represents, he would have been able to rise to even higher and higher levels of self-negation and true spirituality.
In his mind, he felt that 1) Klal Yisroel were not being credited with their inherent greatness 2) that he could attain great heights.
The גמרא בבא בתרא ע”ד tells us that רבה בר בר חנה met an Arab who showed him the place (a hole in the ground from which smoke- גיהנום – came forth) where those due to the sin of Korach were. They were repeating, “משה אמת ותורתו אמת, Moshe Rabeinu is a person of irrefutable truth and his Torah is truth”, every thirty days.
Korach was jealous. He felt he was wronged. But the Talmud is teaching us that it all comes from a place of dishonesty. Hashem gave us a challenge, by nature we are biased, we therefore can’t be honest to decide what is right and wrong. A person has to constantly ask oneself; is this thought of mine based on a desire to be exact in truth or is it governed by a need of fame, acclaim, cravings for physical pleasure etc.?
The Torah teaches that even Korach made a grave mistake that had terrible consequences, due to a lack of unmitigated honesty. “Moshe is true” – he is always demanding perfection – then “Torah which is truth” can be truly expressed. This is why he was the leader of כלל ישראל – and why every person in the role of leadership has to constantly ponder, what is one’s true motivation. If it’s not perfect, one’s Torah can’t be perfect; the Torah is Hashem‘s wisdom and He is totally perfect!
