Korach's Error: Inquiry Before Simple Faith

1“Korach, son of Yitzhar, son of Kehas, son of Levi, took …”¹

2Rashi explains: “He took himself to one side, to separate himself from the congregation in order to contest the priesthood.”² Still, we need to understand why the verse chose the word vayikach, “took.”

3The Midrash Pli'ah, a collection of cryptic Midrashic sayings, says: “What did Korach see that led him to dispute Moshe? He saw the red heifer.”³ What does the red heifer have to do with Korach's dispute? Chazal also tell us: “Korach jumped up and said to Moshe, ‘A tallis made entirely of techeles: is it exempt from tzitzis?’ Moshe answered, ‘It requires tzitzis.’ Korach said to him, ‘A tallis made entirely of techeles does not exempt itself, yet four threads exempt it? A house full of sefarim: is it exempt from a mezuzah?’ Moshe answered, ‘It requires a mezuzah.’ Korach said to him, ‘The whole Torah, all two hundred seventy-five sections of it, does not exempt the house, yet the one section in the mezuzah does?’”⁴ At first glance, what do these questions of his have to do with his dispute over the priesthood?

4aWe may say as follows. Dovid HaMelech says in Tehillim, “Teach me good reasoning and knowledge, for I have believed in Your commandments.”⁵ What does he mean? Why should his faith in the mitzvos be the reason he asks, “Teach me good reasoning and knowledge”? There are two paths to knowing the Creator. The first is the tradition of the fathers, handed down from generation to generation: simple faith, without inquiry. The second is through the mind's own inquiry and contemplation, in the spirit of “Lift up your eyes on high and see Who created these.”⁶ But a person who reaches knowledge of the Creator through his own mind's inquiries may, Heaven forbid, go astray where his understanding falls short, and be beset, Heaven forbid, by doubts in his faith. One who reaches knowledge of the Creator through simple faith, however, with the tradition of the fathers and without intellectual reasoning, remains firm at all times in his faith in the One Who lives forever.

4bThe sound advice, then, is to work first at knowing the Creator through simple faith. Once a person is firmly established in simple faith, he may also begin to inquire, as far as his abilities allow, so that knowledge and contemplation will accompany his faith as well. This is what Dovid HaMelech means by “Teach me good reasoning and knowledge.” When may a person begin to inquire into the Torah and the mitzvos in this way? After “I have believed in Your commandments,” once he has attained simple faith.

5With this we can explain Korach's dispute. Korach held that one can set out on the path of inquiry right away, without first having simple faith. That is what he meant by saying, “‘Why do you raise yourselves up?’ All of them heard at Mount Sinai ‘I am …’ and ‘You shall have no …’”⁷ The first two commandments, Anochi, “I am Hashem your God,” and Lo yihyeh lecha, “You shall have no other gods,” we heard from the mouth of the Almighty, but the rest were said only through Moshe.⁸ Korach held that a person must investigate everything for himself rather than rely on Moshe with simple faith. Because he took the path of inquiry, he came to doubt everything Moshe said. He claimed that Moshe had acted on his own initiative in appointing himself king and Aharon Kohen Gadol, the High Priest.⁹ To counter this, Moshe said, “By this you shall know that Hashem sent me … for it was not from my own heart.”¹⁰

6This shows how fitting the Torah's words “Korach took” are. He took hold of a new path: to investigate every matter from its very beginning and “take” everything for himself, by understanding it with his own mind.

7This also lets us understand the Midrash Pli'ah we cited, which says that Korach “saw the red heifer.” The red heifer is a mitzvah with no reason given, and since Korach wanted to fulfill everything on the strength of his own understanding, it was the mitzvah of the red heifer that led him to dispute Moshe. The same is true of his questions about a house full of sefarim and a tallis made entirely of techeles. He was forever questioning the mitzvos and wanted them to make sense to the mind. He lacked the precondition of “for I have believed in Your commandments”: believing with simple faith. That was Korach's sin.

8May Hashem grant that we be privileged to fulfill the mitzvos and the Torah out of simple faith, and from there to rise to the heights of Torah and faith. And may the End of the exile soon draw near. Amen, may it be His will.