No Areivus Without Unity: Korach's Divided Company

1“Separate yourselves from the midst of this congregation … And they fell upon their faces and said, ‘O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin …’”¹ What did the Holy One, blessed be He, mean by “Separate yourselves from the midst of the congregation”? We cannot take it in its plain sense, that they had to separate so as not to die together with the wicked congregation. In Egypt, after all, we find that Hashem told an Egyptian firstborn apart from an Israelite firstborn, even when the two were mingled together.² What, then, does Hashem mean here by saying, “Separate yourselves from the midst of the congregation, and I will consume them in an instant”?

2aWe can explain it through a well-known principle set out in the holy sefarim, among them the Ohr HaChaim, the Derech Pikudecha and the Yismach Moshe.³ Because “all Israel are guarantors for one another,”⁴ whatever one Jew lacks in keeping the mitzvos, his fellow completes. In this way all Jews together are privileged to fulfill the whole Torah. This holds, however, only when Bnei Yisrael live in love and brotherhood. Then they are united with one another in keeping the Torah, and what one of them fulfills is counted for his fellow too, by the law of areivus, the mutual guarantee that binds them.

2bThat is why, of all the preparations Bnei Yisrael made to receive the Torah, the Torah mentions only their unity: “And Israel encamped there,” and Rashi explains, “As one man with one heart.”⁵ They came to receive the 613 mitzvos of the Torah, and without areivus no one can fulfill all 613. There are many mitzvos that not every person can fulfill, even over a whole lifetime, and such mitzvos are completed for a person only through his fellows, by the law of areivus. So there had to be love and peace among them, so that they would attain areivus before receiving the Torah.

3Just as a fellow's mitzvos help a person complete his fulfillment of the 613 mitzvos, so a fellow's merit helps protect him. The reverse is also true: a person can, Heaven forbid, be punished for his fellow's sin when he attaches himself to him. It was with this in mind that Hashem commanded, “Separate yourselves from the midst of this congregation.” Those who had not sinned with Korach's company were to part from them and no longer be with them in love and brotherhood, so as to have no connection with them. This would cancel the areivus between them, so that the innocent could not shield Korach's company by the power of areivus, and no one else would be punished along with the sinners through a bond of areivus.

4aMoshe answered this by pleading for mercy before Hashem. He asked that areivus should not apply even to those who would not part from Korach's company and their brotherhood with it, and that the rest of the congregation should not be punished for the sinners' sin. His reason was that Korach's company was divided, each man for himself.

4bThe holy sefer Noam Elimelech teaches this on the Mishnah “Which is a dispute for the sake of Heaven? The dispute of Hillel and Shammai. And which is not for the sake of Heaven? The dispute of Korach and all his company.”⁶ He asks why it says “Korach and all his company” and not “Korach with Moshe.” He explains that the sign of a dispute not for the sake of Heaven is that there is no love among the disputants themselves. Since their intent is not for the sake of Heaven, and each of them seeks his own good out of ulterior motives and self-importance, there is no love or brotherhood among them, and no one rejoices in his fellow's good. That is why the Mishnah calls the dispute not for the sake of Heaven “the dispute of Korach and all his company”: each of them thought that he was the holy one, and even Korach and his companions were not united. Those are the holy words of the Noam Elimelech. That is why Moshe Rabbeinu argued that since they had no love or unity among themselves, areivus could not apply to them at all.

5We may say that this is the meaning of “Shall one man sin?” At first glance the words are strange, for Korach's company numbered two hundred and fifty men.⁷ But Moshe said “one man” in wonder. Do they have the quality of “Israel encamped as one man with one heart,” that the sin should fall on all of them? Each of them is an ish echad, a man on his own, separate unto himself, as we saw in the words of the Noam Elimelech, zt"l, about a dispute not for the sake of Heaven. If so, the law that governs a community does not apply to them; each one counts as an individual. So Moshe pleaded for mercy, that punishment should not fall on the rest of the congregation who were in their company. That is the meaning of “Shall one man sin, and will You be angry with the whole congregation?”

6From this we learn how great the power of a community is. How careful, then, we must be to pray with the community, and to learn Torah together with others as well. In this merit may we be privileged to see the redemption. Amen, may it be His will.