The Cloud Over Korach's Soul: Moshe's Hidden Repair

1“The whole congregation of Bnei Yisrael complained … saying, ‘You have killed the people of Hashem.’”¹ The commentators, among them the Ohr HaChaim, ask why the word leimor, “saying,” is used here. Wherever leimor appears, it means that the words are to be passed on, to later generations or to others. But here that cannot be the meaning. We must also ask: they had all seen how great Korach's sin was, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed Korach and all that was his.² How, then, did they dare say to Moshe and Aharon, “You have killed”? And why did they give the sinners the title “the people of Hashem”?

2The next verse also needs explaining: “They turned toward the Tent of Meeting, and behold, the cloud had covered it, and the glory of Hashem appeared.”³ Elsewhere the Torah mentions only that the glory of Hashem appeared to Bnei Yisrael.⁴ Why, then, does it first say here, “and behold, the cloud had covered it”?

3aPerhaps we can explain this with a teaching of the holy sefer Ateres LeRosh Tzaddik. It asks about the verse “He spoke to Korach … ‘In the morning Hashem will make known … and the one whom He chooses He will draw near to Himself’ …”⁵ Right after these words of Moshe, the Torah says again, “Moshe said to Korach, ‘Listen now, sons of Levi.’”⁶ Why repeat “Moshe said,” when Moshe was already standing and speaking with Korach, and the Torah had just said, “He spoke to Korach”? The Ateres LeRosh Tzaddik explains that a tzaddik can rectify Bnei Yisrael in two ways. The first is through words of mussar, moral rebuke, telling them how grave the sin is and how severe its punishment. The second is by rectifying their souls at their root Above.

3bMoshe began with the first way. The Torah describes this with the word vayedaber, “he spoke,” a harsh expression:⁷ he rebuked Korach and made clear to him how grave the prohibition was and how severe the sin and its punishment. When Moshe saw that this was not helping, because Korach was already badly blemished, he turned to the second way: praying for him and rectifying the root of his soul Above. This is the meaning of “Moshe said to Korach, ‘Listen now, sons of Levi’”: the words “sons of Levi” allude to the root of his soul. The word vayomer, “he said,” is amirah, soft speech, which mentions no punishments but only rectifies the soul at its root. But this did not help Korach either, since he spent the whole night in mockery,⁸ and as Chazal said, “One act of mockery pushes away a hundred rebukes.”⁹ Those are the holy words of the Ateres LeRosh Tzaddik.

4But Bnei Yisrael did not know that Moshe Rabbeinu had also worked to rectify the sinners' souls at their root, and that it had not helped. So “the whole congregation of Bnei Yisrael complained, leimor.” That very word was their complaint against him: Why had Moshe Rabbeinu not worked to rectify them through leimor, a form of amirah, the soft speech that rectifies the soul at its root? And this, they told Moshe and Aharon, is how “you have killed the people of Hashem”: you caused them to be punished by Heaven. That is what they meant by “the people of Hashem”: the words allude to the “portion of God from Above”¹⁰ that each person has, the root of his soul, and through it, they said, you should have rectified them. This answers our questions about “saying” and about “the people of Hashem.”

5The verse about the cloud points to this: “And it came to pass, when the congregation gathered against Moshe and against Aharon … and behold, the cloud had covered it.”¹¹ With these words the Torah hints and testifies that Moshe truly did pray for their souls, but the cloud covered the root of Korach's soul. And “the glory of Hashem appeared”: Moshe had already acted and labored to rectify Korach by revealing the root of his soul, the portion of Hashem within him. But Korach remained under his covering, because his mockery kept even this from helping him, and so Korach and his company were punished.

6May Hashem grant that we be privileged to rectify our souls and bring the redemption near. Amen, may it be His will.