Shabbos Parashas Korach - 5776

Shabbos Parashas Korach - 5776

Rabbi Hal Miller

Separate yourselves from amid this assembly, and I shall destroy them in an instant.

[Bamidbar 16:21]

With nearly identical words, G-d tells Moshe later what he here tells both Moshe and

Aharon. Why does the Torah relate this concept twice?

There are differences. The first thing we see is that in 16:20, the Torah says, "G-d spoke

to Moshe and Aharon, saying," yet in 17:9, it says, "G-d spoke to Moshe, saying." Why

did He speak only to Moshe the second time around? Certainly, in the second verse, 17:10,

it says to "separate yourselves", using the plural, and we know from the previous verse,

17:8, that both Moshe and Aharon were present. But there must be something to the fact

that G-d did not address Aharon directly the second time.

Another difference is the word used directing them to "separate" themselves. Rashbam

addresses this when he writes, "The reason why the Torah speaks here [17:10] of harmu

instead of hivdelu as in 16:21, which was a far weaker command, is that by now G-d's anger

was at full strength, as Korach's punishment had apparently not had the desired effect."

A third difference is, who it is that G-d is warning the prophets to get clear of. Who is "this

assembly"? Do the two verses refer to the same people?

All of this ties together neatly.

Rabbeinu Chananel says, "G-d referred to the congregation of Korach, not to the community

of the people of Israel," referring to our verse in Chapter 16. How did he know this? We see

that the words "this assembly" refer back to the nearest possible explanation, which is 16:19,

"Korach gathered the entiire assembly against them", referring to the men he had gathered

with firepans.

Using that same logic, the words in 17:10 refer back to 17:6, "The entire assembly of the

children of Israel complained." This was after Korach and his crew had been destroyed,

thus had to refer to the entire people.

Given this, our verse in Chapter 16 was a warning to Moshe certainly, but also to Aharon,

who was just about to go toe-to-toe with Korach in the firepan incident. G-d was telling

Aharon to stand back. In Chapter 17, despite Aharon being right there, he wasn't involved

in what the people were complaining about, Moshe's leadership, and there was no reason

for G-d to address Aharon directly.

The different words used for "separate" follow Rashbam's comment. The first time, G-d

was doing battle against Korach, but the people as a whole were supposed to take note

and learn a lesson. The second time, the entire people showed that they had not yet

learned the lesson, thus the harsher command, followed by the plague. The missing

lesson could have been for the people to accept Moshe as their Divinely-appointed

leader, but that would have just been a special case of the lesson of faith in G-d in

general. We need to pay attention when G-d speaks!