The Weekly Sedra – Korach – Kabalah Of The Human Entity

Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi once received a silver snuffbox as gift. But the Rebbe did not want to put it to its intended use, and remarked: “There is one part of the body which is not constantly seeking gratification – the nose. Should I train it, too, to be a pleasure-seeker?”

This incident was once related to Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s grandson, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch. As the one telling the anecdote described how Rabbi Schneur Zalman “broke off” the cover of the snuffbox, Rabbi Menachem Mendel remarked: “No, no, my grandfather never broke anyone or thing. He merely removed the hinge-pin which connected the upper part to the lower.”

Said the Lubavitcher Rebbe:

The deeper significance of Rabbi Menachem Mendel’s clarification is this: Rabbi Schneur Zalman would never have “broken off” the cover. True, his entire life was devoted to sublimating the ordinary and elevating the mundane. But he taught that the way to deal with the material world is not to repress or crush it, but to gently detach the upper from the lower: to extract, by harmonious and peaceful means, its lofty potential from its lowly enmeshments. – Once Upon A Chasid By Yanki Tauber

Who is man, body or soul?

Since the dawn of time, man has been fascinated by the tensions that arise between his mind and his body, between the spiritual and the physical. On the one hand, he finds expression in a variety of bodily functions – he sees with eyes, hears with his ears and depends on physical nourishment; but on the other hand, his mind drifts aflight, exploring horizons far and wide beyond.

Similarly, the reality man encounters outside himself appears on the one hand observable and controllable, but at the same time, it persistently defies his grasp; subject to forces that appear mysterious and unknown.

It is this dissonance between man’s body and soul, the discord between the immediate and the transcendent, which forms the stage upon which the drama of life unfolds. The principal function of our religion, as defined in Torah, is to bring calm and reconciliation to this foremost conundrum.

The Torah is a multi dimensional exposé – conversing on multiple levels. Its narrative and instruction range from the very literal to the very cryptic and esoteric. In Judaism, our subject is dealt with primarily in the teachings of Kabbalah and its sequel – Chassidus – which are devoted to the more esoteric and spiritual lessons and insights.

Chassidus observes that oftentimes the loftiest message regarding man’s transcendent spiritual service is shrouded in a Torah narrative that ostensibly involves very corporeal behavior. When interpreted by the inner dimension of Torah, these seemingly mundane behaviors and figures – in their seemingly unholy; even rebellious, roles – may well represent a fine ideological insight, to which the Torah calls our attention, so as to better understand our complex-selves and unique spiritual mission.

Last week’s Torah reading Shlach and this week’s portion – Korach, contain two such narratives, both of which deal with the very the tension between man’s spiritual and the physical qualities.

The twelve scouts – discussed in Parshah Shlach – were sent to spy on the land of Israel. Ten of them returned with a negative report; defaming the Promised Land as “a land that consumes its inhabitants.” They proceeded to implore the Israelites to abandon their mission of conquering the land.

Only Caleb and Joshua insisted that the Jews can and must proceed with the divine directive. The people of Israel responded with a night of wailing and mourning over the awful predicament into which the Al-Mighty had placed them. They felt betrayed and taken advantage-of.

On a basic level, this is a story about loss of faith. The Israelites, after having experienced more miracles than all of humanity combined – from the Ten Plagues, to the demise of the mightiest empire on the face of the earth, to the splitting of the sea – strangely questioned G-d’s ability to conquer the land of Canaan.

However, Chassidus ascribes to this narrative entirely new meaning. According to the teachings of Chassidus, these people were not a bunch of clueless ingrates. Quite the contrary, they were a highly pious generation, infatuated with divine service. What these spiritualists feared was jeopardizing their high level of connection to G-d, not the physical defeat by the Canaanites.

For over a year, the generation of the wilderness had been living a wholly spiritual existence. Manna fell from heaven and a miracle rock yielded water; “Clouds of Glory” sheltered them from heat, cold, scorpions and enemy arrows – guiding and paving their way through the desert. Free of all material concern, they spent all their time immersed in their newly discovered divine wisdom and service. Suddenly they were being asked to leave their desert paradise, raise an army, conquer and settle the land, and eke earthly bread out of its soil.

Here in the desert, they argued – sustained by the Manna from heaven and shielded from a corporeal and hostile world by heavenly intervention – our souls are free to ponder the depth of the divine wisdom and soar in meditative affection of G-d. There, we shall succumb to the political and economic mundanities intrinsic to an earth-bound existence. “It is a land that consumes its inhabitants,” they warned the people, why abandon our spiritual idyll for a life subsisting off the land?

But man, the crown and apex of G-d’s creation, is meant to implement G-d’s purpose in creation: the divine desire for “a dwelling below” – a home in the physical world – by fusing the spiritual and physical in the service of the divine. For man alone is fashioned of both spirit and matter.

The Spies erred in confining man’s identity and purpose to the realm of the spirit, rejecting in effect, the very essence of Israel’s mission: to conquer and settle the land of Canaan and utilize its potential for holiness and sanctity.

A significant and insightful message regarding the true identity and purpose of man lies herein enclosed. This narrative, according to Kabbalistic interpretation, addresses the age old conflict between our bodies and souls; the discord between the physical and spiritual.

Man’s essential quality is not to cleave to G-d by shunning the body, quite the contrary, his true mission is to elevate and refine the world by enlisting the physical in the higher service of the divine. Asceticism, we are taught, is not the Jewish path to self-realization and purpose. There are plenty of Angels who are well capable of that mission.

Then comes the story of Korach as read in this week’s portion; the tale of another rebellion. Korach, a Levite and a cousin of Moshe, along with 250 followers massed upon Moshe and Aharon, demanding: “The entire community is holy and G-d is amongst them; why do you raise yourselves above the congregation of G-d?”

Here again, on a simple level Korach was a selfish agitator, who – motivated by jealousy and a desire for power – embarked on a destructive campaign to topple the spiritual leadership and structure of the fledgling hierarchy of Israel. Yet, according to the teachings of Chassidus, Korach was no simple rebel; he was in fact a saintly scholar driven by a passionate spiritual ideology, albeit misguided.

Korach’s challenge to the spiritual chain of command came on the heels of the tragic mutiny of the spies. Korach took the lesson of the Spies’ error to the opposite extreme. The Spies spurned the mundane; Korach contested the very distinction of spiritual life as loftier and more desirable than the material. As a result of the spies error Korach mistakenly denied the very preeminence of the spiritual.

Korach objected to the concept of “higher” and “lower” realms within life; a notion expressed in the distinction and reverence of the leadership, i.e. the priesthood, as well as the institution of the “gifts to the priesthood,” as commanded by G-d. As we shall explain, Korach argued that Moshe had misinterpreted their function and role.

No allotment in the Land of Israel was given the tribe of Levi; “G-d is their lot,” spirituality was their vocation. Their material needs were to be provided by their brethren, whom they represented and inspired with their service in the Holy Temple. The tithe of the Jew’s produce was hence given to the Levite, and “the twenty-four gifts” to the Kohen.

The Matanot Kehunah (gifts to the priesthood), according to Chassidus, represent the resources that each and every individual reserves for the “Kohen” within himself – the time, energy and possessions he allots for his own spiritual pursuits.

Korach did not object to the Matanot Kehunah per se, he rather refused to accept the notion that the bushel of grain that the Israelite farmer reserves for the Kohen, or the daily hour or two he devotes for study and prayer, are somehow loftier and “Holier” than the rest of his harvest or day.

“It’s enough,” argued Korach, “that we recognize the spiritual as the appropriate avocation for certain individuals, and as a necessary segment of every individual’s life. But must it be defined as the apex of our communal and individual endeavors? The entire community is holy, and G-d is amongst them and in their every positive effort. Why do you raise yourselves, and the spiritual ideal that you represent above all else? You are repeating the error of the spies!”

In the aftermath of Korach’s mutiny, G-d reiterated His choice of Aharon as Kohen Gadol, affirming thereby His rejection of Korach’s attempt to redefine, the highest spiritual station. In detailing the laws of several of the Matanot Kehunah, G-d again endorsed the elevation of the spiritual over the physical, saying to Aharon: “The choicest of the olive oil, the choicest of the wine and grain . . . the fist ripening of all that is in the land, which they shall offer to G-d, shall be given to you”

“The choicest to the Kohen” represents the Jew’s attitude toward his material life. In the words of Maimonides: “Everything that is for the sake of G-d should be of the best and most beautiful . . . as it is written, ‘The choicest to G-d.’” The same applies to that which a person reserves for the Kohen within himself. The best years of one’s life, the prime hours of one’s day, the freshest of one’s energies, the choicest of his talents should be devoted to G-dly pursuits.

In doing so, the person is, in effect, saying: “Here lies the focus and essence of my life. Quantitatively, this may represent but a small part of what I am and have; but the purpose of everything else I do and possess is to enable this percentile of spirit to rise above my matter-laden life.”

Korach was correct in his contention that our involvement with the material can be no less G-dly an endeavor than the most transcendent flights of spirit. Indeed, our sages consider man’s sanctification of material life the ultimate objective of creation. “G-d desired a dwelling in the lowly realms,” states the Midrash; “This,” writes Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi in his Tanya, “is what man is all about; the purpose of his creation, and the creation of all worlds, supernal and terrestrial.”

But Korach erred in his understanding of the nature of this “dwelling in the lowly realms” and the manner in which it is fashioned out of his material-self and world.

When a person spends ninety percent of his life earning a living, eating, sleeping, recreating and otherwise attending to his material needs, yet does so in a way that demonstrates that all this is only to enable the ten percent he devotes to prayer, study, charity and other G-dly endeavors, he transforms the very nature of the physical. The “I exist” of the physical, which blatantly belies the divine truth, has now become partner to the reality that “There is none else besides Him.” It has acknowledged its subservience to that which is greater than itself.

Korach’s mistake lay in blurring the distinction between the “higher” and “lower,” – the spiritual and the physical. When the “inferiority” of the material is made manifest, when the materially-involved individual orders his priorities so that his every material act is for the sake of the Kohen and the Kohen within himself, then the “lowliest realm” of creation becomes its G-dliest, its greatest assertion of the divine truth. However, as long as the material is not made to express its subservience to the spiritual, it remains the element of creation that is “furthest” from its divine source.

This is not because the spiritual occupy’s a more important place in G-d’s world. On the contrary – the “lowly realm” of the material – that which least expresses the reality of G-d in any manifest way – is the true arena in which the divine purpose in creation is realized. But its unique ability – the potential to affirm G-d’s ultimate omnipotence in this world – is only possible when it is harnessed into servitude.

So is man body or soul? The correct is that he is body and soul. But he is a true man only when his body is subservient to his soul.