Parshas Korach-Chukas - Why do we need a Rebbe?

00:00 People ask: Why is hiskashrus—devotion to the tzaddik, the leader of the generation—so important? After all, we have the Shulchan Aruch. We have the Torah that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave to every Jew. Everyone stood at the giving of the Torah, and everyone heard, “I am Hashem your G-d.” So the question arises: A person can take a Shulchan Aruch, study it, see how he should conduct himself, and do so without needing the influence of a tzaddik, a Rebbe. Surely everyone can know for themselves what they need to do. Yet a foundation of Chassidus, established by the Baal Shem Tov and followed through the generations, is that there must be dedication and devotion, a bond with the leader, with the tzaddik. People often ask: Why, really? Why can’t a person be a good Jew, a worthy and upright Jew who fears Heaven and observes Torah and mitzvos, study the Shulchan Aruch himself, and know for himself what he should do? But in the parshiyos we have been studying these past weeks, one after another, we see how important the bond with Moshe Rabbeinu is. In Parshas Behaaloscha, Parshas Shelach, Parshas Korach, and Parshas Chukas—in all the parshiyos we have studied and are studying during these weeks—we see this point. The Torah tells us several stories that—

01:39 happened in the generation of the wilderness, with the first leader, the first Rebbe of that time, Moshe Rabbeinu. When they lacked that dedication and devotion, that bond with Moshe Rabbeinu, the most serious things resulted: the incident of those who complained in Parshas Behaaloscha, the incident of the spies in Parshas Shelach, the story of Korach in Parshas Korach, and also, in Parshas Chukas, when the Jewish people spoke against Moshe—the lashon hara they spoke about Moshe Rabbeinu—which brought the fiery serpents, alongside the whole story of the rock that the Torah tells in Parshas Chukas. What all these stories have in common shows us how important the bond with Moshe Rabbeinu is. And we are speaking about that very generation, the generation of knowledge. They all stood together with Moshe Rabbeinu at Mount Sinai. They all received the Torah and saw the miracles and wonders of the Exodus from Egypt, the splitting of the sea, the way they were led through the wilderness, and so on. They clearly saw Moshe Rabbeinu standing at Mount Sinai and Hakadosh Boruch Hu giving the Torah. They saw it all with their own eyes. Nevertheless, when they lacked bittul, that point of dedication and devotion to Moshe Rabbeinu, they reached the lowest levels. And each story, of course, highlights another point, another aspect of how far a person can fall in serving Hashem when that devotion, that bond—

03:13 with Moshe Rabbeinu, is lacking. Today I want to focus on one point. There are many things we could discuss in these parshiyos, but today I want to focus on at least one point that we can see clearly and tangibly in the Torah’s stories about the importance of the bond with Moshe Rabbeinu. I want to begin with an incident, so we can see how this is expressed in actual practice, quite literally. I’ll start with this story, and then we’ll look at where these ideas appear in the weekly parsha and how we can draw from them a practical lesson for serving Hashem in everyday life. It’s a story that I myself was part of, something that happened in 5751. That year I had the privilege of being on shlichus. There was a program the Rebbe had established—shlichus to yeshivos. In other words, bochurim who had studied in a junior yeshiva and then a senior yeshiva would go on shlichus to yeshivos in other countries, to strengthen Torah study and the students in those distant yeshivos. One of the places, among the first to which the Rebbe [unclear], was Melbourne, Australia. I—

04:53 I myself was among the shluchim who went on shlichus then, in 5750, for a short period, and we were there for two years. In 5751 we sat and learned in the yeshiva there. I was a yeshiva bochur, and we also reached out to children and young men from the city, studied Torah with them, strengthened their connection to Yiddishkeit, and so on. This was in Menachem Av 5751. One day, a young man came in and looked around. He came from a family that did not observe Torah and mitzvos. He had long hair, and he [unclear] came into our yeshiva. Someone approached him and asked who he was. He said he was Jewish, that his name was Moshe, and that he came from a Jewish family but knew nothing about Judaism. How he got to the yeshiva—I don’t remember the details now. But that’s what happened: when he came into the yeshiva, he wanted to know what Judaism was. They helped him put on tefillin and sat down to study with him. The young man stayed at the yeshiva for a day, two days, several days, and they devoted themselves to him and studied Torah with him. Immediately, an enormous flame was kindled within him. A fire was immediately lit in his soul. He began learning with a thirst and wanted to know every—

06:32 thing. He wanted to know how to observe Torah and mitzvos. An enormous thirst for Yiddishkeit and for Torah and mitzvos awakened within him. He also needed to stay, and so he stayed a few more days. He kept coming back day after day. In those days, in 5751, we could listen to the Rebbe’s sichos during the week from time to time. Yes, we could listen to the Rebbe’s sichos. On that day, 13 Menachem Av, the arrangement was that when the Rebbe delivered a sicha during the week, we would hear it over the phone as he was speaking. Australia is about thirteen hours ahead of America. When the Rebbe delivered a sicha in the evening, for us it was already the following morning. This was on 13 Menachem Av. That day, a group of children returned from one of the camps, from [unclear], in New York. They came in to daven Mincha with the Rebbe, you know? After camp, [unclear] to meet the Rebbe. That was the practice after camp.

08:07 When the camps were in the [unclear] area, the buses would return to Crown Heights, where the children would daven with the Rebbe. From time to time the Rebbe would also speak to the children. That day they davened Mincha together with the Rebbe, and after Mincha there was a Tzivos Hashem rally. That was what they called it when the Rebbe spoke to the children. They recited the twelve pesukim and sayings of our Sages that the Rebbe had taught should be taught to children by heart. Then the Rebbe delivered several sichos to the children. We sat in the yeshiva and listened to all those sichos. There was a bochur whose job was to translate the sichos into English, because the bochurim did not understand Yiddish and the Rebbe spoke in Yiddish. They would translate as the Rebbe spoke. When the Rebbe spoke to children, there was also a person in charge, Rabbi Yaakov Yehuda Hecht. By that time it was already his son, because Rabbi Hecht had passed away the year before. His son would repeat the sicha after the Rebbe spoke to the children. He would repeat it in English, because the children there did not understand. In addition, the bochurim would also go over the sicha among themselves. That day, 13 Menachem Av, the children’s rally took place, and the Rebbe delivered several sichos. In one of them, the Rebbe spoke about something [unclear]

09:39 wonderful from the weekly parsha. They were studying Parshas Vaeschanan then. That day’s Chumash portion was the portion of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are recounted again in Parshas Vaeschanan. They studied the Ten Commandments, and the Rebbe delivered a sicha about them. The Rebbe was speaking to children, and when he spoke to children, he would explain the sicha in simple words. One of the points the Rebbe discussed then was a lesson we learn from the Ten Commandments: they begin with the words “I am Hashem your G-d” and end with the words “and anything that belongs to your fellow.” In other words, the first words Hakadosh Boruch Hu spoke in the Ten Commandments are the foundations of faith, the foundation of a Jew’s entire existence, of a person’s existence in the world. “I am Hashem your G-d”—Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. The last words of the Ten Commandments speak about “anything that belongs to your fellow.” The Torah says that when it comes to things belonging to your fellow, your friend, these can be ordinary things, as the Torah says: his house, his wife, his donkey—ordinary things. These are possessions that belong to my friend. The Torah says that when it comes to your fellow, to “anything that belongs to your fellow,” then “you shall not covet,” “you shall not desire.” A person should not be drawn to such a thing or want it; he should have no attraction or desire to take

11:17 Something that belongs to your fellow, that belongs to another Jew. The Rebbe said that these two things, from the first commandment to the last, are at opposite extremes. The first speaks about faith, the foundation of a Jew’s life. The last speaks about “anything that belongs to your fellow”—something belonging to someone else that may be worth only a penny, no more than that. And yet, concerning “anything that belongs to your fellow,” the Torah says, “Do not covet,” “Do not desire”: a person should not even want something that belongs to another, however small it may be. The Rebbe explained that the Torah is teaching us that, for a Jew, “anything that belongs to your fellow” must be just as precious as “I am Hashem your G-d,” with the same attitude and in the same way. A Jew must be careful about “I am Hashem your G-d.” Every child understands that “I am Hashem your G-d” is the foundation of being a Jew. You know, it is the most important thing in life: “I am Hashem your G-d,” connecting with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We must regard “anything that belongs to your fellow” with that same sense of preciousness, that same eagerness and attachment, whenever something belongs not to me but to someone else. It may be that the thing itself, when I think about it on its own, has no importance at all, not even any value; he does not need it. It is a small thing, worth barely a penny, with no value or importance. So what?

12:51 So should I take it for myself? After all, it is nothing, a small thing; I will take it and learn from it. And Rashi says [unclear] “and anything that belongs to your fellow”—we must regard “and anything that belongs to your fellow” with the same importance and seriousness with which we regard “I am Hashem your G-d”: not to take something that belongs to someone else, even if it is small. And that is how the Rebbe taught us to act: to give weight even to a small deed, to a small thing in thought, speech or action. Even the very smallest thing must be considered most precious. That is what the order of the Ten Commandments teaches us, and that is how a Jew must conduct himself. This is how we prepare for the complete Geulah. In Parshas Vaeschanan, the Torah speaks about Moshe Rabbeinu, who wants to enter Eretz Yisroel—that they should enter Eretz Yisroel and merit the complete Geulah, speedily in our days, amen. That comes through this kind of conduct, in which we are careful about every small action of our own. That was the subject of the sicha. When the Rebbe finished speaking at the farbrengen, at the end of the sicha, the young man we spoke about earlier came over to me. He had heard the English translation and the review of the sicha. He came over and said he wanted to tell me something. He told me that he had found

14:23 a coin or two coins, and they were in his possession. Now, after hearing what the Rebbe had said about how one should act even with a penny, and that one must [unclear] “anything that belongs to your fellow,” and having understood the Rebbe’s words, he wanted to return the coins to whoever owned them. What should he do? What is the halacha? It was a very small sum. They were two small coins, perhaps not even worth a dollar, an Australian dollar—somewhere around that amount, or even less. Small coins with almost no value. Incidentally, as stated in halacha, when a person finds coins with no identifying mark, he is permitted by law to keep them. But he wanted to give them to tzedakah. And that is what people do: give them to tzedakah. So the young man took the coins and put them in tzedakah. But then he said that he wanted to write to the Rebbe about what he had just done. We, the shluchim, tried to explain to him that the Rebbe was very busy. Think about it: [unclear], every day the Rebbe received hundreds of letters from all corners of the world, including matters of tremendous consequence, matters of life and death and other important things. When you want to write to the Rebbe, you have to consider whether there is a need to write, whether the matter is important enough, whether it has

15:58 significance. Among ourselves, the shluchim, we thought it was a small matter. He had found a coin and put it in tzedakah; it was not such a big thing. Surely there were more important things to write to the Rebbe about. We tried to tell him that what had happened did not seem important enough to warrant writing to the Rebbe. But for some reason the young man insisted. He said, “No, I feel that I want to tell the Rebbe that I did what the Rebbe spoke about at the farbrengen.” Since he insisted, we said, “All right, by all means, gladly.” We taught him how to write to the Rebbe. In those days, the procedure was to write a letter and send it by fax. There were no iPhones or other means yet; that was the iPhone of the time. That was how letters were sent to the Rebbe—by fax. We faxed the letter the young man had written to the Rebbe’s secretariat. To our surprise, a reply came within a few hours. Anyone who remembers, anyone who knows, will know that in those days a reply from the Rebbe was a rare thing. Almost only a select few merited one. And here, suddenly, a reply from the Rebbe arrived within a few hours. I cannot quote the reply word for word, but it had two parts. In the first part, the Rebbe wrote the words, “And fortunate is he that he returned all the above.” Those were the first words: “And fortunate is he.”

17:36 An expression of satisfaction—“and fortunate is he”—for returning those coins. Then there was another passage in which the Rebbe wrote that he should take care with his conduct and live his daily life according to halacha, according to the Torah and mitzvos, as one should conduct oneself according to the Shulchan Aruch, in accordance with the instructions of, of, of [unclear]. I do not remember the exact wording, but that was the content of the letter. It ended, “I will mention it at the tziyun”; that was the wording. We were very surprised to see this: the Rebbe, occupied with leading the entire world, occupied with matters of tremendous consequence and with matters every moment—every second of his time was truly precious—and yet he devoted some of his time to this young man. Not only did he devote time to him, but he did so over something that, in our eyes, seemed utterly trivial, something of no value that we did not consider important. To the Rebbe, it was so precious that he wrote, “And fortunate is he that he returned all the above,” because the young man had returned those coins and handed them over. To us, it was an extraordinary thing. What is the point here, when you think about it? With things like this, people, human beings, can sometimes lose their sense of their value and importance. When you go by intellect, then the intellect...

19:10 A person starts making calculations: this is not so important; that is important; this is a small thing—why do you attach such importance to it? There are more important things, after all. The point is that something the Rebbe says may concern the law of a penny, something utterly minor, the very smallest thing, and yet a person must approach it with the same seriousness, the same devotion and the same importance with which he devotes himself to the law of a penny. This is a most remarkable point. When our hiskashrus to the tzaddik is lacking, intellect alone can sometimes lose that sense of it. This is one of the points we see when we examine our parsha, Parshas Korach, which tells us what happened with Korach and what his mistake was. As is known, there were several aspects to Korach’s dispute. What was he arguing about? In the Torah itself, in Chumash according to the plain meaning of the text, and in Rashi, who explains that plain meaning, we find several issues raised by Korach. There are many Midrashim and many approaches, but the main issues—as is known—were three. Their initials spell emes, “truth.” The Gemara says that when the earth opened and Korach’s sons fell into it, as recounted in the Gemara in Bava Basra, they cried out from inside the earth: “Moshe is true, and his Torah is true, and we are liars.”

20:43 Emes—what do its letters stand for? The alef stands for Aharon, the dispute against Aharon. The mem stands for the mezuzah: does a house full of sefarim need a mezuzah? Should a house full of sefarim be exempt from a mezuzah—when the house is full of sefarim, what is the need for a mezuzah? And the third part is techeiles: a tallis made entirely of techeiles, as Rashi relates—why does it need tzitzis? Is it obligated in tzitzis? Why should it be obligated in tzitzis? These were Korach’s three arguments. What is the significance of these three arguments? We once spoke at length at a farbrengen about a beautiful and very rich explanation of why he raised these three arguments in particular, and what the alef, mem and tav represent. Korach’s three arguments are alluded to in the letters of his name: kuf, reish and ches. When you look at these three letters—kuf, reish and ches—you see a resemblance between them. All three resemble one another, and all resemble the letter hei. The letter hei has three strokes: two connected strokes—the one across the top and the one on the right—and a third stroke, which in the letter hei is separate from the others and not connected to them; it stands on its own. The kuf resembles the letter hei in those first two strokes, as do the reish and the ches. In other words, both of the upper strokes, the one across the top and the one on the right, have a place in all three letters.

22:27 The difference lies in the third line. In the letter kuf, the third line extends below the baseline, downward. In the letter hei, the left side ends at the same height as the right side; but in kuf it extends below the baseline. In reish there is no left-hand line at all, no left side; there are only two lines, and the third line is entirely absent. And in ches, the left side is joined to the top, attached to it, with no gap between them. What is the explanation? We have spoken about this several times. One of the points—the essence of the matter—is that, as is known, the letter hei is connected with the creation of the world. “With it, this world was created,” the Gemara says. The letter hei is the hei associated with creation. Creation comprises three realms, the three worlds called Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. And in serving Hashem, in the order of a person’s service, these are the three lines, the three garments through which a person functions in the world: thought, speech, and action, which the Alter Rebbe discusses at length in Tanya. Thought, speech, and action—these make up a Jew’s entire life in this world. And of the three garments themselves, action is the main thing. Our world is the world of Asiyah, the world of action. “The main thing is not study but action”—things must be brought down into actual practice, which is

23:49 the fulfillment of mitzvos through action. A Jew’s conduct must therefore be like the letter hei: “With it, this world was created.” There must be thought, which is the right side. A person needs to contemplate further, to think before going to do a mitzvah, to have the proper intentions and know what he needs to know. And there must also be speech, which is the second line: to go on learning, speaking, and explaining everything, in thought and in speech. Every mitzvah involves thought—knowledge of it; and it involves speech, which is sometimes the blessing that must be said. Speech should also include the learning connected with it: thought and speech. Then comes the main thing: it all has to come down—“The main thing is not study but action”—into actual practice. But the gap in the letter hei means that before reaching actual practice, a person needs to stop. He thinks, speaks, works things through in speech, and then action must follow. But before acting, he needs to stop; there needs to be a pause. That pause is there so he can focus his intention again and make sure the action is precisely according to Torah. Because often he rushes from thought and speech straight into action; that rush can cause him, when he acts, to lose sight of what the action should be according to

25:14 Torah. He needs to stop and consider it again. There is another point to the gap: it shows that there is something higher, some space, some air in between. In other words, there must be a gap between speech and action so there can be a thirst, so that the action does not become too coarse. The gap means that he knows action is a descent, because the world of action is a coarse world, a physical, material world. Sometimes, if a person is coarse, he may become even more so. A person needs a pause so that he will have a thirst, so that he will want to rise higher spiritually, and so that his action will come from a drive to rise above. Then even the action he performs will have a spiritual intention, and he will want to rise higher, rather than have the action merely draw him down into the world. Often a person does a mitzvah. There are mitzvos the body enjoys—physical mitzvos, material mitzvos. Yes, they are mitzvos, but because the mitzvah involves something physical, sometimes, if he does not pause before acting to focus his intention properly, the physicality can pull him below the baseline. He needs to conduct himself in the way represented by the gap in the letter hei, which shows that he has a thirst for spirituality. So what is

26:39 the point of kuf, reish, and the letter hei? They show that the action is not as it should be. In kuf, when the third line, action, extends below the baseline, it shows that a person’s actions do not match his thoughts. They are not on the same line; they are below the baseline. In other words, he descends into the realm of action, and not merely into action in the plain sense. He goes further; he becomes coarse. His desires for permitted things, his desires for forbidden things—he becomes mired in the realm of action, down to the lowest depths. That is the kuf extending below the baseline. Reish, on the other hand, is a situation in which there is no action at all. A person can often be in a situation where what he learns and speaks about remains entirely in the realm of thought; in the realm of speech he is doing fine, but it all stays in thought and speech. He never brings it down into action. The entire third line is missing, and consequently the main thing is missing. There can also be the third form, where there is no gap: either because he jumps straight into action and does not stop beforehand to think and prepare himself properly to act, or because this very point is missing in him—the thirst to rise higher. That, too, is not the proper way to act. And these were the three points in Korach’s story. As for the kuf that extends below the baseline, that was his argument when he said: A house full of seforim—

28:03 should a house full of seforim be exempt from a mezuzah? Yes, that is one point. Why does it need a mezuzah? If a house is full of Torah, does it need a mezuzah? In other words, the deficiency is in the realm of action. And similarly, is a tallis made entirely of techeiles exempt from tzitzis? A tallis made entirely of techeiles. Now, regarding a house full of seforim being exempt from a mezuzah, the meaning is that when the mezuzah is missing, the fear of Heaven is missing. Then he may descend below the baseline, like the kuf that extends below the baseline. [unclear] in fear of Heaven, [unclear] in the mezuzah. Then action can descend below the baseline; that is kuf. Regarding a tallis made entirely of techeiles being exempt from tzitzis, here is a tallis made entirely of techeiles. The techeiles shows that he has a very great fear of Heaven. Techeiles—techeiles resembles the sky, all of that—he stands in a state of tremendous bittul. But the tzitzis are missing: the strand, the bringing of the tzitzis down, the detail, bringing it down into the details. And regarding [unclear], that is the idea of the letter ches. For the point of [unclear] is that there must be [unclear]. When he is here below, he must have the thirst, the longing, and he must want to have [unclear]. And when there is no [unclear],

29:31 the thirst [unclear], it is like the letter ches, in which action comes together with thought and speech, out of thirst and longing, out of a desire to break free and bring spirituality and refinement into action. This is what we find in today’s parsha, throughout the story of Korach: everything stems from that same point. Korach was a great man—“Korach was a clever man”—and great things were said about him. He wanted the revelations of the future; he wanted to attain the true revelations. But when the bittul to Moshe Rabbeinu is missing, even if he has the greatest thirst, the greatest desire, and the truest thoughts and intentions, when things come down into action he can make all kinds of mistakes—all three kinds of mistakes represented by kuf, reish, and ches. But when there is devotion to Moshe Rabbeinu, things come down into actual practice in a way that fulfills the Divine intention in practice, which is Moshe Rabbeinu’s central concern. This is also the connection between Parshas Korach and Parshas Chukas. It is “I have established a statute; I have issued a decree.” The word chukas is related to engraving. As explained in Chassidus, the idea of chukas is that [unclear]. In order to serve

30:50 Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there must be this principle of “I have established a statute.” There must be bittul, dedication, and giving of oneself beyond reason and understanding. When a person lacks that chukah, a separation can arise within him. That separation can begin with something small, something lowly, but from there it is possible to reach a complete severance from the Source of life. And that is the point of the red heifer, which comes to purify a person from impurity caused by contact with the dead. How is one purified from that impurity? With just one drop of water and a little ash. Yes, that is what the purification requires; the water is mixed with a small amount of ash. And you do it even though you do not understand why, and you do not understand what it accomplishes for you. That drop of water with a little ash—and you do it. You know what? That is how it is done. And through this one is purified from the most severe impurity, impurity caused by contact with the dead. The point is chukah: “I have established a statute; I have issued a decree.” And this is Moshe’s parsha, as Rashi says. Moshe Rabbeinu sets the example, and from him we learn what the service of “I have established a statute” must be: dedication, devotion, and giving oneself over to G-dliness in the loftiest way. And by taking this upon ourselves—yes, each of us needs to resolve to devote himself to Moshe Rabbeinu, “the extension of Moshe in every generation,” who is

32:11 The tzaddik, the leader of the generation, shows us how to serve Hashem properly, so that everything has its place and is done in the right way: both ratzo and shov, the fire and the water that we learn about from Parshas Chukas. And also [unclear], thought, speech, and action, as we learn from this, as the Torah teaches us. Through this, may we merit to go from Moshe, the first redeemer, to the final redeemer, to the true and complete Geulah through our righteous Moshiach. May we merit to see it soon in our days, amen. As things stand here, we can go directly from where we are to the true and complete Geulah, when we will merit to see “the kohanim at their service, the Levi’im at their posts, and the Jewish people in their places,” in the true and complete Geulah.