Parshas Korach - A Nasi of Klal Yisroel Thinks About Every Individual

00:00 One of the Rebbe’s first shluchim was Reb Gershon Mendel Gurevitch. He was among the first shluchim to go beyond the borders, among the first the Rebbe sent to Italy. Reb Gershon Mendel was one of the young men who left Russia after the war. They then traveled to Eretz Yisroel, and later he came to study in America, at 770. After his wedding, in Kislev 5719, the Rebbe sent him, and he traveled with his wife—may she be healthy and strong; l’chaim, l’chaim. They went to serve as the Rebbe’s shluchim in Milan, Italy. There they established the community, with all the aspects of Jewish life in Italy. As shluchim from that first period, they received dozens and hundreds of letters from the Rebbe, at every step and stage. In them, the Rebbe guided them, educated them, and taught them. They had many letters about every matter, every detail, every subject they needed to address and work on there. And they brought all of this with them to their yechidus meetings, along with everything else they had to discuss. When they came to the Rebbe—Reb Gershon Mendel used to travel to the Rebbe often—years had passed, more than thirty years since 5718, 5719. There were many interesting stories. His wife, may she be healthy and strong, Rebbetzin Gurevitch, was standing in line one Sunday. In the later years, as you know, the Rebbe would

01:58 distribute dollars every Sunday to men, women, and children, and bless each person with blessing and success. The crowd would come forward and pass by very quickly. The Rebbe would give a dollar and offer a blessing. That was how it went; usually each person passed by in a moment. From time to time, someone would stop and ask a brief question. But because of the large crowd, there was no time to stop and talk and so on. The period we’re speaking about now was after the passing of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, meaning after 5748. For a year, the Rebbe stayed at his home instead of at 770. The Rebbe was then at his home on President Street, where he had lived together with the Rebbetzin. He stayed there throughout that year, and the Sunday distribution of dollars for charity took place there too. People would pass through the house, and the dollars were distributed there. There was a long line on President Street, a very long line stretching down one block, even two blocks. And people passed through. She stood there with her son and several of her sons, waiting in line. One of her sons was a child, and they stood together. And in fact, while they stood waiting, they talked about various things—stories, things from the past, experiences they had had with the Rebbe.

03:32 She told them how the Rebbe had guided them in the early years, how the Rebbe had dealt with them. They spoke about all of this, just like that, out on the street. At one point she opened her heart to her son and said that after so many years had passed, and Lubavitch had become so well known and so large, with so many hundreds and thousands of Jews coming to the Rebbe, things were completely different from the way they had been in the early years. Back then, the Rebbe devoted himself to every detail, and they received so many letters, had so many yechidus meetings. Today there was a huge crowd, and people passed by in a moment, moving through quickly. She didn’t even know whether the Rebbe noticed her, whether he saw who she was, whether he knew who she was. That was what she said from the heart. And there they stood on the street, waiting and waiting and waiting. For a long time. People passed through, and when her turn came, she saw that she had a moment to approach the Rebbe. She went in, silent, passed through the doorway, and the Rebbe gave her a dollar and blessed her with blessing and success. She continued on. As she did, the Rebbe, without even looking up, immediately said, as though to himself: “So she thinks I don’t know who she is.”

04:59 And that was the whole story. The distribution continued. You have to understand that, given the distance, there was no natural way for the Rebbe to have heard what she said. She had been standing out on the street, and so on. But what happened? The Rebbe immediately sensed that she needed to hear those words, that she needed to know she was known. The Rebbe immediately said: She thinks they don’t know who she is. In other words, we have to know that even with all the commotion, with the enormous crowd, the Rebbe still knows what each person is going through. Each person receives the individual attention he needs. And this, as you know, is just one example; there were thousands and tens of thousands of such stories. When certain people began to have doubts about this, even after they had already spent some time with the Rebbe, the Rebbe immediately gave them the reassurance they needed: they should know that the Rebbe knows about them, thinks about them, and holds them in his thoughts. Parshas Korach. In our parsha, we find an interesting account with a verse that strongly brings out this point: the relationship of the nasi, the leader of the generation, not only with the generation as a whole, but also with every individual, each one in his own right. And in general, Parshas Korach is a remarkable and fundamental parsha that brings out the matter of hiskashrus, that brings out

06:30 the matter of a Rebbe, the matter of a nasi. After all, Korach’s whole story is that he waged a fight against Moshe Rabbeinu. Of course, there are a number of details: he pursued the entire dispute over the priesthood, over a tallis made entirely of techeles, as Rashi relates, and over a house full of seforim, which Rashi also relates. When there is a dispute, it has many details. We don’t know exactly how the dispute unfolded. But at its core, the dispute was against Moshe Rabbeinu. That is, the whole point here was—as becomes clear later in the parsha, as the story unfolds—that Moshe Rabbeinu argued with them over everything that happened here, until, as the Gemara recounts in Bava Basra, in the chapter Hamochel Es Hasfinah: “Moshe is true and his Torah is true, and we are liars.” Rabbah bar bar Chanah relates that he traveled through the desert and heard that, from the place where Korach’s followers are, from the pit into which they fell, they stand there to this day and cry out: “Moshe is true and his Torah is true, and we are liars.” In other words, that was the issue. The whole point was a fight

07:52 against Moshe Rabbeinu. The Rebbe once said about the word emes, “truth,” as cited in the seforim, that it is an acronym: aron, the Ark—that is the letter alef. Then comes the letter mem, for mezuzah: Is a house full of seforim exempt from a mezuzah? What was his claim? That a house full of seforim does not need a mezuzah. And the letter tav is for techeles, a tallis made entirely of techeles. Those are the initials that spell emes, and about this one must say, “Moshe is true.” In other words, they argued about the Ark, techeles, and mezuzah, but the point was Moshe Rabbeinu. The claim was: Why do we need a Rebbe? Why do we need Moshe Rabbeinu? And so the verse says: “For the entire congregation, all of them, are holy; why do you raise yourselves above Hashem’s assembly?” The entire congregation, all of them, are holy; they all heard at Mount Sinai. All are holy, all stood at Mount Sinai, all received “I am Hashem your G-d” and “You shall have no other gods.” After all, every Jew—“all of them are holy”; in terms of the revelation at the Giving of the Torah, all are equal. So why is there a need to “raise yourselves above”—for a nasi? Why do we need a Rebbe, why do we need Moshe Rabbeinu? It follows that everything we see in Parshas Korach, the whole story of what happened to Korach, comes to emphasize how vital, how important it is that we be connected to Moshe Rabbeinu. How important it is that—

09:25 one can raise questions about Moshe Rabbeinu, and see how far those questions can lead, G-d forbid. That is not the way. There are things we can learn from this: what a Rebbe is, what that means, what our connection to the Rebbe is, and why this specifically concerns the Rebbe. There is much to say about it, many explanations in Chassidus, in maamarim and sichos that address it. Today we’ll look at a brief Rashi. I had the privilege of hearing this sicha from the Rebbe in 5740, before Parshas Korach. I was with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe spoke about that Rashi and drew from it a deep and rich idea that truly expresses the central point of the remarkable quality of a nasi: what it means, specifically, to be a Rebbe, a nasi. The sicha was later edited and published in Likkutei Sichos, volume 33. Here is the account in the parsha: when Moshe Rabbeinu gathered the 250 men—Korach brought the 250 men, and they wrapped themselves in talleisim made entirely of techeles. They wanted the priesthood too. They all wanted to be kohanim. They asked to offer ketores. They all wanted to be able to offer ketores. And Moshe Rabbeinu had an entire discussion with them. Rashi relates that after the discussion, Moshe Rabbeinu told them that each of them could bring ketores, but they must know: We all have one Torah and one G-d, and there is only one person who can do this.

11:00 And they accepted what Moshe Rabbeinu said: that they should all bring ketores. Following that, the verse says that Moshe Rabbeinu prayed to Hashem and said, “Do not turn to their offering.” Moshe asks Hashem not to turn to their offering. The simple meaning, as Rashi says, is that Hashem should not accept their ketores. But this raises a difficulty in the plain meaning of the verse: What does this tell us? Why did Moshe Rabbeinu need to pray for that? Was there any doubt that Hashem would not accept the ketores of the people who had instigated this quarrel and dispute—Korach’s men? Why did he need to pray about it at all? So Rashi adds another point. Rashi says there was something deeper here. Besides asking that Hashem not accept their ketores, Moshe said, “I know that they have a share in the communal daily offerings.” There is the offering of communal sacrifices, and I know that they still have a share in them. Moshe Rabbeinu asks that their share in the communal sacrifices, too, should not be accepted favorably before You—that the fire of the altar should not consume it. And the Rebbe pauses here: What is their share in the communal sacrifices? What does that mean...

12:28 This is a remarkable insight, a truly remarkable insight. At first glance, how can an individual have a share in communal sacrifices? After all, a communal sacrifice belongs to the Jewish people as a whole. [unclear] Does that share have any significance at all? But Rashi is precise: he says “a share in the communal sacrifices.” He does not mean a share in each sacrifice on its own. He means that since each person contributes a half-shekel—and Rabbeinu Bachya writes explicitly that this is connected to the half-shekel—and since each person contributes a half-shekel toward the communal sacrifices throughout the entire year, every communal sacrifice contains a portion of that half-shekel. That portion has significance in its own right. So this is what Moshe Rabbeinu requested and demanded: that the portion of the half-shekel they had contributed toward the communal sacrifices should not be accepted. In this way he wanted to emphasize the gravity of the matter: how far they had gone in joining Korach’s quarrel and his fight against Moshe Rabbeinu. It was not only that they were punished for conducting [unclear], and not only that they received an individual punishment for what they had done—for wanting to make themselves great and fight Moshe Rabbeinu. More than that: they were completely cut off from the Jewish people as a whole. Even in the communal sacrifices, which belong to the whole Jewish people, “their share shall not be accepted.”

14:03 This makes it tangible: a person has no share in the Jewish people as a whole, because he wanted to lead the Jewish people in rebellion against Moshe Rabbeinu. But that is what Rashi says according to the plain meaning of the verse. And here an interesting question arises, a very simple one: Surely, when an individual gives something to the community, as the Gemara says, he “hands it over completely to the community.” When an individual gives his half-shekel, it is no longer his; he hands it over completely to the community, and it becomes communal property. [unclear] And as the Rogatchover explains at length, when something belonging to an individual passes to the community, it takes on a different status. It loses its status as an individual possession; its private status falls away, and it becomes part of a new mitzvah, a communal mitzvah. As an example, the Rogatchover cites an interesting point we find in the law of an idolatrous city. Someone who worships idols is liable to death by stoning, as it says in the Chumash. But when an entire city worships idols, the law is that its inhabitants are put to death by the sword instead. [unclear] When individuals worship idols, it has one status; when it becomes a communal matter, it takes on a new status, a new law, and different parameters. It is not the same

15:49 thing, but something entirely different. In any case, let us return to the point we wanted to discuss: with communal sacrifices, it would seem that the individual’s separate identity disappears entirely. So how can Moshe Rabbeinu say that their share in the communal sacrifices should not be accepted? What does “their share in the communal sacrifices” mean? It has already become part of the community; it has reached the altar, it was handed over to the community, and there is no longer an individual here. The individual’s separate existence is no longer present. It has entered a new reality, a communal one. The Rebbe says that this is reflected precisely in Rashi’s wording: “I know that they have a share in the communal daily offerings.” Moshe Rabbeinu says: I know that they have a share in the communal sacrifice. What does that mean? On the one hand, when an individual contributes something to the community and hands it over completely, it becomes communal. Nevertheless, something of the individual still remains in it. In other words, because this is something holy—the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya concerning holiness, [unclear]—something that holiness has touched, in whatever way, does not lose

17:40 its previous level even after rising to a higher one. This is a principle of holiness. Incidentally, the Alter Rebbe said this concerning the soul of a tzaddik: a tzaddik who was in this physical world and lived in it for more than twenty years, a soul in a body, and afterward rises to a higher level, until [unclear]. Nevertheless, because something holy had a connection to this world, even when it rises higher and higher, it still [unclear]. It is not uprooted from its original place; rather, the holiness remains where it was originally, because that is the nature of holiness: permanence. It endures always and remains so forever, even as it rises to a higher level. The same applies here: when something becomes a new, communal entity and is handed over completely to the community, nevertheless, from the outset it also involved the individual’s service; there was holiness in the individual’s act. The Rogatchover discusses this with regard to the half-shekel. After all, a Jew took a half-shekel from his own money and gave it. That was the individual’s service. And this is also true by the very nature of the matter: the half-shekel was given “to atone for your souls.” That is, for each Jew, the half-shekel has an individual effect on that particular person; for him, it brings about

19:11 the “atonement for their souls.” Incidentally, the point is that even after the task of handing it over to the community, and the community [unclear], since the individual’s service is holy service, what remains of it—the mitzvos in the world—does not disappear entirely. On the contrary, we must understand: this is not something found in an ordinary person. It is something found specifically in Moshe Rabbeinu. With a simple, ordinary person, it is one or the other: if it is individual, it is individual; and if it is communal, it is communal. We see this in the laws of sacrifices: an individual sacrifice is an individual sacrifice, with the rules governing an individual sacrifice. If it were a communal sacrifice, it would have different rules, those governing a communal sacrifice. But to say that it is a communal sacrifice and yet remains an individual sacrifice—that is found only when it is connected to Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu has a unique quality. As is said of Moshe Rabbeinu, he is a nasi, and a nasi is also a collective soul. Although Moshe Rabbeinu is one individual person, he is at the same time a collective soul who carries the entire Jewish people within him. For that is the role of a nasi, of a Rebbe, of a tzaddik: he carries all the souls within him; the entire Jewish people are present within him. Consequently, as the nasi of the Jewish people, Moshe Rabbeinu has

20:39 a unique quality: the truth shines within him. For truth is found with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and “tzaddikim resemble their Creator.” As we find with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, on the one hand He encompasses everyone and everything, both the individual and the collective; yet He watches over each and every person with individual Divine providence. On the one hand, He relates to the Jewish people as a whole; on the other, Hakadosh Boruch Hu sees every person, every detail, and all of each person’s individual needs, down to the smallest particulars. “Tzaddikim resemble their Creator” in this respect, too: while he is the nasi of the entire Jewish people, the nasi of the generation, and can think about the generation as a whole, he also sees every individual, their personal needs, and the particular things they require. The Rebbe explains in a maamar—and we see this in the governments of the world as well—that there is a difference between the way this works in holiness and the way it works in the world generally. In other words, there are two approaches in the world. There are countries whose approach—and we see this throughout the generations, including recent generations, when there have always been two approaches to governing a kingdom or a state in different countries—is to govern

22:11 in the form of rule by one person, while other countries follow a system of rule by the many, rule by the public. In modern language, these are called capitalism and socialism. In other words, some follow the approach called socialism: they think about the collective, about the many, and the welfare of the many is paramount—to the point of sacrificing the welfare of the individual and subordinating it to society, to the collective, to the group, to the public. They sacrifice the individual for the public. On the other hand, there is the free-market approach, capitalism, which does the opposite. It places [unclear] on each person being free in his own life, with his property and his affairs, because that serves the individual’s welfare. And it sets aside the welfare of the collective for the sake of the individual. These are two broad approaches to governance. But in the Torah, we see how the two approaches go together. When we examine how governance should work according to the Torah, how the Torah views governance among the Jewish people, we see how the Torah truly brings these two extremes together. On the one hand, there are many matters in the Torah where we find: “When one person disagrees with the many, the halachah follows the many”; matters where we say that we must act according to the welfare of the public, yes, and follow [unclear] the welfare of the collective. And in all these things we find the idea of a collective, of a

23:42 group, of a minyan, of a matter of holiness requiring ten people, and so on, emphasizing the great virtue of the collective. At the same time, the Torah devotes itself to every individual, pays close attention to him and protects him in his own right. We even find in halachah that when a life is in danger, the halachos are set aside for it. Yes, we do not wait when even a single Jewish life is at stake. “Whoever saves a single Jewish life is considered to have saved an entire world.” [unclear] that the Jewish people are a collective, and through this [unclear] the entire group. There are halachos that apply even to one person, even if he has sinned and transgressed. [unclear] This shows, on the one hand, the idea of the Jewish people as a whole, the public and unity; and at the same time, every individual remains with his own personal concerns, and the Torah devotes itself to each one. We see the same thing with Moshe Rabbeinu, and the same is true of the true leader of the generation, the true leader of the Jewish people. [unclear] Moshe Rabbeinu is the leader of the Jewish people as a whole. He is the leader of all the Jewish people: “The people among whom I dwell.” He is with everyone together, and at the same time he is there with each individual,

25:21 with each person on his own. Moshe Rabbeinu devoted himself to every person. [unclear] And so we see that even when Moshe Rabbeinu looked at the public, every individual remained important to him. That is why Moshe Rabbeinu pleaded [unclear] even when there was a sin that caused division and strife against Moshe Rabbeinu. [unclear] And so it was throughout that entire period, in many stories and in many matters. But at the same time, a leader is the leader of the entire generation, of all the people of the generation. He devotes himself to the Jewish people as a whole, [unclear] takes responsibility for everyone in the generation, carries the Jewish people as a whole and serves them. And at the same time, we can plainly see that while he is with all the Jewish people, he is also with the individual, with his personal concerns, and he cares for his needs, both material and spiritual. One of the well-known stories, which I will tell just as an example, is that the Rebbe [unclear].

27:08 [unclear] And when something like this happened, the father was concerned about one child, one son. There was an incident the Rebbe related: one son stood during the blowing of the shofar and cried. He knew that this child was crying, and saw him standing there in tears. It is remarkable: he knew what was happening during the blowing of the shofar. After all, the blowing of the shofar is a time of concern for the whole community, [unclear] for a leader of the Jewish people. Think about what he is thinking of then: the Jewish people as a whole, the entire year and the establishment of kingship for the whole year, all the Jewish people, [unclear] all the Jewish people. And at that very moment, he saw the young man standing there crying, and he attended to it as a matter of course. This is the true character of a leader. The Rashba says in his responsa that a leader embodies the Jewish people as a whole, that “the community and all of Israel depend on him.” The Rebbe points out that these are two things: “the community” and “all of Israel.” The community means the public as a whole, while “all of Israel” means each and every Jew individually. They all depend on him, on this leader. That is the main point. This is one of the remarkable incidents that teach us much about the character of a Rebbe, of a leader, who is connected to the entire community

28:56 and to the Jewish people as a whole. At the same time, he is there with every individual: he knows him, hears and knows about each person and his personal concerns, attends to them and cares for him, and tries to make sure that everyone has all he needs, materially and spiritually. From this we take a wonderful lesson relevant to each of us in our service of Hashem. There are two points here for us. First, as mentioned, days like these are especially auspicious. There is 28 Sivan, which the Rebbe said is an auspicious day, when the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin arrived in the United States, having been saved physically. This was the beginning of spreading the wellsprings outward, which reached the entire world through the dissemination of Chassidus, all the work of the shluchim and “your wellsprings shall spread outward,” in order to prepare the world for the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. And then there is also Gimmel Tammuz; these are auspicious days, [unclear]. As the familiar expression goes, on such a day [unclear], the Rebbe wishes and gives blessings to everyone, “you, your wives, your sons and your daughters,” to each person for all that he needs, in all matters of children, life and ample sustenance. And each person needs to present himself face to face, and must know

30:24 that the leader of all the Jewish people, the leader of the generation, wants to care for each and every person alongside his concern for all the Jewish people, giving him everything he needs in his personal affairs, [unclear]. Just as he feels pain over the Jewish people as a whole, particularly in times of trouble and distress, with all the undesirable things we are going through in our time, so too he cares for every individual Jew, for every member of the Jewish people, that he should have all he needs in open and revealed goodness. And this is also central to each of us in our service of Hashem. It is well known that what the leader demands of himself, he also demands of his students, his chassidim, those connected to him and those close to him. In our case: the leader demands of himself that he work for the collective and, at the same time, devote himself to each person individually. So too, the Rebbe asks each of us to be a mashpia and a leader, at least within our own four cubits, in our surroundings, our circle, our family and wherever we can reach. This involves both things: we need to care for the public as a whole, to work to bring light and to have

31:55 public Torah classes, public Torah study and communal activities. As the Rebbe said many times, in our generation everyone, every chossid, needs to be active in communal affairs and make an impact on the public as a whole. At the same time, we must remember that while working on communal matters, we need to do a kindness for the individual and devote ourselves to him with all our heart and soul. As the well-known saying of the holy Baal Shem Tov goes, a soul descends into this world and lives for seventy or eighty years in order to do a Jew a favor materially, and how much more so spiritually. [unclear] To devote ourselves—that is something we receive from [unclear] and from the leader of the generation. And that is how we can do both things together. Above all, may we merit, very soon, in our own days, [unclear] the leader of the generation, [unclear] with every person, and may we already see [unclear] the true and complete Geulah, and open and revealed goodness.