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Korach
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beha’alOtcha ך ְתֹלֲע ַה ְּב £All that God Does Is for the GoodAll that God Does Is for the GoodAll that God Does Is for the GoodAll that God Does Is for the GoodAll that God Does Is for the GoodAll that God Does Is for the Good
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Paradoxically, while the world is a reflection of the Torah, the Torah
also simultaneously reflects the realities of the world. This paradox
£A Separate Book in the TorahA Separate Book in the TorahA Separate Book in the TorahA Separate Book in the TorahA Separate Book in the TorahA Separate Book in the Torah was discussed extensively in our discussion of Jacob’s complex
character in a number of portions in Genesis. Since there are so many
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difficult situations in life that strain our sense of fairness, logic, and
at times even our faith itself, we would expect to find situations in
In the Torah portion of Beha’alotcha, we find a phenomenon that the Torah that also seem to defy explanation. In Korach, we discover
occurs nowhere else in the entire Tanach: two sentences are bracketed that not only Korach and his assembly are swallowed up by the earth
off from the rest of the text by two backward-facing and inverted but also their wives, children, and even infants. That these men’s
Hebrew letters, two nuns, to be exact: wives and grown-up children somehow participated in the uprising
And when the ark would journey, Moses said: “Arise God and let cannot be entirely dismissed, yet it is initially difficult to understand
your enemies be scattered, and let those that hate You flee from before what the tiny babies could have done to deserve such a death given
You.” And when it [the ark] rested he would say: “Rest peacefully that they took no part whatsoever in the entire incident. To argue
God among the myriad thousands of Israel.” (Numbers 10:35-36) that these infants had to die because they were of the same bloodline
as the rebels is inherently difficult to reconcile with our innate sense
The first verse is recited in synagogues around the world when the
ark is opened and the Torah removed for public readings, and the of justice. Furthermore, they had no opportunity to exercise their
second verse is recited when the Torah is returned to the ark after free will so how could they be punished? Indeed, even arguing that
having been read. these infants were punished for their fathers’ sins is problematic as
the Torah explicitly relates that God does not punish children for
Rashi, quoting the Talmud (Shabbat 115b-116a), first explains that their fathers’ sins.
these two verses are set apart because they are out of chronological
order. This, however, would not seem to be reason enough since Rashi One way to resolve this conundrum is to admit that free will,
often explains that events recorded in the Torah are out of sequential though axiomatic in Jewish thought, is not as absolute as many
order, and, indeed, this reasoning is also disputed by Rabbi Judah people think. Many factors including nature and nurture, the effect of
Hanasi in the Talmud. Why then, according to the Talmud, do the previous lifetimes, peer pressure, societal limitations, and emotional
nuns appear in this specific case? Rashi, offering a second Talmudic and psychological makeup all influence and create the parameters
opinion, proposes that the Torah is separating two sets of sins that within which free will operates. Perhaps these infants’ souls were
occurred in the desert, both of which are recorded in this portion. reincarnated for only a brief time to pay off some debts or undergo
certain suffering to atone for their actions in a previous lifetime.
The Talmud also offers a third possibility, which Rashi does not
mention: these two verses are set off because they are actually a Alternatively, we might suggest that sometimes even though the
completely separate book! In light of this proposal, the five books individual may be blameless, his or her fate is the result of either
of Moses would actually be seven books, as the creation of this two- God meting out collective punishment or the collective destiny of the
verse book splits the book of Numbers into three separate books. As world callously determining a single individual’s fate. For instance,
in explaining God’s decision to flood the entire world in Noah’s time,
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