Excerpted from Rabbi Aaron Goldscheider’s Torah United: Teachings on the Weekly Parasha from Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and the Chassidic Masters, co-published by OU Press and Ktav Publishing House
Peace is Bitter-sweet
It is rare for the Torah to present a narrative and follow it with a stated moral lesson. Parashat Korach, however, does exactly this. The Torah dramatically depicts the rebellion of Korach and Datan and Aviram, and then states: “one should not be like Korach and his company, as the Lord spoke about him through Moshe” (Numbers 17:5). The Talmud counts this directive as one of the 613 mitzvot of the Torah: “Rav said, Whoever maintains a dispute transgresses a negative command, as it says, ‘one should not be like Korach and his company.’” One may not prolong strife.
The Mishnah contrasts the type of controversy initiated by Korach with the halachic dissent between Hillel and Shammai:
Whatever dispute is for the sake of Heaven will endure; whatever is not for the sake of Heaven will not endure. What is an example of a dispute for the sake of Heaven? The dispute between Hillel and Shammai. What is an example of one not for the sake of Heaven? Korach and his ilk.
Halachic disagreement is permitted, even encouraged, to deepen our knowledge of Torah. Trying to degrade Jewish leaders, especially those appointed by God Himself, on flimsy pretexts and for frivolous reasons will end badly.
Nevertheless, we must tread carefully – perhaps even more than usual – when doing battle “for the sake of Heaven.” Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, founder of the Musar movement, was one of the most perceptive students of human psychology. He observed that when a party to a dispute views their argumentation or cause as being “for the sake of Heaven,” they can feel so self-righteous as to refuse to even hear out the other side. One could say that it cannot even be considered a “dispute,” as there is only one side. Better to be less sure that Heaven is on your side, so that the controversy can die down.
It once happened that Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Hakohen Kook, the father of the famed Rav Kook and a great Torah scholar in his own right from the city of Griva (Grajewo, Poland), arrived at a shtetl in Lithuania right before the onset of Shabbat. The tension within the community was so proverbially thick that he sensed it immediately. Many community members pleaded with him to use his Shabbat sermon to restore peace to a community so riven by dispute. He obliged. Parashat Korach was being read that week, which says that after the rebellion of Korach, twelve staves were collected from the tribal leaders and placed in the Tent of Meeting. Aharon’s staff was the only one to miraculously produce almonds (Numbers 17:16–24). “Why almonds?” Rabbi Kook asked rhetorically. The Mishnah discusses some almonds that start bitter and become sweet, and others that start sweet and become bitter. He explained that a dispute can be compared to the almond that starts sweet and turns bitter. Some enjoy the sport in it – the competition between “teams,” the winners and losers. Others relish the dirt about people that surfaces, and the true face that emerges when you get under someone’s skin. But the sad truth is that as the almond reaches maturity, it unfailingly becomes unpalatable. Peace, on the other hand, has a bitter start. There is great difficulty in making concessions and compromises. In the end though, it is sweet, as everyone ultimately is happy.
This idea of Rabbi Kook was clearly inculcated in his son, Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, who worked towards bringing peace and harmony to the individual, the community, the Jewish people, the world, and even the cosmos. The striving for peace was a defining feature of his life and worldview. He wrote sharply about the dangers of divisiveness:
There is no end to the physical and spiritual evils of dividing the nation into sectors. [ . . . ]
The imagined division undermines the foundation of all holiness.
Rav Kook’s use of the phrase “imagined division” reflects his conviction that the Jewish people are fundamentally indivisible. Nevertheless, we live on a plane of existence that Zoharic Kabbalah refers to as the alma de-peruda, the world of disunity. Our task is to bring out and strengthen the underlying unity and harmony.
Rebbe Avraham Mordechai Alter, the third Gerrer Rebbe known as the Imrei Emet, once shared a story of doting in-laws who would host dinner each week for their two beloved sons-in law and their families. Since one son-in-law was a vegetarian and the other loved meat, they cooked for each and the two families ate separately. For years they came, week in and week out. Eventually, the hosts suffered a reversal of fortunes and could not afford meat or dairy, so they served bread, onions, and potato scraps. Out of habit, the families continued to dine separately. The mother-law saw this and cried out, “Now that we are all eating pareve, why are we still sitting separately?”
The Imrei Emet said that this depicts the state of the Jewish people today. Our past is checkered by internal divisiveness, and perhaps some of the major splintering had good cause. But after millennia of suffering and loss we have been left tragically impoverished. Has the time not come to sit together at the same table?
With the restoration of the Jewish nation to its land, Rav Kook believed that unity was more critical than ever. As the Midrash says, “The moment that the Jewish people become unified, anticipate the redemption.” If we can just see it through, we will realize that the bitter pill we must swallow for peace will be completely forgotten as we all enjoy, together, the sweetest fruit it brings: the final redemption.
