Rashi quotes from Chazal that Korach was led astray because he saw b'ruach ha'kodesh that Shmuel haNavi would be among his descendants. R Shteinman asks in Ayeles haShachar that if so, Korach was shogeg and should have been judged more leniently (Maharasha on Sanhedrin 110 holds this is in fact why Korach was neither from those burnt or those swallowed by the earth. The pashtus, however, is that he was the ringleader and more guilty than others, not less.)
I don't understand the question. Shogeg usually means there is necessary and sufficient conditions to cause a sin in error. If you think you are allowed to water your lawn on Shabbos, that error alone is sufficient to cause chilul Shabbos. There being a Shmuel haNavi who is shakul k'Moshe v'Aharon does not seem to be a sufficient condition in and of itself to cause any rebellion. It may have caused Korach to feel confident in his chances of success, but is that enough to warrant his being called shogeg? Maybe R' Shteiman just meant that there are mitigating circumstances here.
R' Shteinman answers that the sin of Korach stemmed from midos ra'os. You can claim shogeg when it comes to doing a maaseh aveira like chilul shabbos or not putting on tefillin, but when the sin is one of bad midos, all bets are off. A person has a responsibility to double and triple check to make sure they are acting properly and therefore there is no claim of shogeg.
How is it that a rasha like Korach was zocheh to see b'ruach hakodesh that Shmuel would come out of him? See the Tiferes Shlomo, and we once discussed a R' Tzadok on this (here and here). The Shem m'Shmuel quotes the gemara's derasha (A"Z 24) that the oxen that carried the aron back after it was captured and then returned by the Plishtim sang shirah. These oxen were certainly no more brilliant than other oxen and were not otherwise capable of speech. It is the role they served as carriers of the aron that made them special and gave them special power. Korach was also one of the bearers of the aron. It was the role that he served that elevated his soul to where he could catch a glimpse b'ruach ha'kodesh of the future.
R' Shteinman (I dont know why I keep coming back to his sefer this week) comments on "boker v'yoda Hashem es asher lo" that Moshe's message was that even though originally avodah was supposed to be done by the first born, the election of the kohanim and the election of Aharon in particular should not be viewed as an accident of history, but rather as an inevitable outcome built into the laws of creation, much like day and night are built into the laws of creation. It is an immutable fact, not a historically conditioned conclusion.
Aharon and Korach are the perfect foils for each other. Korach thought he was great man, but in fact his greatness was not inherent in his character but was rather a product of the circumstance of his being a carrier of the aron. Aharon, in contrast, was in fact a great person. It was not the role of kohen gadol that made him who he was, but rather it was who he was that caused Hashem to choose his as leader.
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-- "should have been judged more leniently"
ReplyDeletebut Shmuel ha'Navi suffered a blemish* for his ancestor's aron-inspired ruach ha'kodesh: as a boy, he talks like Korach (kol-ha'eidus kulam k'doshim, 16:3), when he points out the democratization of the Temple service (insofar as shechitah goes), Berachos 31b; however, like Korach challenging Moshe's authority in the very next phrase, Shmuel paskens this in front of his Rabbi!
*or was the navi--in some regard--a chip off the chip off the chip off the old block?
-- "You can claim shogeg"; "there is no claim of shogeg"
backing up a bit, a bad mida can account for the imperfect/incomplete knowledge of lawn maintenance on Shabbos...
"an inevitable outcome built into the laws of creation"
ReplyDeleteisn't this an attempt to turn bedi'avad into chatchilah, similar to 'Torah is the blueprint of the world'*? Moshe says to the Levi'im, mil'u yedchem ha'yom (Shemos 32:29), initiate >yourselves<, on the spot, in the field; official, ceremonial initiation would only come later, >after the fact<...
yet an emphasis on "'boker'" prompts our learning: where do we see that the Levi'im Rashi identifies (16:5b) are included in the test-action Moshe prescribes? the machtos cover the kehuna [and Aharon, ish], but what correlates to the Levites? learn from 'boker' that the Reuventies of Korach's company >sang< during their test-presentation, sang and were rejected**, for it is the >Levi'im< who sing each >boker< during the tamid...
*wasn't Torah merely a reserve >component< of the blueprint of the world, a component activated bedi'avad? (...yes one might say that the rollout of the reserve was "inevitable", that corruption of adam ha'rishon, and of the firstborn, was inevitable, but then so was the corruption of the kehuna, and of the office of kohen gadol [corruptions on record], and where does that leave us? ['we are all to be improved upon--as surely as the structural existence of "'day and night'"--by the creation of a new heavens and a new earth', that's where])
**(they say most auditions hurt); unacceptable singing that soon enough became moaning testimony from the bowel of the earth
Very interesting about shogeg of Midos Ra'os. I heard Radvaz (not sure if this famous formerly censored piece https://www.sefaria.org/Teshuvot_HaRadbaz_Volume_2.796?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=bi) said that descendants of karaim are not tinokos shenishbu (see Rambam Mamrim 3:3) because they act with chutzpa. Could be similar pshat - can't claim shogeg or tinok shenishba for bad Middos.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveichik in Al Hateshuva has a piece about Rambam holding you need Teshuva for your middos.
by Shasdaf