After the miracle of Aharon's mateh sprouting flowers and almonds while everyone else's remained bare, Moshe told the leaders of the other tribes to take back their matos, וַיֹּצֵ֨א מֹשֶׁ֤ה אֶת ־כׇּל ־הַמַּטֹּת֙ מִלִּפְנֵ֣י ה׳ אֶֽל ־כׇּל ־בְּנֵ֖י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַיִּרְא֥וּ וַיִּקְח֖וּ אִ֥ישׁ מַטֵּֽהוּ (17:24) Why did Moshe have to instruct them to take their matos back? Netziv gives a technical answer, that one might have thought that since the matos were placed in the Ohel Moed it means they have kedusha, otherwise it would be a problem of chulin ba'azara. Kah mashma lan Moshe that the matos had no holiness and their placement in the azarah was just a hora'as sha'ah; therefore, they could be taken back.
R' Mordechai Eliyahu suggests that there is a message Moshe was giving the Nesi'im. When the NY Times makes an error on the front page, you are lucky if a few days later they stick a correction on the bottom of some back page in section D in the smallest font possible. Bnei Yisrael here had made a terrible mistake and misjudged the worthiness of Aharon to be kohen gadol. The test done with the matos proved that they were wrong. Moshe therefore told the Nesi'im not to be like the NY Times. "Take back your matos," show them to Bnei Yisrael and publicize the miracle. Let the correction be headline news just like the accusation was, not hidden on the back page.
R' Yerucham, the great mashgiach of the Mir, is medayek in Rashi at the beginning of the parsha, where he describes the rebellion of Korach as נחלק משאר העדה להחזיק במחלוקת. It was not starting the machlokes which did Korach in. Machlokes per se is not inherently bad. There is machlokes l'shem shamayim, machlokes Hillel and Shamai. Korach may also have at first may have had an element of l'shem shamayim to what he was doing and may have wanted the kehuna gedola so as to serve Hashem on the highest level. What did Korach in is, as Rashi writes, is להחזיק* במחלוקת*, continuing the fight. Most people, like Korach, when confronted with facts that undermine their opinion, don't retract. Instead, they double-down. That's the Korach attitude, stubbornly clinging to the same idea even when all evidence shows the contrary to be true. That's why Moshe commanded the Nesi'im וַיִּרְא֥וּ וַיִּקְח֖וּ אִ֥ישׁ מַטֵּֽהו. The flowering of Aharon's staff proved them wrong, but being proven wrong too often does not end an argument. Admitting publicly that they got it wrong does. The taking back of the matos and publicizing the retraction, as R M. Eliyahu explains, is thus a tikun for the underlying sin of Korach's rebellion.
The Imrei Emes quotes from R' Bunim m'Peshischa a different spin entirely on this pasuk. Everyone in life has his/her burdens and bit of suffering. Everyone has his/her own "mateh." Sometimes a person can think, "If only I could trade places with Ploni and have what they have..." But as we all know, the grass only looks greener until you get there. Trading places just removes one set of problems for different set that may be no easier to bear. The Chovos haLevavos in Shaar Cheshbon haNefesh writes that a true believer chooses as his lot exactly what Hashem has already chosen for them to receive -- no more and no less. They don't dream of trading places because if Hashem put them in the position they are in, that must be for the best. Moshe took the matos from all the tribes and put them together in the Ohel Moed in a jumble. When it came time to take the matos back, each Nasi saw what was there, וַיִּרְא֥וּ, they looked at all the portions, וַיִּקְח֖וּ אִ֥ישׁ מַטֵּֽהו and they just took back the very mateh they put in. They did not look to trade with anyone else. Each person accepted their lot, their fate, and the challenges that went with it.
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