ויקח קרח בן יצהר בן קהת בן לוי וגו' ויקהלו על משה ועל אהרן ויאמרו אליהם רב לכם כי כל העדה כלם קדשים וגו' (And Qorach son of Yitzhar son of Qehath son of Levi took....And they gathered against Moshe and Aharon and said to them, It is too much for you, for the entire community are all of them holy....”; XVI,1-3).
Rashi quotes the midrash (במדבר רבה פי"ח סי' ג') to define the form which Qorach’s rebellion took: והלבישן טליתות שכולן תכלת, באו ועמדו לפני משה, אמרו לו, טלית שכולה תכלת חייבת ציצת או פטורה? אמר להם, חייבת. התחילו לשחק עליו, אפשר שטלית של מין אחר חוט אחד של תכלת פוטרה, זו שכולה תכלת לא תפטור את עצמה?! (“[Qorach] dressed [his followers in] tallithoth which were entirely of t’chéleth; they came and stood before Moshe [and] asked him, "Does a tallith which is entirely t’chéleth require tzitzith?" [Moshe] told them, "It does." They began to laugh at him: "Perhaps a tallith of another sort requires a single thread of t’chéleth to render it kosher, yet this, which is entirely t’chéleth should not render itself kosher?!”).
The Torah requires that tzitzith, threads tied in a prescribed manner, be attached to the corners of a four-cornered garment (tallith), and that one thread of each of the tzitziyoth be dyed a specific shade of light blue (t’chéleth; cf. Numbers XV, 37-41). This, then. was Qorach’s tactic: To select a mitzva, and make it seem ridiculous in the eyes of his audience.
The midrash continues where Rashi leaves off that Qorach’s next question was: בית מלא ספרים מהו שיפטור מן המזוזה? אמר לו חייב במזוזה. אמר לו כל התורה קע"ה פרשיות אינה פוטרת את הבית, פרשה אחת שבמזוזה פוטרת את הבית?! אמר לו קרח דברים אלו לא נצטוית עליהם ומלבך אתה בודאן (“Is a house full of sifrei Torah exempt from m’zuza?" [cf. Deuteronomy VI, 9]? [Moshe] told him, "It requires a m’zuza." [Qorach] told him, "The entire Torah of 175 chapters does not exempt the house from m’zuza, but a single chapter in a m’zuza renders the house kosher?! You were not commanded concerning these things; you are making them up!”).
The great Chida (Rabbi Chayyim Yosef David Azulai), in his Séfer Rosh David, quotes another séfer, the Pa’ânéach Raza, to the effect that a clue to Qorach’s motivations in challenging Moshe in this manner is contained in the fact that the last letters of the phrase כי כל העדה כלם קדשים (“for the entire community are all of them holy”) combine to form the word מיל"ה, “circumcision." But what in the world do the mitzvoth of tzitzith and m’zuza have to do with mila (“circumcision”)?
Both of the mitzvoth of tzitzith and m’zuza have about them a certain protective quality, as is implied by the Talmud: חביבין ישראל שסיבבן הקב"ה במצות, תפילין בראשיהן ותפילין בזרועותיהן וציצת בבגדיהן ומזוזה לפתחיהן, ועליהן אמר דוד "שבע ביום הללתיך על משפטי צדקך" (“Precious are Israel, for the Holy One, Blessed is He, has surrounded them with mitzvoth, t'fillin on their heads and and t’fillin on their arms and tzitzith on their clothing and a m’zuza at their doorways, and concerning them David said, ‘Seven [ways] a day do I praise You for Your righteous judgments’" [Psalms CXIX, 164]”; מנחות מ"ג:). Rashi explains the seven: T’fillin on head and arm, four tzitziyoth, and the m’zuza.
The gmara goes on to tell us of David: ובשעה שנכנס דוד לבית המרחץ וראה עצמו עומד ערום אמר אוי לי שאעמוד ערום בלא מצוות, וכיון שנזכר במילה שבבשרו נתיישבה דעתו (“And when David would enter the bathhouse and see himself standing naked, he said, "Woe is me that I should stand naked without mitzvoth, and when he remembered the mila in his flesh, he was comforted”). Accustomed to being wrapped in mitzvoth, as it were, he felt even more naked at the thought he was not so protected, until he remembered that he bore the mark of a mitzva on his body.
In light of the above, let us think a little. קרח חכם גדול הי', Chazal tell us (במ"ר שם); Qorach was very intelligent. We may therefore assume that he had paid attention to and was fully cognizant of the Torah in which Moshe had been so intensively instructing Israel. We may also assume that he was aware of circumstances around him, to include the fact that Moshe was unique in his generation, a member of a very select group of men throughout history who had been born mahul, not in need of circumcision (סוטה י"ב. ,אבות דרבי נתן פ"ב סי' ה').
Now, it happens to be the halacha that a Jewish boy who is born mahul undergoes an alternate procedure, which is called הטפת דם ברית, roughly “shedding a drop of covenantal blood." But Moshe had not been, strictly speaking, born a Jewish child. True, as a member of the tribe of Levi he was certainly a lineal descendant of Yisrael the patriarch, but Israel the nation did not come into being until that fateful meeting at the foot of Sinai, when it was given its constitution, the Torah. At Mattan Torah, Moshe was in the category of a convert, taking on the mitzvoth voluntarily, and concerning a convert the halacha is א"צ להטיף ממנו דם ברית (“It is not necessary to shed from him a drop of covenantal blood”; לשון הטור, יו"ד סעיף רס"ח בשם העיטור).
So Moshe had not had any sort of operation performed “in his flesh," as David (and, of course, all the other bnei Yisra’él) had had. Hence, reasoned Qorach, perhaps Moshe had to “surround himself with mitzvoth” (to paraphrase the g'mara) for protection, but the rest of Israel, who had undergone circumcision, certainly did not, כי כל העדה כלם קדשים, the whole community was inherently holy, exhibiting the marks of mila.
Here is the connection between the mitzvoth with which Qorach tried to induce ridicule of Moshe and the Torah, and mila, as the Pa’ânéach Raza seems to suggest.
Yet we note that Rashi concentrates specifically on the mitzva of tzitzith, and leaves the rest of the midrash unquoted. Why?
Examine exactly what Qorach says when he confronts Moshe with his t’chéleth-clad entourage, and you will see that something seems wrong: Does a tallith which is entirely t’chéleth need tzitzith? The question does not follow from the premise: He did NOT ask if it still needed a thread of t’ché’leth in the tzitziyoth, but if it needed tzitzith at all.
Yet, Chazal tell us קרח חכם גדול הי'; what was he getting at?
Tosafoth (בבא בתרא קי"ט: דה"מ אפילו בשם המדרש) tell us that at the time that Israel received the heart-breaking news that their sojourn in the desert would be extended until the entire generation of yotz’ei Mitzrayim had perished, a doubt entered their hearts: Perhaps this elaborate Torah with its mitzvoth which they had been studying so intensively ere now, was intended only for the Holy Land (certainly true of a large block of mitzvoth, such as shmitta, yovél, trumoth, and ma’sroth) and since they were no longer destined to settle there, it was now irrelevant to them. The Chida (op. cit.) tells us that Qorach was working on that doubt.
The purpose of the mitzva of tzitzith, with its elaborate count of knots and strands, is to serve as a constant reminder to us of the Torah’s 613 mitzvoth (cf. Numbers XV, 39-40, Rashi ad loc.). The sky-blue t’chéleth (suggests the Even Êzra) is to direct our attention heavenward, and remind us of the Divine source of those mitzvoth. But the îqqar, the main point, is the mitzvoth.
In our day, the precise identity of the chilazon, the shellfish from which the blue dye was derived, is a matter of controversy, and the precise shade of blue which the strand was dyed has been forgotten. For this reason, most of us are accustomed to wear plain white tzitzith. The colour t’chéleth is controversial, but not the rest of the mitzva.
This, I think, is what underlies what Rashi is telling us by concentrating on the reisha, the first clause, of the midrash. Qorach’s question only seemed to involve t’chéleth. "Does such a tallith require tzitzith?," he asked. Is it really necessary for Israel under these circumstances to remember all these tiresome, elaborate mitzvoth of yours, Moshe, now that they are doomed to die in the desert? Is it not enough that their hearts are directed heavenward, inspired by the colour of the tallith, without all those silly observances?
Moshe, even wiser than Qorach, understood his intent perfectly.
Israel became a nation at the foot of Mt. Sinai with the acceptance of the Torah, and it is on this basis, and no other, that our nationhood rests.
It is not dependent upon a single ethnic stock, however dear to us our yuchasin (“genealogies”) are. Great Torah sages, Shmaya, Avtalyon, Rabbi Me’ir, Rabbi Aqiva, and Onqelos, converts or descendants of converts; who would not now boast of a lineage encompassing any of them?
It is not dependent upon a country, precious to us as the land of Israel is. Remember that it is the Holy Land because there are so many mitzvoth which can be performed only there, or with its produce, and nowhere else. Yet, Israel remains a nation, even in exile.
Blut und Boden, “Blood and Soil," are not the roots of our nationality, and nationalism is no substitute for Judaism. When Qorach said that כל העדה כלם קדשים, the entire community is holy, he was right; but it is the Torah which made, and makes, them so.
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