This week’s parasha begins with the tragic account of Qorah’s revolt. Rashi recommends the Midrash Tanhuma to guide our understanding of the incident. Taking his advice (with a little help from the Talmud; סנהדרין ק"י.), we learn first that Qorah and the 250 men who sided with him were great men of huge intellectual and spiritual capacity, in many ways the natural leaders of Israel. If so, the obvious question is, what brought them to challenge Moshe’s authority?
That is the second thing we learn: Qorah was convinced that he should have been next in line after Moshe and Aharon for high office in Israel; when he was not so appointed, he took it very personally, and resolved to pull down the Torah society which Moshe was working to build. It would appear that the other 250 men were driven by similar fears or insecurities concerning their social positions.
Qorah’s tactic of choice was to pose insincere, leading questions and pounce on the answers which he knew he would hear, using his formidable intellectual powers to ridicule and belittle them. For example, the Torah rules that a four-cornered garment must have tzitziyoth on the corners of woolen threads twisted and tied in a specific manner, one of which must be dyed a shade of sky-blue, tëchéleth (Numbers XV, 37-41; Deuteronomy XXII, 12). Qorah asked Moshe if such a garment entirely of tëchéleth still required tzitzith with such a thread; Moshe’s affirmative answer drew Qorah’s mockery.
Qorah’s revolt has been characterized for ever after as the mishna’s classic example of a מחלוקת שאינה לשם שמים, a “dispute not for the sake of heaven”, i.e., one not centered on the sincere search for truth, and so divisive and destructive (עיי' אבות פ"ד מי"ד).
Moshe challenged Qorah’s band to appear before him with mahtoth (“censers”) filled with qëtoreth (“incense”) and the episode came to a decisive climax when an earthen mouth swallowed them up (XVI, 31-33).
The sudden, public loss of so many distinguished and popular men in such a strange and dramatic manner caused many of the bënei Yisra’él to become temporarily unhinged: וילנו כל עדת בני ישראל ממחרת על משה ועל אהרן לאמר אתם המיתם את עם ד': (“And the entire assembly [‘éda] of the bënei Yisra’él protested about Moshe and Aharon to say, 'You have killed the people of Ha-Shem!'”; XVII, 6). This outrageous demonstration of lashon ha-ra‘ on the heels of the previous incident elicited an immediate Divine response, and a deadly plague broke out amongst the bënei Yisra’él.
ויאמר משה אל אהרן קח את המחתה ותן עלי' אש מעל המזבח ושים קטרת והולך מהרה אל העדה וכפר עליהם כי יצא הקצף מלפני ד' החל הנגף: ויקח אהרן כאשר דבר משה וירץ אל תוך הקהל והנה החל הנגף בעם ויתן את הקטרת ויכפר על העם: ויעמד בין המתים ובין החיים ותעצר המגפה: (“And Moshe said to Aharon, 'Take the mahte and place upon it fire from the altar, and put qëtoreth, and go quickly to the ‘éda and atone for them, for the wrath has gone forth from Ha-Shem; the plague has begun. And Aharon took as Moshe had spoken and ran to the midst of the assembly [ha-qahal] and behold, the plague had begun amongst the people; and he placed the qëtoreth and atoned for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped”; ibid., 11-13).
However, a careful reading of the above passage creates the impression that Aharon did not precisely “take as Moshe had spoken”; the sequence of events Moshe had commanded was: Take the mahte, lay on fire, then qëtoreth, then hurry to the ‘éda. Aharon, we read, took the mahte, ran over to the people, and only then placed the qëtoreth and atoned for the people, bringing the plague to an end.
Given that this event occurred immediately after a conflict whose entire basis was Moshe’s authority to detail the observance of the mitzvoth (as we have seen), how could Aharon depart from the order as Moshe had clearly ordered? The question acquires even more poignancy in light of the fact that Aharon’s two eldest sons, Nadav and Avihu’, had perished over just such a difference involving incense on the occasion of the installation of the kohanim in their office in the Mishkan (cf. Leviticus X, 1-3).
B.
A number of commentators address this question; we shall consider two of them here.
Rabbi Yitzhaq ‘Arama, in his ‘Aqédath Yitzhaq, says that Aharon did in fact follow Moshe’s precise instructions; however, on arriving where the people were, he discovered that the qëtoreth was of no avail. So Rabbi ‘Arama says that “placing” the qëtoreth entailed removing it from the mahte, not putting it in, whereupon he was mëchappér (“atoned”) for the people in a different way, through tëfilla and tëshuva.
The Rëma, for his part, calls our attention to another subtle difference between what Moshe instructed and what Aharon did. Moshe told Aharon to hurry el ha-‘éda; Aharon, however, ran el toch ha-qahal. He then calls our attention to the Talmud’s ruling that the qëtoreth is only mëchappér for lashon ha-ra‘ ba-hashai, (“in private”); the më‘il, the coat, part of the bigdei këhunna worn during the service in the Mishkan or Beyth ha-Miqdash, is mëchappér for lashon ha-ra‘ ba-qol, i.e., spoken out loud (as we would understand the protests to have been; זבחים פ"ח:).
With this in mind, we turn to another séfer, the Ohel Yoséf (חידושי ברכות), who asserts that one who draws out the enunciation of the final dalet in the first verse of the Shëma‘ can also be mëchappér for lashon ha-ra‘ ba-qol.
Turning back to our passage, we note that bënei Yisra’él “complained... to say.” The use of both verbs may perhaps be taken to imply that the lashon ha-ra‘ of which they were so manifestly guilty came in two forms, one “private,” i.e., a whispering campaign against Moshe and Aharon, and the other vocal and loud, the protests. If so, the qëtoreth was at most only a partially effective kappara, dealing with the whispering campaign only. Hence (as the ‘Aqédath Yitzhaq asserts) Aharon had to resort to other means to deal with the loud protests. The më‘il was of no help; Aharon could not wear the bigdei këhunna outside of the service in the Mishkan. So, he resorted to tëfilla and tëshuva, at least part of which (on the strength of the Ohel Yoséf’s assertion) must have been the Shëma‘.
Which implies some sort of relationship between the Shëma‘ and the atoning qëtoreth, if both were effective in some way in relieving lashon ha-ra‘....
C.
The recipe for the qëtoreth is preserved in a baraitha which we recite every morning as part of shaharith (הברייתא מופיעה בכריתות ו. ובירושלמי יומא פ"ד ה"ד בשנויים קלים שאין להם נ"מ לעניננו), in which the major (dry) ingredients are listed in three tiers by weight: The first four ingredients are tzori (“balsam resin”), tzipporen (“onycha”), helbëna (“galbanum”), and lëvona (“frankincense”), 70 mane each (a mane is equivalent to 480 g). The second tier is: Mor (“myrrh”), qëtzi‘a (“cassia”), shibboleth nerd (“spikenard”), and karkom (“saffron”), 16 mane each. And the third tier consists of qosht (“costus”), 12 mane, qillufa (“spicy tree bark”), three mane, and cinnamon, nine mane.
Now let us examine the text of the Shëma‘ as we read it twice daily. The first verse reads: Shëma‘ Yisra’él Ha-Shem Eloqeinu Ha-Shem ehad (“hear, Israel, Ha-Shem our G-d, Ha-Shem is one”; Deuteronomy VI, 4). In the séfer Torah, the ‘ayin of Shema‘ and dalet of ehad are written larger than the other letters. The gimatriya of ‘ayin is 70, and that of dalet is four; hence, it alludes to the first tier of four ingredients, by weight.
Now consider the Ohel Yoséf’s “prolonged dalet” (i.e., the last syllable of ehad). A “prolonged” number four is arguably 4² = 16, the weight of each of the next tier of four ingredients; here is our second allusion to qëtoreth.
Finally, the second verse of the Shëma‘ reads: Baruch shém këvod malchutho lë-‘olam va-‘ed (“Blessed is the name of the glory of His kingdom forever”). Both verses contain six words each, twelve in total, the weight of qosht used, and the total weight of qillufa and kinnamon. Herein lies the allusion to our third tier.
Having established a mathematical, as it were, relationship between qëtoreth and the Shëma‘, we can presumably infer therefrom the similarity in kappara between them. With this in mind, let us reconsider our passage.
D.
We have already posited that the verbs va-yillonu... lémor allude to the twin categories of lashon ha-ra‘ ba-hashai and ba-qol. This implies that Moshe knew precisely what Aharon would have to do: As the qëtoreth would serve as a kappara for one but not the other, either the me‘il or the Shëma‘, said with the proper kavvanoth was needed. Moshe knew Aharon could not don the më‘il; so he told Aharon to hurry el ha-‘éda; ‘éda means “testimony” as well as “assembly” (cf. e.g. Genesis XXI, 30). The letters ‘ayin-dalet spell the word ‘éd (“witness”); the Shëma‘ is our testimony to G-d’s unique ahduth, “unity.”
Aharon “took” the mahte and qëtoreth as Moshe told him, and when he arrived on the scene, likewise engaged in the other form of kappara, tëfilla incorporating the Shëma‘. So, Aharon did exactly as Moshe bade him.
The evil of lashon ha-ra‘, of course, is that it destroys the harmony and social cohesion necessary to Israel’s unity of existence and purpose, and provokes mahloqeth, “dispute, division.” As the uniquely unitary Deity’s representatives on earth, Këlal Yisra’él must be similarly unified under the umbrella of Torah. Sincere differences in detail in the search for true Divine service can and do occur; such are called by the mishna cited supra, mahloqoth lë-shém shamayim, “for the sake of heaven,” and they endure in Israel.
The function of the service of the qëtoreth, a lump of matter which is burnt completely and ascends heavenward with a sweet savor, is to effect the unification of the supernal realm with the alienated material world here below. This is why it is a kappara for the divisive and destructive lashon ha-ra‘, and why it served to highlight the destructive nature of Qorah and his followers. Hazal relate concerning the qëtoreth offered by a kohén: דאיהו פנימאה רזא דכהנא כדין "ויכפר על העם ויעמד בין המתים ובין החיים" בין אילנא דחיי ובין אילנא דמותא כו' דכהנא אית לי' חילא לעילא ואית לי' חילא לתתא והוא גרים שלמא לעילא ותתא וגו' (“For the innermost thing, the secret of a kohén is like this ‘and he atoned for the people and stood between the dead and the living,’ between the tree of life [the root of Torah in the supernal realm] and the tree of death [the entropic physical realm]... for a kohén has power above and power below, and he brings about peace above and below....”; זוה"ק ח"ג קע"ז: וע"ע נצוצי אורות שם אות ב', ולפע"ד זהו מה דאמרינן במשנה באבות פ"א מי"ב שאהרן הכהן הי' אוהב שלום ורודף שלום).
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