Are You the Kohen Gadol? (Parshas Korach)

a guy is sitting in a job interview and the interviewer says to the candidate for this job we need somebody very responsible the candidate says oh well you got the right guy because of my old job everything that went wrong they all decided i was responsible okay so we're gonna talk about who is responsible you know like uh harry s truman had a sign on his desk during world war ii that said the buck stops here okay so let's talk about who is responsible who is the leader who's the one who uh ultimately takes accountability this week is parshas kyra and uh as we all know the you know coyote is the name of a person he was maisha's uh cousin and he led a rebellion to usurp the high priesthood the high priesthood was occupied by arunachalene the brother of maisha which was uh by divine appointment rabble-roused he got a bunch of people excited actually they weren't rabble they were the opposite they were uh intellectual elites they were heads of uh of rabbinic courts at any rate he well he also rabble rouse because dustin of dustin and avirum were definitely rabble but he got everybody he fomented a whole uh rebellion and he got everybody all excited and they confronted maesha um and they started uh questioning the whole system of high priesthood and uh in short their their claim was they wanted to democratize the office they wanted to make it belong to everybody or at least it's hard to understand what they actually imagined would be the outcome uh meisha basically told him it's an impossibility and he he formulated this contest this sort of priestly duel as it were where everyone would take the um the incense which was a unique uh duty uh priestly duty and uh they would come out it was a very strange thing they would do this priestly duel where they would all bring the incense and they would see whoever was the legitimate high priest would survive and everybody else would die so what else what they were thinking i don't know rashford says the queer thought everyone would die except for him maybe there were there were different uh scenarios that uh people were hoping for but maisha's response is what we're going to talk about today misha's response is very interesting um maisha says let me just look at this inside yeah so this is where he's proposing the dual zeiss go take for yourself these uh pans these shovels why did he say this to them so first rashi explains that mahesh is explaining to them that there can only be one high priest very clearly he says was saying to them among other religions lahavdil they have a lot of different rights rituals uh priests like there's there's no uniformity and you know schisms they have a lot of power schisms and they don't have one place where they gather oh no allah we have one god arena one arc one alter the goddess one high priest and all 250 of you want to be the high priest that's just not how it works here's the words i want us to dwell on i would also like that very interesting the russian goes on but and rash is based on on the madrish but what is this maisha saying i also would like that first of all what would he like he would also like to be kind goddell measure just got through saying that there could only be one kind governor so mesh is basically saying he wants something that could never be also it seems like he's legitimizing their argument he's he's basically saying yeah what you want is a good thing i'm just sorry i can't help you but it's yeah yeah i i get it totally yeah i'm on your i'm with you i also would like that so we have to understand what is this af ani writes i would also like to be kind goggle and then you know then why is there only one coin goggle and then take your pick a monoshock like they say which way do you want to look at it everyone's crying gobble there's only one kangaroo or there's one king goblet but everyone should want to be kind godot we have to understand this okay so uh i'll tell you the short answer tell you the short answer first i was at a shabbaton yesterday the sea kids see kids is a program shlokham run khabar shlokham all over the world for children and they do a program there called juke you where they study jewish literacy and then they get quizzed on it and then those who perform the best go to regional competitions and then there's the national um i guess like the it's like the spelling bee sort of so they they did it in the poconos and uh they had this big competition it was beautiful to see these were largely uh homes that were not observant and the parents had uh agreed to let their children spend time studying jewish literacy and being tested on it and then the the parents came with the children to the shabbaton so barcelona was there and it was one of the judges for the contest actually i'll put that on my resume now i judged the juke you and uh so they why was i there i'm you can say i rabbit tab i didn't know you were good with kids i'm not they ran a parallel program for the parents so uh and that that that was so amazing to see these parents who they were there because their children basically brought them there and they had knocks you know what jewish parent doesn't beam with pride when their child is accomplishing something so uh anyways we had this uh parents program and one of the things was with a stump the rabbi session which i don't like that whole stump the rabbi anyways like what's the big deal whatever that's a side conversation i don't like the whole idea of stump the rabbit i'll tell you one day i'll tell you why i don't like it but at any rate if you want to have a conversation let's have a conversation but no i'll tell you the quick reason i don't like to stump the rabbit because stump the rabbit makes it seem like there's like this thrill and getting a rabbit to admit he doesn't know anything rabbi should admit they don't know something what's wrong with saying i don't know like ah we got you you no you didn't get me i don't know so i don't like to stump the rabbit like it sounds like but if you want to have a conversation beautiful let's have a conversation anyways so one of the questions that came out and it was a totally innocent question nobody was trying to make any trouble um we had like a box people put questions in one of the questions is when is lebowicz getting a new debit and so i'll tell you what i told them i told them that the first of all i said it's a great question especially based on history because it previously every time there had been a rabbit passed away that they installed a successor so why are we not doing the same thing now i said the the cheap and easy answer is well the laboratories they were so emotionally attached to their leader they could never move on okay i mean any new york times journalist can write some uh article and uh you know write that that's a very shallow interpretation of it um but i said on a deeper level if you want to understand why something is happening for the first time in history you have to appreciate that something's happening for the first time in history when when something is new and unprecedented that means something is new and unprecedented and i don't mean that to be redundant what i mean is if the effect is new that means the cause is new something happened now that's different than in the past so what happened now that's different in the past so i told them that the laboratory most certainly did appoint a successor and i asked everyone in the room when they're ready to get to work that ever created a system not just official but every single person that have met that ever made that was the dollars when they never gave the dollars the purpose of the dollars was to deputize you to be ashley mitzvah the dollar was now you should give to dhaka so now you are on a mission now you work that i was putting you to work and uh and the never said that every single jewish man woman and child is a shliyak from hashem and uh that ever stressed very very often the talmudic dictum of schlier shall adam comma say it's a legalistic term but it means one's emissary is as oneself so that ever clearly um groomed his successor which is all of us and why was that never done before because it was never done before that's not how it was done power was concentrated with one leader but the rabbit saw that it's time to invest that power or rather i should probably say reveal that power that's in everyone so one of the fathers said that's very inspiring i like that but where do you see a precedent for this i said that's a legitimate question i said first of all maybe it's completely new and there is no precedent but if there is a precedent that's obviously better so i told them i said uh the farther back i go the better he said yeah obviously that's that's what precedent is i said okay so i'll go back to before the giving of the torah hashem told moshe tell the people before they got the torah the attempt on them they should be you should be for me a kingdom of priests a priestly nation and the balaturim says kehanam gadaylim a nation of high priests now obviously that's drosh that's level obviously there is only one kind god halachically there's only one person who was able to enter the kedah dosham any kipper and do the aveda of the cain god but on a spiritual level what the balatorium is saying is at the moment we became jews at the moment of mountain there we also all became high priests so i told this father really that's the way it always was and in fact i mentioned to him next shabbos is shabbos pasha's kaira kreidek his biggest mistake was bad timing he was he had bad timing he was three thousand years too soon what he wanted was a good idea but it was way too messianic it cannot exist until the coming of mashiach when meshich comes so then the prophet tells us no one will learn from his fellow kikulam ye do i see because everyone will know me says hashem everyone will directly know hashem so cater was ahead of his time he wanted everyone to be on that level i'm sorry no we're not ready for that but you see that in essence every jew is really a king gobble you know they say that i think it was during the kipper war so golda meir was going back and forth with uh richard nixon and uh nixon got mad at her and you know like you're from this tiny little country and you have so much chutzpah he said you don't realize who you're talking to i'm the president of 200 million citizens this is when the population of the united states is 200 million he says i'm the president of 200 million citizens and she says you know who you're talking to i'm the prime minister of four million prime ministers because that's the way you know why you wouldn't be prime minister of four million prime ministers because every year there's a prime minister every year there's a is a crying god so you want the short answer the short answer up front is why did meisha obama say i also want this why because the most jewish thing in the world is to realize that the buck stops here i am the ultimate leader and ultimate authority there's no one else to rely on it's all on me now hilariously practically it couldn't function that way there had to be one king goggle and even when meshiach comes obviously there will be one kind goggle but there's a certain spiritual truth here and that's what the balaturum is referencing when he says you are a nation of kehanam godelem of high priests so this week coming up or next week is the york site of the rabbit and uh i'll tell you one of my favorite probably my favorite yohidis story story of someone who went into a personal audience with the rabbit his name was freddie or ephraim hager from london england from golden's green or from king's i guess his kingsley way and he was in his 20s he was a very young man when he went into the debate and it was three in the morning when he went in i'll tell you the punchline of the story before i tell you the story punch line of the story is he came out and he said you know i was not prepared properly for my meeting with the rebbe i thought i was going to meet a great man i left realizing i had met my true self i thought i was going to be a great man i left realizing i had met my true self okay what does that mean he had met his true self he goes into the rabbit and i don't know what they had discussed earlier but toward the end of the year asked him about his name hager it's a it's a royal name in the hasidic world so he asked him are you related to a certain hasidic dynasty and he said yes and in fact he mentioned that a grandfather or great-grandfather i'm not sure had been a rabbi back in europe and he says in fact i'm carrying a picture of this of this grandfather and he pulled out the picture and the rabbi asked for the picture and uh that held up the picture and he starts looking side by side between freddie this 20 year old and this photo of his grandfather who had been a a rabbit back in europe and he's looking at the two side by side now that's intense just ever sizing you up you know looking at you but back and forth between you and this picture of your your grandfather who had been a a hasidic rebbe and then it was looking back and forth and then the rabbit asked him that ever took the picture and asked if he could keep it and put it in his desk drawer and then they asked a question in yiddish versus a rabbit freddy couldn't answer so the rabbi asked him a second vos is a rabbit he couldn't answer as the third time vasa said but they couldn't answer so the rabbis said and everything he had in his house he would give away on a daily basis before lying down maybe you want to become a rabbit now that's the that's the story now freddie hogger went on to be a very very uh successful businessman he was the chairman of the london diamond divorce gave a lot of dhaka question is what did rabbi mean by maybe you want to become a rabbit and did freddy follow that of his advice did he become a rabbit and you're going to say no he became a businessman you just told me he gave a lot of tadaka he was chairman of london diamond boars he wasn't a rabbit and i would say of course he was arab because the rabbit defined it before he asked him the question before he made the suggestion of becoming a rabbit so you go look up what's a rabbit oh it's a guy with a fur hat and he has a gaba who follows him around and he collects pigeons and feta tish okay that's one definition that's not how did i define it ever defined it as somebody who gives away everything that's his on a daily basis what does that mean that means that whatever you have in your jewish home you're giving away on a daily basis i told this to the parents at the sea kids shabbaton yesterday i said to them maybe you don't keep shabbos the whole shabbos maybe you only make kiddish friday night but your neighbor doesn't even do that so you have friday night and your neighbor doesn't even have friday night give that away to them invite them to your home for that i said maybe you don't keep kosher out of the home you're not there yet but you keep kosher in the home so invite and your neighbor doesn't even do that so invite your neighbor to come have a kosher meal in your home i said maybe you don't yet send your child full time to a jewish school intent but maybe you only send them to uh an after-school program but your neighbor doesn't even do that so share that with your neighbor recruit them excite them about it get them to send their kids to an after school program i said if you know olive teach allah if you know olive base teach all of base that's what the said if you don't know olive based don't teach olive base if you don't have it you can't transmit it so don't try but if you do have it do give it and in fact you discover the truth that ultimately the only yiddish kite that any of us truly can hold on to is whatever yiddish kite we are actively giving away to others right now that's the truth the only yiddish kite we really can hold on to for ourselves for our families is whatever yiddish kite we are actively giving away to others so the first rabbit was the balshamptov everything he had in his house he gave away on a daily basis freddie hager was a rabbit as chairman of the london diamond divorce as a businessman because the rebbe had rabbis who were school teachers who were cab drivers who were stock brokers what's your day job i don't know your day job who cares your day job attempting so i told the the parents that the the secret shabbaton i said you ended up here the rabbit started this initiative he sent out the shlochem and one thing led to another and now you and your kids are here what does that mean what's the point of your being here it means for you to accept your role as leader of world jewelry that's what that ever wanted that you should accept your role as kangado as rabbit you know jonathan sacks all of a sudden he had a great line he said of the king he said good leaders make followers great leaders make leaders i would say even more than that i would say throughout history we had the rabbis who made and that i would always say mamash that one's emissary is literally as himself this was a this is the deepest truth to the rabbit the idea that each one of us isn't just part i mean i mean even that's that each one of us is part of this global agenda because once upon a time if you just you have your home you have your family you're a good jew you're diving three times a day and you have your shoe with him and you send your kids to a nice hater and that's it you're gold that's perfect you do not have to worry about what's going on in another city let alone what's going on in the rest of the world it's not your problem you're a good jew and and and that ebb said no actually universal military conscription every single person here is drafted we're all part of the army of hashem but it's even more than that because not just everyone's drafted everyone who's brought into the war room with the maps and everything on the table and that ever said here's the strategy we're going to bring machia and here's how we're going to do it and here are the tools and here's the agenda and that's unprecedented but like i said when when something new happens it's because something new happened so why does the laboratory not have a successor in the conventional traditional manner that we saw throughout the generations because that ever has a successor in a totally new type of way and and i understand why there would be resistance to accept that explanation because uh inherent in accepting that explanation is accepting massive personal responsibility that all of a sudden it's not enough that you are just a good jew and you and your family are doing what you've got to do no all of a sudden you have to worry for the world you have elimelech once went into gullus and i think for two years three years and on his way back into town somebody sees him and they say oh your son lasike is sick and he said oh no and he ran home and he said what's with lazika and his wife says uh he's in haither sonabelli malek says you can tell me the truth i already know when i was walking into town somebody told me lasika is sick she says no lasik bakushami's fine no somebody told me please just tell me the truth she says oh i realize the neighbor's kid lazerke is sick this guy thought that's what it was he told you the wrong information and ali malek says to his wife with your permission i have to go back into gullis now because the purpose of gullus was self-refinement to become more spiritual more more sensitive and after two years three years whatever it was of gollus i realize how much more work i have to do because when you told me it wasn't our son i was momentarily relieved what difference does it make if it's our son or the neighbor's son why was i relieved so if your child were completely estranged from their birthright and didn't have access to their jewish identity or any way of expressing their jewish identity know a parent who raised their child through them and their child is away from each kid how parents don't sleep they don't sleep okay so let's say barak shem it's not your child let's say it's not your child but if it's the neighbor's child or maybe it's some jew in another city who whom you've never met but it's their child or just the fact that you know it exists in the world that there are jews who don't know what it means to be jewish why is that not your problem and the answer is it is your problem but that's good news because if it's your problem it's also your solution and you are already deputized you are already empowered you are already installed as rabbit meshiach is coming very soon karik was ahead of his time he couldn't have what he wanted then but now not only we can do it we must do it there's no such thing anymore as saying let the big wig sorted out no way the big wigs cannot sort it out they have their job you have your job we all have to step up that's what the rabbit gave us so it comes gimel thomas next week that is your site there are many customs we observe in order to observe a your site and you can you can look that up uh you can ask your rabbi you can look it up online but my my primary suggestion to each one of us would be that the most fitting kaddish for the rabbi would be to do something to express your own leadership to do something selfless where you are giving away something from your jewish home to others and uh god willing very very soon we will actually be in the situation that the prophets foretold that no one will have to teach anyone else because everyone will know hashem directly coulomb ye do a c and that's it we'll uh we'll all directly see god we'll all know the truth until that moment though we got a lot of work to do