Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Parashat Korach

foreign this week we learn in parashat Korah about a great man who cared for the Jewish people and he came to Moshe and Haron and said Moshe don't you know that the entire Jewish Nation Are Holy and God is among them why should you Moshe and aharon raise yourself higher than the rest of the nation he claimed that since God spoke to the entire Jewish nation and God's presence is in the Tabernacle the mishkan constantly why should the Jewish people have different levels the King the high priest kohanim regular priests Israeli why should you have higher positions and lower positions we are all holy we are all connected to god let's be equal and in our day and age we hear about the concept of equality all too often parents relate to their children as equals teachers require relate to their students as bodies the president takes off his hat and jacket to become more like a regular human being however we know in our history when one nation tried this in real life the Soviet Union through communism said led us all be equal let us redistribute the wealth and let everyone have the same amount of money and the same amount of land and companies and what ended up happening happening was that everyone did become equal equally poor nobody had money nobody had properties nobody had any businesses everything belonged to them government and the system failed miserably and our sages say that this system of equality goes against the structure of the world the spiritual world is built from the giver and the recipient and the recipient himself becomes The Giver to the next level and therefore if we equate everyone in their knowledge and in their stature and in their honor what you will get is a nation of ignoramuses a nation where everyone is equally not holy equally not knowledgeable equally distant from God the proper way that the Torah envisions it is that there should be a transmission between the parent and the child there should be a transmission between the rabbi the mentor the tutor the guide and the student just like we say in pietquestinai there must be a transmission from Torah from directly from God and then to the leader of the Jewish nation in this case Moshe and then um and he has to give to the next in command and then there must be a progression recipient to the to who becomes The Giver to the next recipient who becomes The Giver himself and therefore if we want ourselves to be successful we need to become a vessel a recipient who can accept wisdom from those who are closer to Sinai who are closer to the giving of the Torah we have to make ourselves open to receive knowledge wisdom rebuke guidance from our leaders from our parents grandparents from our rabbis and we cannot stop there we have to then create a chain of transmission and choose the next one in line whether it is our children and we have to become now the givers of the Torah we have to come to them and relate everything we have learned and repeat it to them we have to choose students we have to choose people who know less than we through that our own knowledge will become stronger it will become more concrete and preserved someone cannot be equal to The Giver he has to be more humble and accepting and somebody cannot be selfish to take the wisdom for himself and not share we must make ourselves into recipients by searching out a rabbi searching out a guide a mentor a tutor and then when we obser absorb a little bit of knowledge then we have to go to the next one be it our teacher our students or children friends and give it over to them and only then we will create a balanced individual we will create a strong family and we will create a strong Society may we learn from the lesson of this Parsha to search out for a rabbi who has direct tradition of transmission from Mount Sinai through all the reliable Links of Rabbi to a student Rabbi to a student and accept the knowledge learn with humility and then care for the transmission of this knowledge and give it over to whoever is willing to listen Hashem may we gain much wisdom May our children be on the right path and may the Jewish community be strong and multiply thank you for listening shabbat shalom um