Parshat Korach: Mysterium Tremendum by Rabbi Ari Kahn

so welcome to those who have traveled from near and far in order to come to class there's somebody who gets the clear prize this morning for traveling for traveling the fur the furthest to get here so what we're going to talk about first of all is par K second thing what we're going to do at least in a certain level is going to be similar to what we did last time in the sense that I'm starting really at the end of the para and then we're going to work backwards and figure out what else you know where things were coming from so let me restate that there is what's happens that we could look at as being like kind of like the end or an aftermath but I think that that's really the right place to begin and then we're going to see hopefully something a little bit broader and Source number one which again is after the whole episode really but by the way that itself is really bad because again even though the korak specifically the korak episode has ended which or been neutralized K has been neutralized on the 250 nonetheless we have all this complaining which is taking place and God is saying I'm going to swallow them up in a moment but he blew open to himon and this is interesting again there always could be between the lines where God says to mosha then mosha says to Aon but nonetheless the way it's presented Moshe says to Aon the use of the here of the incense is interesting because that's probably one of the things we need to do is to follow the incense if we work a little bit backwards Moshe said to the 250 well why don't you take incense and let's see how that works out now the reason to be somewhat suspicious that it wasn't going to work it out that well is that the Tor previously had been used by nenu and that causes their death now there was an episode of where it's mentioned afterwards although episode may not be the right word because theor was mentioned in terms of the service of the aod of the kohen Yum Kipper where he's told to take theor and go go to the inner sanct which then itself made inform the episode of n perhaps that's what they were trying to do was to behave like the Coen but that itself then helps us because behaving like a coing and taking the Tor when you're undeserving because you're not the coing is something which does not bring about life rather it brings about death and therefore Moshe saying to them well just take the is either because Moshe wants to kill all of them which is the way that some people could read it and maybe the way that they took it or is moosha essentially saying to them well you know this is not going to work out so please don't do this and unless these people really believe that for some reason they're supposed to be the cohum which is actually the part of all of this that I don't want to get into as much but what I will try to figure out is what happened before and what happened after let's we're moving towards the after so let's continue the other thing is that Moshe says is that you're going to take this in order to bring about kapar which means essentially what he's telling Aon is to go act like a cohain go act like the co co G and bring about atonement for the people because the because the plague has already begun so just like Moshe said before go here we have running he puts the incense and he brings about atonement Aron there represents the the difference between where life and death is he stands between and he stops the plague from going further 14,700 people died other than 250 or 253 people and then it tells us again more emphasis returns and the plague has ended but then the text continues it's at this point that we're now going to have a m competition each one's going to write their name on their particular staff that so this time and every time we have the tribes mentioned in the book of bidur you need to pay attention who's included who's excluded so at this point we have 12 tribes including Ley which means Ephraim and manasha are really one as Yosef and therefore Le is represented against the other 11 and Iron's name is written and you're going to place them inside the where it's really the place of testimony and the one who's chosen their their uh staff will somehow it will Blossom again God continues and this is somehow going to or hopefully stop all the complaining that's been done and mosha then conveys this message so then again as I said before the number is 12 there are 12 all together and one of the 12 is aons and therefore all 12 MOS takes them and they're all placed as it were in front of God in the tent of uh of meeting and then on the next day and on the next day aon's staff has in fact Blossom again identifying or signifying specifically to the tribe of Ley or the house of Ley and a flower comes out as a blossoms sits and and this turn of phrase say sits is interesting we're going to come back to it and I'm not going to translate it now and the next thing you know that not only has flowers come but now the flowers have developed into fruit and the fruit that it has are alond but say and mosha brings out all the staffs they all look and all see and each one takes their staff and then return the staff of Aon to be as a it should be guarded there as a sign Mary as a sign for the children who are rebellious and that should be the end of all their complaints and then they won't die again as this aftermath to all of these complaints and Moshe did as God commanded the people's response is actually completely tragic because instead of cheering everybody up and now we have an end to this but rather we have the following we're dead we're lost we're all lost whoever comes close to the mishun is is going to die everyone's going to die we're just surrounded by death so you so you have over here the takeaway at the end is one which is just so absolutely devastating and part of it is I I would even call it a fear of the Holy because that's the way that they're articulating it and and it's at this point that we need to think we need to think in a much broader sense but Le let's start with really uh what should be the obvious and again I I don't know how how broad and how wide to go right now now but just if we continue from last week's parisha in last week's parisha they all receive a death sentence and if they all receive a death sentence then apparently they're all going to die and that that is going to then generate some kind of a uh dissatisfaction with the leadership and some kind of suggestion by some that perhaps we need two new type of leadership new type of religious leadership new type of uh of uh political military whatever ever it may be we can understand those those feelings or that combination but nonetheless all of that doesn't seem to work and again if we would read if we would spend time reading carefully the beginning of the parha the rebellion of korak on the one hand and of on the other hand and where the 250 stand it's quite possible that one is a religious and the other is a political rebellion and what happens over here is that what korak succeeds in doing is to gather together a whole group of the disenfranchised and the disenchanted and he gathers them together as uh you know it's the all anti- mosha Squad so let let's get them all together even though they're all coming from different places and ultimately that group which has emerged probably never could have worked things out among themselves mically the one who really understands this is probably own's wife who just sees the through this facade because it's it's not a logical point but when you realize that they're all perhaps and TI I think it's very easy for us today to understand such things but nonetheless that's that's a part of it but but death over here at this point you know death is unfortunately always inevitable but it's more inevitable over here because it's not just that it's inevitable it's that they're not going to get to the place that they would love to believe that they're supposed to get to and then this this movement which had begun and apparently the 250 people are convinced by their their own they believe their own literature they believe their own press they believe that they really can approach the mishun and they'll have some kind of different types of responses and again I want to point out the absurdity of all of that and I don't know what mosha was thinking when mosha said just take theoret I would love to believe that mosha is using this as a ploy to stop them from doing it but they don't stop they proceed and that's part of the problem but now the response is well look how devastating and and destructive the mishun is and it is it it's something which is is going to we're all going to die which is really interesting that the mishan is being blamed but give me a couple of minutes and I I want to be able to come back to this but but first I want to continue a little bit further because I think that there are some consequences to all of this that we don't necessarily pay attention to and we don't necessarily see it moving in this you know specific Direction this and again it and it is it really is completely straight and it's it's something which I think is very easy to miss in parat in next week's para and again we have the first part which is essentially a law which ised and again anytime there's law found in the book of midbar we always need to ask what is the interaction between the law and the narrative and that law which is introduced is a law of response to death right H paruma and how do you respond to death and how do you get healed from death and how are you allowed to re-enter in a holy space after being involved in death which is so much more interesting when you realize what's being articulated over here because over here there is death all around us and the holy we we meaning this is sounds much more of an emotional and a religious response but it's interesting that then there's the religious response which gets plugged in right afterwards and then we move over to the next episode and it's an episode which is just going to continue with this theme of death I mean is all about death the ones which are revealed deaths and the hidden deaths the hidden deaths of course is that 38 years have gone by and all the complaining people have now passed away and now we have this new generation but we but we're going to pick up in Source number two which is first the death of Miriam right in the beginning passes away the people start complaining I love the horrific midash that tells us that mosha and Aon are sitting shiva for their sister at this point when all the people start complaining for the lack of water and mosha sees them and Aon sees them they both read the crowd differently mosha think Aron thinks it's so wonderful that they're coming to comfort the people and mosha says this is not a this is a mob this is not a people who are coming to uh Comfort these are people coming to complain but nonetheless God then says in that episode go and take the staff now of course there's a little bit of tension whose staff is this is is motion staff is this iron staff but I I I I do want to point out that the last thing we just now saw is that iron staff was taken put away as a symbol the other thing was is that used in terms of rebellious children and we've noted this before and there are others who've noted this as well but if we continue and you look at right and that's the one that was placed one listen rebellious people which is exactly what was said when that when the that one was put away that this should be a signed for rebellious people so that's what they said and they go and whatever if you want to call it a sin whatever happens happens and God's response is that that's it that you're not going to be Leading the People and you're not continuing you you you have ended your mission and very soon afterwards I mean that's already is that God says that you'll take Aon up to the mountain and then the next thing that you have take off his clothing and give the clothing over to his son and then Aron dies and again I just want to pause here for a second because you know we would have thought when we read this week's par by itself that everything worked out okay essentially you have the thread of korak and then you have our own winds and then it's not that everyone lives happily ever after it's not that if you want your Zionist Twist on it and then they make their way to they build the B mdash and everyone lives happily ever after the people still wander around the desert for a while but that's it we're spared of all that we're not told of those other things that happen at this point just time goes by time goes by essentially silently and the next thing you that you know is that Miriam dies then very quickly afterwards Aon dies and then there's this thing in the middle about Aon dying so I'm just pointing out that thematically the death of iron is far more connected to what we just now read that I think that we normally would understand and I I think one way to articulate this which is a way I don't like but we'll look for a better way of saying it if you were the type of people that really U identify with something which called an a Hara Aon got an irar over here they don't want Aon right they don't want him as Cohen they want him to be replaced and guess what happens Aon gets replaced now again all of you can tell me yeah but 38 years went by till he's replaced and I'm going to say yeah but it's the next par what's told right afterwards I want to know what's the article in hararat right afterwards when they write about aon's death do they go back with a little bit of snark I don't have any other word right now in order to go back and say oh you know Aon the one who was attacked you know just you know that's the last that's actually the last conversation that we had and he was attacked and it was and it was the ark and and it was the staff and then the staff is the one which proved his superiority and now that same staff is used in order to be misused in order to actually to end his career and it was supposed to be used as a protection or as a sign against those who Rebel and now those who Rebel actually are being told that you're rebellious and God sticks to the rebellious and leaves Aon and mosha on the side I'm just saying is that if you read these partio together which of course we we tend never to do but if you read these pario together it suddenly takes upon itself a completely different type of a texture to it because instead of having a situation where Aon is completely Victorious and mosha is Victorious over here and all the attacks that are waged against Aron in this week's par are just swept away and Aron winds and so on well for how long is aon's Victory and again you're going to tell me it's for 38 years and I'm going to say yeah but then you know that that's not really spelled out at any place and just look how the Torah immediately afterwards goes to this other episode where shows no that's going to stop the the other thing that I want you to note because it's something which is very easy to completely ignore and that is the the use of the description of the clothing over here and again you you wouldn't have noticed anything about it even though there was at least one hint that we uh so easy to miss but there's something else going on it has to do with the clothing and that is well eventually you know iron's clothing gets replaced I mean he gets taken off of hand and gets poured on somebody else so therefore who is the real if I'm going to just say in par and which again is unfair to bre them together I think there are some years that they are read together by the way in some uh not in Israel K could be read together I think I don't remember you know you know what sometimes people ask me about in America and I say I don't know I don't live there I don't live there I don't I don't know and I said and tell your ask your local Orthodox Rabbi but also ask them at the same time time not to comment on any or laws of that could take place in I said let's be uh let's let's agree upon that I remember a couple of years ago a couple we just trying to figure out when they said yizar if it was on T and nobody nobody was able to remember and uh say I know R fasted for many many days to forget everything that he learned in in B and all of us forgot without fasting at all anyway getting back to the point but I'm saying when you read korak and kukat together I'm not saying you do but if you read korak andat together and say so who's the real cohain you you end up at least with a real interesting answer and what's that elazar I mean he's not the one who you thought was in contention at all but look the fact that it's Aon and then a Ben Aon and then it's aon's family so that ultimately means that Aon is Victorious by the way another subtext to all of this is found in the midash of why was korak so convinced and it says because of Ben kak and we have a whole bunch of which are authored by Ben korak who are very very respected levim not not kohanim so therefore moving forward you know who actually wins so if kakow some kind of understanding about the future I don't know how to explain that so who who who actually wins at the ends well the answer is elazar wins which means by extension our own wins but I just want to point out because there is that dramatic moment where Aon goes up the mountain dressed with the clothing of the Coen but elazar comes down from the mountain who is now wearing the clothing of the of the kohad elazar is now wearing the clothing of the of the Koh so therefore in that wonderfully dramatic scene you now have again in a certain sense the Baton over here it's the mate being being passed on from one to the other but it's that moment of clothing I'm just going to again stress is a little bit more important than sometimes we notice and in order to do that as I said we just have to go a little bit broader than we would have thought but but first of all this idea which is expressed about the fear of the Holy right in of itself is really interesting because a fear of Holiness is an admission that there is something holy in the world which means generally that attack against Holiness is going to be a denial of Holiness a denial a denial that there's something which is different something which is set off something which is special so therefore the acknowledgement of Holiness itself is interesting but nonetheless Sophie here it has developed into a fear now that fear is interesting but it's understandable why is there a fear of Holiness over here because look at all the people and you know trying to come near the mishkan trying to serve trying to be Cohan him and look what happens and and they're all devastated again that's at least the third or fourth time I've used that word and all of them have had this response so now keeping in mind about this fear of the Holy I I want to go backwards and start to think about where we see it by the way you could tell me that the first time we see it is actually Moshe by the burning bush that Moshe sees understands that this is the burning bush and recoils from this you could for that matter you can claim that it's Yakov when he wakes up from his dream and says oh there's you know how awesome is this place God is in this place but there there is at least mically maybe more a commonality between those two places because Yakov is said to be the place that one day the BET MDES is going to stand and mosha obviously is the place not mically is obviously the place that Matan Tor is going to be mically there is a connection between har and haroria so much so that in one articulation I've said this many many times is that God separated the way that you would separate Kal Isa God separated kala from heri sorry from haroria and placed it in the desert and therefore somehow seni becomes the mishan and then the mishkan goes back to Isel and then the mishkan turns into the BET mikdash and that itself is seen in the sense of returning back to its organic hole to the place that it was supposed to be in from the very beginning but nonetheless you see at least you know sometimes this recoil from something which is holy but let me go more recently and not as easily understood and that's in Source number three now this immediately afterwards they just received the death sentence right that was peric giml and yudal Morag yal they told with the death sentence and then afterwards you had what we discussed last week those who anyway decided to pursue and try to go in ter tril and they're killed and then and then we find over here a couple of mitzvot were given which is interesting and then we're told about another almost random narrative we don't we don't know why it's here we don't know when it happened we don't know anything else about it but rather it says the following for they were in the desert now the desert is a big place their desert a long time and there went lots of places in the desert and a person is mik now the word mik actually could mean Gathering but the way that it's phrased is mik koses sounds like he continually is mikos it's not one and then that leads the rabish to say that they come and they see him and they tell him stop and he won't stop he's mikos he keeps on being mikos and they come close and they go over and they say and they and they bring them over and they Place him inside they they they arrest him put him inside of prison they don't know what to do with him now why they don't know what to do with him is not that clear the gorra goes into a bit of a discussion that maybe they don't know what to do with him because uh they don't know what iser he did and there's a whole discussion which law of Shabbat did he break and it's obvious to them that he must have broken some law of Shabbat now you know the mishna says that in in the time that there was a high court almost no no one was ever killed and I'll tell you the most basic reason I mean I I know that Ras says once in 70 right this whole thing one 70 years on no one would ever r no one would ever be killed but why so Rika talks about how he C examine the witnesses but I I'll tell you another point in order to be guilty you need to be warned and then after you're warned you need to accept it which means anybody who really wanted to break a law why don't you just break it before you're warned and when you're warned you're stopped you sto I mean why in the world would anybody pursue breaking the law once they're warned means you'd have to be crazy which which by the way means that you can get anybody off on reasons of insanity because why are they keeping on doing this after they were warned I mean it's just it it seems completely insane and I want to go back into what's noted by the gar over here he's mck koses he doesn't stop so apparently they warn him and he keeps on doing it by the way in order to warn somebody properly you also have to tell them exactly what the iser is know how specific you need to be and I and I'll say it again the gor tries to figure out which of the L he possibly did okay so I want to suggest that there may be something else and what I'm going to say is based upon tovot and based upon a uh a midash that tovot quotes and and then we'll see we may it to someplace much more interesting including an impossible question of the mara which I brought tovot which is in Source number four tells us and by the way there's a whole another gar where says oh the makos and then another Tana responds and says Rika you're going to have to pay the price for this if the Torah you know doesn't tell us his name what right do you have to reveal what his name is so that's part of where tovot is coming from here so it writes near LBA now by the way when tovot ites the Raja it's not our favorite Raja this is actually the rashm the rashm was one of the BOS ended up moving to Isel and his proper name is I wrote for you Rim baham M actually one of the later a lot of the to that we have printed in the G is from him or his school was was in the beginning of the years and it happens immediately after which by the way is is the place that it's found in the Torah it says in M because the Moses according to this is SH now what does it mean that he's sh so he continues and explains that once it was stated that they can't go into because we we have no obligation for any he broke Shabbat so people would know no there still our MIT there's still a consequences to our Behavior by the way the best the best reference that I was able to think about this which I'm not going to quote for you but I'll just tell you that you can go and look up yourselves is an episode of The Twilight Zone called Escape Clause anyway it was aired on November 6th 1959 on CBS and uh essentially it was a it was a story about a man who ends up making a deal with the devil and part of the deal is that he'll never die and then but but then life isn't exciting anymore so he keeps on doing more and more absurd things finally he tries to jump down and ends up his wife ends up trying to stop him and she ends up falling and he pleads guilty to a murder he never committed and then he sentenced to life in prison so which H you remember so so this whole attitude that life has lost its meat what that life is so this this idea that life has lost its meaning and that nothing you do means anything anymore is essentially again I'm not telling you the toast foot is watch the Twilight Zone as a kid or that the rash M but but what he's saying is that that's where the that that is really where where he says is coming from that everyone is saying it doesn't make a difference anymore there's nothing we all death we're all on death row we're all on death row at this point and death is pervasive death is all around and he says well life does make a difference matter of fact if you break Shabbat then you're going to to pay the consequences so now the mara asks an impossible question and that is in Source number five he says that if that's the case at the very end he says the second line he says but if that's the case then he shouldn't have been guilty because what it's called he didn't do it when you the problem with is but if you're doing it in order to prove a point to someone else it's no longer you're doing it because you want to break Shabbat you're doing because you want to prove he should not be guilty it it becomes it becomes a whole different category of law but I do want to say maybe that's why they didn't know what to do with him here he is publicly desecrating the Shabbat but he's not but technically he's not breaking the Shabbat so now what do you do he's not guilty of one because he's not doing it in order to do the that's a side point he's doing it to show body but once he's doing a Chi body it's no longer The Reason by the way this is something which a lot of PE a lot of posting for whatever reason have difficulties with what if uh let's just put it like this we break Shabbat to save a Jewish life right why because you say break one Shabbat and then they'll keep many shabbatot what if it's a non-jewish life now six days of a week There's no question seventh day of the week now the rabbis in Europe came to an a consensus that you break sh about why because it's not it's because of a larger macro consideration and you break Shabbat for a non-jew as well without getting into any of the details rad who cites this and says but he never saw it inside he knows that the rabis claim that that's the case he says but anyway when you break Shabbat we'll go back to how it's now when you break Shabbat what should you have in mind to to save life what should you have in mind I'm not doing it because I want to do the Mala I'm doing it so I shouldn't be on the front page of hars tomorrow morning so he says that turns and then it's no longer breaking Shabbat on a Torah level so if you if you if you realize that and you go back to this Moses over here the Moses is doing this because he wants to prove a point so then why then he's not guilty of shabat and I'll say itself that may be the reason why no one knows what to do because did he break Shabbat he didn't break Shabbat he won't stop breaking Shabbat but he's doing it for a different reason he's doing for which I just now created a whole technical problem that the Aron can all deal with which once all deal with it you know it can't be shot but nonetheless nonetheless you should all be amused and you can you can use this you can ask anybody this question why was he guilty according to Toph it again it's the Mar's question so I'm answering the Mar's question that's exactly the point but what are we up to then we're up to this sense of everyone that we are now devoid of Holiness and but but again I want to understand that why are we devoid of Holiness because we were at this Apex we were at our SII right something really significant happened and and we're on the way to the land of Israel and now we're no longer on the land of Israel now we're wandering around and now we're all lost so this sense of Abandonment even if you're going to tell me that it's temporary this sense that that we are no longer special that we are no longer chosen that we are no longer we're no longer the focus of the story we're just now wandering around aimlessly until we all die is something which seems to be pervasive and that's what he Tri toop no life still is significant and there's still things and again if you need any more insight then you have to go back to that episode of The Twilight Zone coming back to what happens immediately afterwards is interesting because then we go in well in instead of saying what happens afterwards what happens afterwards I know is significant because the number of the commentaries can't seem to ignore it but let's do it the other way around let's go to the next week's paraa right which is us which is where we start today which is really the beginning of korak which is where we didn't start today Source number six now what's the problem the problem is what does he take you you have a dangling what does he take so theum completely ignores the problem and reinterprets the word and he says he what did he take he took within him a desire to create a it is a is an argument and he says and and everything he does is not the point the point is he wants a fight yes you have people like this he wants a fight so what does he take he he he he takes upon himself to start a fight and therefore he translate this dangling now now by the way that's not what the word means and it's a bit of a stretch but I know why he does this the in Source eight it says and this is the Hebrew translation and you see you know what he fills in here and you should be familiar with this he took a tet which now you all know this already and this also goes back to what I skipped what happens after the Moses we moved into the point of titit and once again the same question always will come back in B midbar what is that particular Mitzvah doing at this particular point and now we notice that at least someone is saying well there's link a jobi here because whatever happens at the beginning of korak has been informed by whatever happens right then at the end of par Rashi goes along the same lines now Rashi has a little bit more trouble and he's again it's a longer Rashi I'm not going to read the thing so you realized he went really more in the tune of the tarum of the tumus a couple lines down he goes on it's we go much further towards the end he says he brings the other mid that says and therefore he takes what does he take so then you just go back to what we're reading immediately beforehand was and therefore you almost read it as a as a runon sentence we were talking about Tak you know you should take the and then he takes the which means there really is no line of division between and kak and again that seems to be the way that they're reading it um the rash goes in a different direction you know and and therefore and therefore they took they gathered this whole group together now Rashi we're going to come back to this soon Rashi right afterwards they claim what's their big thing they say we all holy and Rashi points us out well when do they become holy we all stood by seni and we all had that religious experience now one of the things that I want to stress is that I just now gave this whole argument based upon the Moses how they may have felt as if they've been diffused from Holiness as if the Holiness has somehow been lost that instead of Holiness they've been sentenced to death and quite the opposite is taken place and something happens over here which turns that around so give me a couple seconds but in order to answer that we need to ask ourselves one question and that is what is the significance of the mits and then again why is it placed right over here so I'm going to point out that there is something about the MIT which is not necessarily the first thing that one will think about there's something about it which actually will help with the identification of what it is okay I'll explain exactly what I mean normally based upon VRA Ironically in par kados it says that one is not allowed to wear wool and linen which is together which means that there is a Prohibition of what's called shotes there's an exception to shotes and that is that sit sit you're allowed to put wool and linen together that is specifically when you have the tret the tret it has to do with the dye and the and and I'm not going into any more details but when you wear then you are permitted to wear wool and Lin together now there is another example where one can wear wool and linen together which is actually the key to all of this and that is the clothing of the cohain so now look what just now happened God tells us all that we should be wearing by the way keep in mind for the word we should be wearing and when we wear sit then you can even wear w Lin together which essentially is making a really interesting argument and what is it that you are a not just theim but all of you are now if all of you are so now what does that mid mean that takes takes the or takes the the and and places it and we are all we are all we are all that's exactly the argument that it makes which I'm saying where do that argument come from so again just follow the flow we're all holy we feel we get the death sentence we lost the Holiness and therefore the Moses becomes this really interesting story in the middle over here where he tries to show no we still have Holiness we still have obligations we still have to keep mitzvot and then right afterwards we get this Mitzvah of in order and I'm saying this but this is how delusional I am I'm saying this ASAT in the Torah ASAT in the Torah why is the Mitzvah of placed over here in order to say that that all Jews are a and if we're what is going to be the immediately response of somebody who's a little bit cynical and a little bit jealous and feels a little bit displaced and who knows how his mother treat we always have to blame the mother and who knows how he's treated as a kid and now korak wakes up and says well if that's the case then we're all holy and if we're all holy we should all be kohanim which I'm just I'm just trying to point out that that argument of korak does not come in a vacuum just read the Kish in front of you so I have a really nice piece over here which I really didn't expect to read by where he goes a little bit into the analysis he doesn't go as far as I just now went with you but what he does do over here is he starts pointing out you know the whole problem about the idea of that that c have CL part of the question that he deals with is what he identifies the sheet of the of the of the rivid is is a person when they're not fulfilling the mitzvah for example it's night and you're sleeping at night and you're still wearing and it has clim or you're allowed to do it which means well you fulfilling the Mitzvah perhaps and by the way then he shows oh what about a cohain who's not in service can he wear the client so this parallel between theid and clid and big day Kahuna are really interesting by the way now go back to what we already noted what happens by next week's paraa the big day Cohen of our own gets taken off and gets handed over to his son so that I'm saying again is much more interesting than we realize because we didn't we didn't notice there's a clothing issue over here right we didn't realize there was clothing but of course we should have noticed why because the end of last week's paraa is really the int the introduction of this week's paraa and next week's paraa is really a continuation of this week's paraa and therefore again things are a little bit broader and a little bit more interesting than I think that we noticed just to move on a little bit again where does it say that's in Source 13 that is when we stood at seni and that whole section over here is full of something which we now should be able ble to identify what is it it's the fear of the Holy right and and then Mo God says to mosha tell the people to move away from the mountain so a lot of people don't die which means what's being played out now with the mishkan actually had a parallel before with sini itself and which of course goes back to the ramban's general and greater point about how the mishkan itself is a continuation of sini but this point of the fear and then the point of the potential of people dying actually is what's being played over here and you know if I would possibly be able to say things like gastic structures and so on between books I would point this out but I'm not I I don't go you know I I I don't roll that way so you you know that I'm not going to uh r i yeah we don't I don't roll in chaff this either wow all these cultural references today so so as I said that that that itself is uh is interesting right afterwards in the next chapter is where the people again are afraid they move away right and they start and they're shaking and they say to mosha you know you go right we could die you go which itself is where things also we we don't realize at the time things are going to deteriorate because of this as well and it's the fear of the Holy that's I want to I just want to identify this again which means essentially what I'm doing is I'm saying well look a little more carefully at at this episode in schmode and then look again in bbar and this fear of the what does this fear of the Holy cause it causes God not to speak to them directly what does it cause it causes mosha then to go up the mountain what does that cause it causes them to be afraid when mosha is gone what does that then cause that then causes the sin of the golden calf now what does that cause that again you just go step after step after step without thinking about unforeseen circumstances and saying this fear of the Holy is absolutely something which is devastating and now you go to this next episode of the fear of the Holy and what does it end up somehow somehow you know this well mosha well mosha does die because of this that's why I'm saying that this is so much more interesting Aon is attacked there but Aon is going to die over there because of this continuation of the story there and once again things are are so much more complex the the I think he puts his finger on it in Source 15 when he writes and by the way notice what he did he just now connected it absolutely the story of Kor with the story of the moram and the death sentence and he says and now look how one thing leads to the other and to the other to the next and the next and look at and look how things completely deteriorate and again he he he's keeping his eye on this and it's very it's very clear to him now I want to go back to what I'd said before and that is you know I skipped over the word uh the word by sits sits is actually something which is really interesting as well because the sits itself is one of the things which is worn on the forehead of the of the kohen so when his staff is put in right if you take a look again now ver 20 right so we saw we' seen that before if you look at the said the first part of it the in 21 but says it better in 22 the per refers to regular so the relates to the of the and so on so I just want to point out one more thing which we need perhaps to pay attention to on at least one level and I think I first pointed this out over 30 years ago so we'll uh we we we we'll try to go back to that and say it a little broader there is a connection between on many levels right now the story of Cen and he and the story of korak the cabalists noted in terms of gigot and so on right that Moshe is he and that Ken is korak but there's something else which is interesting is that there's an argument there on who will be the cohain who will bring the avoda which will be accepted from God which means that's the original argument about a cohain gets played out and then it will come lat on but there's a deeper Point what's the deeper point that the language which is used is that the Earth opened its mouth and swallowed the blood of heav that's the same language which is used over here that the Earth opens up its mouth and then swallows korak which is then seen as some kind of mik mided mid once you put the two stories together but what's the ending of the story of cenne and heav well the ending is is that now now Kenne who has taken a life who has does something who has not recognized that Salim in his friend he has to go into galut and by the way again something we've noted many times mically K and heo represent wool and linen and again you have to read the midashim and read the text itself and now is not the time for it but it's suggested by the midash tanuma that the prohibition of of wool and linen together is because one is a farmer and one plants one is wool and one is linen and these two can't get together and uh and it's as if kind of saying the world is okay with that HS no there needs to be separate Realms each one is respected and one can't be swallowed up by the other and therefore there needs to be a real a realm of wool and one of linen and therefore each one is independent and therefore we have a probation on the other hand who is able nonetheless to wear them together the Cohen is able to wear them together why can the Cohen wear them together well the Coen go back and just think for a moment about the Coen who has to make the blessing what is the bless any heat that that to bless right is which means if there is love and respect in all ofs together at that point you're able to wear wool and linen together so now go back to the theit seems to be this little spark of a Coen and this little spark of this little spark of understanding that wool and linen could or should be be able to come together and work together to create big day kodesh right that should be the case even though most of our lives were unable to live up to that level but what is at the very end of the story of kind hav he goes okay he you have the murder that takes place and and the Earth opens up and so that's the way that God describes it SW as the blood but then afterwards we have something else and that is that he is sent off into Exile and he receives an oat so now the question is what is that oat that he receives and this right and and there's all kinds of opinions one of the opinions is is that he gets this that mid sorry there's one great mid bring said he gets a dog right a dog is going to a dog is going to protect him that he that he gets an oat of on his forehead by the way sararat is something which caus separateness from the mishan you have to stay away from the place which is holy you can't approach holy you want to be the Coen you can't be the Coen so just take look for a second right now at the very end of in Source 24 he's commenting on so he says which is so mically what they just now did with connected this action that took place over here to uyu together with what happens to C now if I just now went too quick and you kind of lost the thread over here let me make sure that uh that we understood what just now happened you have the you you have the coim and you have the pretenders right the first Pretender is going to be Cen and he's going to get a sign of a pretender which is the SAR which is staying away from the holy so over here as well aon's St is going to get the actual the sits is going to be there to indicate that he is the coing so if we just now follow the flow all the way through there's almost like this constant dance that takes place and that is an attraction and then running away from Holiness it's as if this uh this this dance takes place that one step forward then two steps back and we want to approach it but we're afraid of approaching it and then we approach it sometimes it's inappropriate and essentially that that's what happen as well we have it's time to enter to which is aad we can't go and then what we have afterwards we have the group of people who nonetheless no let's go no but now now is not the time and you're not worthy to go right now they have to move back then you have this whole complete ignoring anything of Holiness which is then the story of the M of the Moses who then insists no there is Holiness and he does what he does which our problem now is that it becomes what's the response to that the response is that no all the people people still Are Holy you're all ah if that's the fact then we're Allen him and let's all now approach no you're not alling him there is still nonetheless you all have Holiness but again don't confuse don't don't confuse don't confuse that you're all holy and that you all have like this spark of Holiness with this idea that everyone is going to be the kohen and at that point they keep on approaching but then they're afraid and at this point we get to this point the total fear of the Holy and I'm going to keep on saying that's what keeps taking place back and forth as I pointed out we've already had seen this earlier now you can decide how early you want to go with it you want to really go back to K in heaven C who doesn't see the Holiness in heaven how do you commit murder you don't see the Holiness in another person which means this idea of seeing Holiness and not seeing Holiness ignoring Holiness embracing Holiness but part of Holiness is also Holiness in terms of space and Holiness in terms of time and Holiness in terms of action and there needs to be this confluence of the right time the right place the right person and so on and part of Holiness is that Holiness comes from God and God therefore makes the rules and not everybody can say well I want to do something holy and again now you can go back to another The View if you want well I want to I you know I want to do something I want to do what the co God supposed to do well it's the wrong time you're the wrong people that's not the nonetheless Aon is going to be told to do the exact same thing that n you do that's the right time that's you're the right person which means Holiness has rules to it holiness essentially right ultimately is about engaging God Holiness is not an independent gesture it is not about us Holiness is about God and it's about godliness and therefore once it's about godliness God makes those rules and he tells us when to approach how we can approach what we need to do to approach and it's not just for us an eagle trip that oh I want to be a Cohan and I want to do something and I want to wear the clothing of the Cohan no no all of that is different but as I really tried to show today there really is a flow over here and the flow goes from the morum to through the Moses through the par of T which now you realize a lot of people identified but I think I said it in a really clear way how it follows and what did I add into it this concept of and therefore the CL aspect of it which then what can you do once we got to CL it took us back to K and heav including heav running away including he have the sign on his forehead but his sign or is H that he had was the O of not being a Cohen it's the O of thear it's the O of the distance from something which is holy and it creates this thing which is called No for you based upon you we have shotes there is wool and linen you can't combine them oh the real cohain he can combine them even Jews can have a spark of this and could put on the tiit and have the wool and linen together but that needs to go together with this concept of love this concept of appreciating Holiness and appreciating that it's only allowed because God commanded it