Um... oops?
Jun. 24th, 2008 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuSo I'm working on my dvar Torah that I agreed to give this coming Shabbat, and I found a few more sources, and suddenly I realize that the logical conclusion of what first got me interested is something banal and obvious. Do I backtrack? Change topics? Plow ahead anyway?
Here are my notes so far. They're pretty jumbled and rough.
I was struck while reading the parsha by the word "chayyim", as I remarked last week. Why does the Torah specify that Korah's followers plummeted alive into the pit?
What I was hoping to justify as an explanation is that since they didn't die immediately, they had a chance to do teshuvah, to repent. What rachmanus, what mercy, this shows. And jik found a source via Google that supports this view:
Moshe loved all the Jewish people, including Korach and his followers. These people were sinning terribly, since by quarreling with him, they were actually defying Hashem's will. Had they died immediately, they would have left this world without doing teshuvah, and they would thus have lost their share in Olam Haba — the World to Come. Therefore, he prayed that they descend alive to the pit, hoping that while still alive, they would regret their wrongdoings and do teshuvah.
Problem one: this answer is not sourced at that web page, and I can't find it anywhere else.
There's the famous (too famous) aggadah on Sanhedrin 110a, where Rabbah bar bar Chana is taken by an Arab to the spot where the earth's mouth opened up, and once every 30 days as the mouth of gehinnom passes beneath that spot one can supposedly hear them say "Moshe and his Torah are true, and we were wrong!"
This is preceded by the following explanation. In a few more chapters, the Torah says "uvnei korach lo metu" (and the sons of Korach did not die): Tana, mishum rabeinu am'ru: makom nitbatzer lahem b'geihinom It was taught, in the name of our rabbis, they said: a fortified place was set aside for them in gehinnom v'yash'vu alav v'am'ru shirah and they dwelt upon it and recited shirah -- songs of praise and thanksgiving.
On this passage, on the words "a fortified place", Rashi explains: nitbatzer is melashon (Is. 27) 'ir b'tzeirah from the language in Isaiah 27 of a "fortified city." Hitkin lahon HKB"H God made for them (for the sons of Korach) makom gavoah a high place shelo haamiku kawl kach gehinnom that they should not something??? all of gehinnom v'lo metu and they did not die. So homeletics aside, Rashi seems to me to simply be explaining the logistics of how a makom nitbatzer would save them. One commetary I saw and have since lost track of suggested that they were then able to climb back out of the pit before it closed.
On v'am'ru shira Steinsaltz brings in this explanation in the name of the Raybatz: "To praise Hashem because he made a miracle like this for them -- that as we say in the midrash that they initially opened the rebellion (machloket), in any case they did teshuvah, and they atoned for themselves."
Query: Is this shirah the Psalms 42 et seq that are brought in the name of the sons of Korach? You'd think so, but no one seems to say it directly.
On the other hand, the Yalkut explains homiletically on Ps 42:1 that:
Anyone who does teshuvah from the sin that is in his hand, HKB"H (God) adds on and calls him by the name "chaviv" (beloved friend). Go and see in the case of the sons of Korach: when they did not do teshuvah they were not called "shoshanim vididim" (roses and precious ones); once they did teshuvah they were called "shoshanim vididim", as it is said: (prooftext from our verse) "A song for the shoshanim, for the sons of Korach, a Psalm, a song of the yedidot"
The Midrash tanchumah on this parsha comments on our verse (Num 16:33) "Yesh omrim chayyim n'dunin ad achshav" -- there are those who say they were sentenced(?) to live until now.
So I'm somewhat confused: Were they granted some sort of immortaility? If so, was that a reward -- in which case they'd be kind of Elijah-like. Maybe given that one who atones, his sins are counted as merits, then if they were guilty of the highest rebellion, and their once-every-30-day-voices are teshuvah gamur, then are they considered worthy to that level?
Or is this a punishment, a sort of eternal torment?
Or is it in between? Their eternal job is to warn us of the consequences of rebellion?
I don't find any of those answers satisfactory, and I don't find any of them explicitly supported or repudiated in any of my sources.
So now I'm without a conclusion and I'm worried that pretty much all my source material is "yeah, I learned that in tenth grade" stuff. My own thoughts are befuddled about what the message is. And it doesn't help that I don't believe in a literal gehinnom the way many of these sources do.
Help?
Here are my notes so far. They're pretty jumbled and rough.
I was struck while reading the parsha by the word "chayyim", as I remarked last week. Why does the Torah specify that Korah's followers plummeted alive into the pit?
What I was hoping to justify as an explanation is that since they didn't die immediately, they had a chance to do teshuvah, to repent. What rachmanus, what mercy, this shows. And jik found a source via Google that supports this view:
Moshe loved all the Jewish people, including Korach and his followers. These people were sinning terribly, since by quarreling with him, they were actually defying Hashem's will. Had they died immediately, they would have left this world without doing teshuvah, and they would thus have lost their share in Olam Haba — the World to Come. Therefore, he prayed that they descend alive to the pit, hoping that while still alive, they would regret their wrongdoings and do teshuvah.
Problem one: this answer is not sourced at that web page, and I can't find it anywhere else.
There's the famous (too famous) aggadah on Sanhedrin 110a, where Rabbah bar bar Chana is taken by an Arab to the spot where the earth's mouth opened up, and once every 30 days as the mouth of gehinnom passes beneath that spot one can supposedly hear them say "Moshe and his Torah are true, and we were wrong!"
This is preceded by the following explanation. In a few more chapters, the Torah says "uvnei korach lo metu" (and the sons of Korach did not die): Tana, mishum rabeinu am'ru: makom nitbatzer lahem b'geihinom It was taught, in the name of our rabbis, they said: a fortified place was set aside for them in gehinnom v'yash'vu alav v'am'ru shirah and they dwelt upon it and recited shirah -- songs of praise and thanksgiving.
On this passage, on the words "a fortified place", Rashi explains: nitbatzer is melashon (Is. 27) 'ir b'tzeirah from the language in Isaiah 27 of a "fortified city." Hitkin lahon HKB"H God made for them (for the sons of Korach) makom gavoah a high place shelo haamiku kawl kach gehinnom that they should not something??? all of gehinnom v'lo metu and they did not die. So homeletics aside, Rashi seems to me to simply be explaining the logistics of how a makom nitbatzer would save them. One commetary I saw and have since lost track of suggested that they were then able to climb back out of the pit before it closed.
On v'am'ru shira Steinsaltz brings in this explanation in the name of the Raybatz: "To praise Hashem because he made a miracle like this for them -- that as we say in the midrash that they initially opened the rebellion (machloket), in any case they did teshuvah, and they atoned for themselves."
Query: Is this shirah the Psalms 42 et seq that are brought in the name of the sons of Korach? You'd think so, but no one seems to say it directly.
On the other hand, the Yalkut explains homiletically on Ps 42:1 that:
Anyone who does teshuvah from the sin that is in his hand, HKB"H (God) adds on and calls him by the name "chaviv" (beloved friend). Go and see in the case of the sons of Korach: when they did not do teshuvah they were not called "shoshanim vididim" (roses and precious ones); once they did teshuvah they were called "shoshanim vididim", as it is said: (prooftext from our verse) "A song for the shoshanim, for the sons of Korach, a Psalm, a song of the yedidot"
The Midrash tanchumah on this parsha comments on our verse (Num 16:33) "Yesh omrim chayyim n'dunin ad achshav" -- there are those who say they were sentenced(?) to live until now.
So I'm somewhat confused: Were they granted some sort of immortaility? If so, was that a reward -- in which case they'd be kind of Elijah-like. Maybe given that one who atones, his sins are counted as merits, then if they were guilty of the highest rebellion, and their once-every-30-day-voices are teshuvah gamur, then are they considered worthy to that level?
Or is this a punishment, a sort of eternal torment?
Or is it in between? Their eternal job is to warn us of the consequences of rebellion?
I don't find any of those answers satisfactory, and I don't find any of them explicitly supported or repudiated in any of my sources.
So now I'm without a conclusion and I'm worried that pretty much all my source material is "yeah, I learned that in tenth grade" stuff. My own thoughts are befuddled about what the message is. And it doesn't help that I don't believe in a literal gehinnom the way many of these sources do.
Help?