Parshat Korach: Riding Your Donkey!

When Moses was sent to redeem the Jewish people from Egyptian bondage he also used the donkey that symbolizes the gross physical veneer that eclipses the Divine light. By using his donkey, Moses was underscoring the nature of exile as a cover that belies the true nature of existence. This served as a prelude to the Exodus at which time the Jews emerged from their subservience to the physical conditions that enslaved them (read: that prevented them from expressing their true identities and potentials).

Moses’ Didn’t Take a Donkey!

Soon after the tragic episode of the Ten Spies who slandered the Land of Israel and dissuaded the Jews from wanting to conquer it, the Torah, in this week’s parsha, discusses another tragic rebellion led by Moses’ cousin Korach, claiming that Moses had arrogated too much power for himself. Moses tried to mollify them and he approached Korach’s main co-conspirators the infamous Dasan and Aviram, but to no avail.

The Torah recounts that Moses upon hearing the rebellious rant of Dasan and Aviram, “was extremely upset.” He then says to G-d, “Don’t turn to their gift offering. I have not taken a donkey from a single one of them, and I have not wronged a single one of them.”

These cryptic words of Moses need to be deciphered. What did Moses mean when he said that G-d should not accept their offering and that he did not take a donkey from any one of them?”

Parallelisms

According to the teachings of Kabbalah, Moses’s soul was a reincarnation of Abel who was killed by Cain, whose soul was reincarnated in Korach. So now the tables were turned. Moses—who possessed the soul of Abel—brings about the death of Korach—who is in possession of Cain’s soul. First it was Cain who killed Abel and now it is Abel who kills Cain!

We can find some additional parallelism in these two accounts:

In the story of Cain and Abel, G-d accepts the offering of Abel and not the offering of Cain, which provoked Cain’s anger and jealousy that led to his act of fratricide. In this narrative of Moses and Korach, Moses asks G-d not to accept their offering. It appears as if Korach and his cohorts were trying to reverse Cain’s failure to bring an offering that G-d would find satisfying. If Korach—the Cain incarnate—would succeed in getting G-d to accept his offering he could, once and for all, defeat Moses—the Abel incarnate. And to preempt this, Moses asks G-d to once again not accept their offering.

Another parallel is that both Cain and Korach exhibited a strong dose of envy. Cain was envious of his brother Abel whose offering G-d accepted, and Korach was envious of Moses’ and Aaron’s exalted position. Moses therefore asks G-d not to accept Korach’s offering because Korach was not rectifying Cain’s sin of jealousy, he was reinforcing it.

But the question still persists, what connection does this have with Moses not taking donkeys from them? Why would not having availed himself of the Korach “Rent-a- Donkey” service have made any difference in this matter of G-d accepting someone’s offering?

And furthermore, what was it that Korach wanted to accomplish with his offering that was an echo of Cain trying to get G-d to accept his offering.

The Purpose of Cain and Abel’s Offerings

To unravel the mystery here, it is necessary for us to return to the Cain and Abel saga. What was it that prompted Cain to bring an offering in the first place? And why did G-d not accept it despite the fact that he was the one who initiated the offering; yet G-d did accept Abel’s offering even though it appeared that he was just following Cain’s example?

Maimonides writes that Cain and Abel brought their offerings on the very site of the Temple mount. This, Maimonides writes was also the site that Adam offered his offering and was the site from which Adam was formed.

Desire for Exclusivity

By Cain initiating his offering he wanted to establish his exclusive relationship with G-d. He wanted to own the Temple area because he knew that it was the place that would provide him with a permanent link with the Creator and empower him to control the world of the future. In Cain’s mind, whoever lays claim to the Temple mount—the very source of humanity—controls the world!

Cain was thus upset that Abel followed his example and thereby took away his exclusivity. G-d therefore rejected Cain’s offering and accepted Abel’s. Rather than learning a lesson from this that G-d did not want the offering on the Temple Mount to serve as an ego and power trip for anyone, G-d’s acceptance of Abel’s offering and not his, exacerbated the jealousy he had for Abel. Now Abel could lay claim to that exclusive domain and deny Cain absolute power.

And history repeats itself with Korach and Moses. Korach slyly demands equality and denounces Moses august position; although, between the lines of his diatribes, we can detect a desire on his part to become the leader himself. Consciously perhaps, Korach sought to rectify the sin of Cain by denouncing exclusive and absolute power he thought Moses craved, but sub-consciously the spirit of Cain still resonated within him.

Cain’s Revenge

Korach therefore attempts to avoid making the same mistake as Cain did by demanding everything for himself; on the contrary he will show that he was a populist who wanted to bestow the special status of priesthood on all of Israel. Korach was leading a popular revolt against an oligarchy. In his mind, G-d would now be compelled to accept his offering, because it was he who cared for the rights of others. It was Moses, Korach would argue furthermore, that acted in an arrogant and presumptuous manner to arrogate to himself the position of monarch and the High Priesthood for his brother Aaron..

This was Cain getting his revenge.

And this is how Moses responds: Korach’s insinuation that he was power hungry was absolutely false. To prove this point Moses points to the fact that he would not even want to use the donkey of others. He harbored absolutely no desire for other people’s property, let alone to control their lives. And if Korach was to argue that while it was true that Moses did not, in fact, covet other people’s property, it was not due to his humility, magnanimity or high level of righteousness, but rather it was due to the utter contempt he had for the masses. Moses therefore follows his statement that he did not take any donkey from them with the statement that he has never harmed any of them. Moses relationship to his people was untainted with even the slightest tinge of selfishness and condescension.

Moshiach’s Donkey

To explain the emphasis on not taking even a donkey from them on a deeper level, it has been suggested that the “donkey” is the symbol of Moshiach who comes to redeem the Jewish people “riding on a donkey.” According to our Sages, the donkey that Moshiach will ride on is the same donkey that Moses used to travel to Egypt to redeem the Jewish people and it is also the same donkey that Abraham used to bring his son Isaac as an offering.

The simple meaning behind the longevity of a donkey is that the Messianic process involving a donkey began with Abraham, continued with Moses, and will be completed with Moshiach.

What is the significance of the donkey in all these narratives?

The Hebrew word for donkey chamor is related to the word that means materialism. When Abraham proved his devotion to G-d by submitting to what he thought was G- d’s will to sacrifice his son Isaac, that represented the first major dent into the gross materialistic cover that obscures G-dly light. There is no greater attachment to the physical world than the attachment of a father to a son, and by Abraham showing his willingness to give that away—which of course G-d did not really want—that was the world’s first significant attempt at undermining the power of the physical world to resist the spiritual.

However, in both of these narratives it does not state explicitly that either Abraham or Moses actually rode the donkey.

With respect to Moshiach, however, it is clearly stated in the Biblical text that he would ride the donkey. This implies that he will enable the world to finally gain total mastery over the conditions that have prevented humanity from realizing its G-d given potential. Moshiach will not have to innovate; he will just remove the final impediments that prevent the world from expressing its G-dly energy.

In all of these exercises of harnessing the “donkey” the objective was/is not to destroy it or to change it. Rather the goal is to enable the material world to realize its true nature by removing that aspect of the “donkey” that conceals that which is within.

Moses’ adversaries unfortunately were of the opinion that Moses’ “riding of the donkey” was an attempt to exercise his power and dominion over them. Of course, they were projecting their own ambitions of gaining power and were imputing their own motives to him.

Second, Moses’ “riding of the donkey”, i.e. gaining mastery over the physical and material world, was understood by the rebels as his desire to unilaterally change every one; to strip them of their individuality. Moses, they opined, was trying to change them and mold them into his chosen image. In their minds, Moses was obsessed with controlling the people and thereby denying them their individuality by imposing on them strictures that would put them in straight jackets and never allow them to be who they truly were.

To dismiss these two concerns they had about Moses, he thus says to G-d about them: “I have not taken a donkey from a single one of them.”

By saying this he meant to underscore that his efforts at raising the level of physical existence was not his doing. He was merely the servant of G-d who was sent to liberate the Jews from Egypt and help them get out of the physical and spiritual morass they were in. His role was part of a continuum, beginning with Abraham, continuing through Moses and that would culminate with Moshiach. Moses had no personal agenda and was the farthest thing from wanting to impose his personal imprimatur on anyone.

Moses was also responding to their second concern that “riding the donkey” was an attempt at denying them their individuality.

Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Moses was not there to change them at all. He was there to help them uncover their own spiritual potential by assisting them in removing the impediments to that realization due to the undue influence of their “donkeys.”

Thus Moses says, “I have not taken (read: elevated) their donkey (read: their material existence), with the emphasis on the word “I”. Moses was, in effect saying that it was not he that did all this; he was no more than a cog in a big wheel that was part of a Divine plan to reveal the G-dliness in this world.

And moreover, Moses was attempting to define the process of one in which there is no need for him to elevate and change the physical thereby altering its character, but to help the individual realize and actualize their own individual potential and to be who they truly are. Therefore Moses says “I did not take (read “elevate”) their donkey,” I gave them the opportunity to raise their own donkey by revealing its inner potential.

The Lesson of the 3rd of Tammuz

We are a few days away from the 3rd of Tammuz, the day when the Rebbe’s physical presence was obscured.

The Rebbe dedicated his entire life to “riding the donkey,” refining the world and preparing it for the Messianic Age in the tradition of all the great Jewish leaders beginning with Abraham and Moses.

One of the striking features of the Rebbe is that—in the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the chief Rabbi of England—“he did not cultivate followers, he cultivated leaders.” The Rebbe’s multifaceted teachings and efforts were directed at aiding the individual to “raise up” their own “donkey,” by discovering the treasures within each and every person. People believed in the Rebbe not only because of his incredible love, care and concern for them but because he demonstrated how much he believed in them.

The Rebbe would often cite the teaching of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement that every one of us possesses a “spark of Moshiach” within. The Rebbe’s life was/is dedicated to helping us reveal that spark so that in the aggregate, with the confluence of all these sparks, they will become a blazing torch that will lead inevitably, inexorably and imminently to the coming of Moshiach.

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Korach by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.