In contrast to previous grassroots rebellions against Moshe, our parasha records a potentially more disastrous rebellion instigated by Korach and other formidable personalities within the nation.

Korach was one of the four Levites who merited the task of holding the supporting poles of the Holy Ark during the nation’s migration to a new encampment.

It is not clear from the text when this rebellion occurred. The suggestions range from before the Mishkan was erected, to after Miraglim’s sin, to the end of the forty-year sojourn in the desert. It is also not clear what Korach’s claim was, since there were various allegations against Moshe in the text - each one voiced by a different segment of interest groups within the rebellion. However, we do know that one segment was swallowed up by the earth, another died by fire and another by sickness.

After the rebellion was crushed and all its participants were no longer alive, Hashem commanded Moshe to collect the staffs of the twelve tribal leaders, including Aharon, and place them overnight near the Holy Ark in the Mishkan.

In the morning, Moshe entered the holy precinct to find that Aharon’s staff had blossomed. It was a Divine sign that Aharon’s appointment was absolute and that no man had the right to question it.

Question:Why did Hashem wait until after the death of the rebels to prove that Aharon was chosen to be the first Kohen Gadol? Had Hashem performed the miracle of the staffs before punishing the rebels, they would have certainly done teshuva with no need for severe punishment.

I submit:

Short of Hashem appearing to an individual or a group, miracles have different effects on people.

Hashem knew that Korach was too filled with jealousy, Datan and Aviram too obsessed with their opposition to Moshe Rabbeinu, and the 250 leaders too overwhelmed by their sense of importance for a miracle to have an effect on any of the rebels.

Hashem knew that when Moshe would leave the Mishkan with Aharon’s flowering staff in hand with all that it implies, Korach with his sharp mind and cynical tongue would remove any and all semblance of spirituality from the unnatural flowering of a dry staff and explain the turn of events to his advantage.

So, if the miracle was to influence people’s views, it would have to occur when all the “Korachs" would not be there to destroy the miracle’s effect.

In fact, we today, are witnessing a similar chain of events where Hashem’s miracles are being interpreted by contemporary “Korachs" - although of a lower spiritual stature than the Biblical Korach.

There is no end to the miracles that Hashem performs every moment for His people in Eretz Yisrael. If not for Hashem’s ongoing protection, we could not live here one day. We are surrounded by hundreds of millions of fanatical, blood-thirsty, primitive Muslims of all sorts who would not miss an opportunity to destroy the Jewish State. We are witnessing Hashem’s personal intervention for His people in the Holy Land as He creates the conditions whereby Arab hatred is turning inward with all the wrath they have been nurturing for generations against the Jewish nation.

The Shoah was the end of the 2000 years of anger and punishment of the Jewish people who were exiled from our Holy Land to be the victims of Yishmael’s and Aisav’s sadism.

From 600,000 people and a rag-tag army 77 years ago, to over eight million Jews today with the most resourceful army in the world, we are living a life of biblical proportions. Torah life is flourishing as never before, despite the destruction of the great Torah centers in Europe and North Africa.

Yet there are the “Korachs" among us who, for personal interests, preach that the Medina is a mere political entity, a temporary historical quirk which has no bearing on the God-Yisrael relationship.

They say that one should not go to the Land, nor is it permissible to say Hallel to thank Hashem for the Medina. The “dry staff" of Am Yisrael is flourishing with great abundance, but the cynical spiritual leaders in the galut continue to preach dissension before their naive congregants who are more influenced by a shtreimel produced from treif animals than by the miraculous entity called Medinat Yisrael.

Woe to those leaders. Woe to their adherents.

The Final Stage

We are witnessing the beginning of an ongoing miracle which might very well be the stepping stone for the final stage before the Mashiach’s appearance.

It is not a miracle directed at a single event or country, like the ten plagues of Egypt or the meteorites that fell from the sky to help Yehoshua in his battle with the five Amorite kings (chapter 10). This miracle will engulf nations and continents; and at its outcome, we shall see the State of Israel emerge as the world’s dominant nation.

Sources

But first some background sources:

1- Tehilim 92,8-10:

The wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish,
in order that they will be destroyed forever.

And You, Hashem, are forever exalted.

For surely Your enemies, Hashem,

surely Your enemies will perish;

all evildoers will be detached (severed).

2- Bereishiet chapter 11 regarding the generation of the Tower of Bavel:

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

Hashem said, “If as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

So Hashem scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

3- Midrash Tanchuma (parshat Beha’alotcha)

Hashem said to Moshe, “Gather together for me 70 men (to serve as the Sanhedrin). The midrash asks why Hashem said, “for me" and its answer is to teach that the unity of righteous men is pleasurable for them and for the world, whereas the unity of evil men causes displeasure for them and for the world.

4- Midrash Yalkut Shimoni on Micha (553):

Rabbi Yishmael says, “The five fingers of Hashem’s right hand (as it were) are intended to bring the final redemption (and the midrash enumerates what each finger will do), but the entire hand will be utilized to destroy Aisav who are Hashem’s enemies, and to eradicate the children of Yishmael (Arab Muslims) who are Hashem’s enemies, etc.

5- Midrash Yalkut Chadash on Eretz Yisrael 24

And when Yitzchak passed away, Aisav said to Ya’akov (his brother), "Let us divide our father's estate, and I as the firstborn have the right to choose first.

Ya’akov suggested to divide the entire estate in two. On the one side, all of the material wealth and on the other side, Eretz Yisrael. Ya’akov gave Aisav the right to choose first. Aisav went to Yishmael, his father-in-law, to seek advice. Yishmael said that the land of Canaan was filled with so many nations that Ya'akov would never be able to obtain ownership. He advised Aisav to take all the wealth for himself and that would leave Ya'akov with nothing.

From these sources we conclude:

1- Hashem permits evil people to rise in stature and power, which will eventually cause their downfall.

2- The concentration of power by evil people will cause them and the world great pain.

3- The descendants of Yishmael and Aisav are the enemies of Hashem.

4- Yishmael and Aisav will never rest as long as Ya’akov is in Eretz Yisrael.

Yishmael and Aisav against Ya’akov

The 28 nations that make up the European Union are for the most part descendants of Aisav (everyone has red in its flag). Europe has been, and is, the seat of anti-Semitism in principle and in deed. The European intellectuals and politicians, who would not soil their hands by putting a can of hydrogen cyanide into a gas chamber, have no qualms about creating an Arab state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River to permit the Arabs to finish what Hitler began.

Again, Yishmael and Aisav against Ya’akov.

The 28 nations that compose the EU are now in the process of laying down a timetable for Israel’s retreat from the 1967 borders and establishing an Arab State, under the threat of economic and political sanctions against Israel.

Hashem saw that the concentration of power brought about by these 28 rogue nations has reached its limit, that the time has come for it to crumble and collapse from within.

The first crumb to fall is the United Kingdom, chosen for this exclusive “honor" by virtue of their betrayal of the Jewish nation. During the Mandate period, the brutish-British encouraged the Arabs to riot and murder Jews in Hebron, Yerushalayim, Tzfat and Tiveria, as a pretense to limit and halt Jewish emigration to the Holy Land - despite the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo conference.

England was the willing partner of Hitler in the Shoah.

We shall soon see the slow and painful dismembering of the European Union. Instead of actualizing their plans to unite the European countries into a United States of Europe, they will deteriorate into national states with extreme fascist governments.

And then the world will be a different place.

Our rabbis have taught that Ya’akov and Aisav cannot co-exist - when one falls, the other will gain power. The demise of Aisav is imminent, just as is the rise of the Jewish nation to the greatest of heights as predicted by our prophets.

Rabbi Nachman Kahana is a Torah scholar, author, teacher and lecturer, Founder and Director of the Center for Kohanim, Co-founder of the Temple Institute, Co-founder of Atara Leyoshna - Ateret Kohanim, was rabbi of Chazon Yechezkel Synagogue - Young Israel of the Old City of Jerusalem for 32 years, and is the author of the 15-volume “Mei Menuchot" series on Tosefot, and 3-volume “With All Your Might: The Torah of Eretz Yisrael in the Weekly Parashah" (2009-2011), and “Reflections from Yerushalayim: Thoughts on the Torah, the Land and the Nation of Israel" (2019) as well as weekly parasha commentary available where he blogs at https://NachmanKahana.com