Korach 5758 – Levi vs Kohen: The Gap Between Avodah and Schar

A Paraphrased Shiur of Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky

We have the Machlokes of Korach, which the psukim say, and Chazal point out, it was a sichsuch between kehunah and leviyah. רב לכם בני לוי, ובקשתם גם כהונה . What is this distinction between Kohen and Levi? leviyah is not simply an assistant kohen, you know, the kohanim need staff to wash their hands so we employ some levi’im. No, Leviyah and kehunah are mahalchim, each with its own tochen. And the trouble began when Levi was no longer satisfied and reached for kehunah. So we have to understand: what is the tochen of kehunah and leviyah?

And whatever this Machlokes was, it reflects itself in Korach’s tainos. He brought two meshalim to ridicule Moshe Rabbeinu — a tallis shekulah techeiles, and a bayis malei seforim. Halachikally, it’s a k’napeh upshlog; but toichen-wise this was his shitah, his deiah. The whole vikuach between kehunah and leviyah revolved around tallis shekulah techeiles versus tzitzis, bayis malei seforim versus mezuzah. I want to understand this.

B’chlal, there seem to be some contradictory middos of Kehuna. On the one hand we know Kohanim kapdanin heim. They are very demanding, to the point where Chazal made a whole takanah in Gittin of a get mekushar for Kohanim, because they are such kapdanim. But we also know kehunah comes from Aharon HaKohen, about whom it says אוהב שלום ורודף שלום, אוהב את הבריות ומקרבן לתורה. How does kapdanim come out of an אוהב שלום ורודף שלום?

Another ha’arah: when HaKadosh Baruch Hu made the nisayon of who is the true Kohen, everyone gave in a makel, and Aharon HaKohen’s makel sprouted — and that was the raya. Did HaKadosh Baruch Hu just pick a random milsa d’alma as a raya? The havanah is that the maaseh itself is a refelction of kehunah; sprouting shakeidimm is somehow reflective of kehunah. Why?¹

The mafte’ach is in the way Chazal present Choni HaMaagel. There are two incidents with Choni HaMaagel. The first: when there was no rain, he would draw a circle — עג עוגה — and say, Ribbono Shel Olam, I’m not moving until it rains, and it would rain instantly. And there’s a bikores: אלמלא חוני אתה, גוזרני עליך נידוי — that is not the way one relates to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It’s not the hanhagah haretzuyah.²

The second maaseh is: Choni was bothered by a pasuk: בשוב ה’ את שיבת ציון היינו כחולמים — that the seventy years of galus would pass by like a chalom. מי איכא דניים שבעין שנין? Is it possible a person should sleep seventy years? He came upon a man planting a charuv tree and asked how long until it bears fruit. The man said Seventy years. Choni asked: seventy years is a lifetime, why are you planting it? The man answered: I found charuvin in the world when I came; I am leaving charuvin for my grandchildren. Choni fell asleep, slept seventy years, and woke to find the grandchild eating the fruit. He came to the beis medrash, and they were saying over shtiklach of Choni HaMaagel — and no one was goireis him, no one believed he was Choni. He had no shaychus to that dor, and he asked HaKadosh Baruch Hu to take him.

A mudnah ma’aseh. What is this whole sippur devarim?

HaKadosh Baruch Hu placed Adam in Gan Eden לעבדה ולשמרה. Avodas adam is where Adam is zoreyah, and his zriyah produces peiros. In general the zoreyah is able to reap and enjoy the peiros of his Avodah.

But HaKadosh Baruch Hu built into the beriah a mahalach where the zoreyah can’t even see his peiros. Where there’s a nisayon of היום לעשותם ומחר לקבל שכרם. A split between la’asosam and lekabel s’charam

The truth is, even before the chet, when the olam was k’tikuno, there was still היום לעשותם ומחר לקבל שכר kipshuto — Adam was meant to work all Erev Shabbos and only when Shabbos came would it be lekabel s’char.

And the cheit itself was exactly this – Chazal describe it as paga ochlah. He ate the fruit before it was ready; he couldn’t live with the gap between the hayom and the machar; he wanted the machar of lekabel s’char to be hayom. The Gemara in Bava Metzia calls unripe olives rishei zeisim — reshaim — because the rishah in the beriah stems from the fact that the pri is not muchan immediately from the amal hayom. That is where a person goes off. A mitzvah that gives an immediate high, people are into; a mitzvah whose totza’ah takes a long time, people are simply not into.³

Most Avodah yields peiros the the Oved can see and taste. But, HKBH created an extreme version of the gap between יום לעשותם ומחר לקבל שכרם. The ultimate of this metzius is the charuvin. Everything else takes three months, a year, a few years — and you still see the peiros b’chayecha; the Gemara in Berachos says עולמך תראה בחייך as a brachah, that a person should see the fruit of his labor in his lifetime. But there is one nekudah in the beriah where a person never sees it — the charuvin, where the hayom and the lemachar are not even in the same lifetime.⁴⁵

This is the hardest part of all avodah — the gap between the hayom and the lemachar. When a person sees totza’os immediately, he’s motivated; nothing incentivizes work more than seeing peiros. However, the further the peiros are from the avodah, the harder the avodah.

Choni HaMaagel experienced both mehalchim. He was the one who demanded rain ASAP. He wanted the pri immediate to the avodah, with no gap — עג עוגה, I want rain now. And there was a tayna on him, because that’s not the way of the world. His tikun was the whole inyan of the shivim shanah. HaKadosh Baruch Hu was megaleh to him the beriah of charuvin: An avodah where there’s no hint of the peiros, not for you, not for your kids, but in the distant future.

Now we can return to leviyah and kehunah. Kehunah is the madreigah of Choni when he is עג עוגה — kohanim zerizim heim. teikef l’smichah shechitah, In the Beis HaMikdash nothing takes time; the dough is baked with no sh’hiyah between lishah and afiyah, because it is a makom kehunah. The metzius of kehunah is going from doing to accomplishing keheref ayin. And that’s why they’re kapdanim. Like Choni – demanding results immediately.

Leviyah is farkerteh. Leviyah is called avodas avoda — not merely that there’s a gap between the peiros and the avodah, but that their avodah is not even the avodah; it is the hineni muchan u’mezuman, the heichi timtza for someone else’s avodah. Korach was of the nosei bakatef — carrying the Mishkan from makom to makom, which is kulo preparation before you ever reach the avodah. So the Levi’im are the most removed of all from the peiros: their avodah enables another avodah which will give peiros.

By the cheit ha’egel, the Levi’im stood strong davka because Levi’im can wait — their whole avodah is to stand and wait, because the tachlis is the avodah itself. Chet ha’egel was the impatience to see the totza’ah immediately, jumping the gun on the machar; Aharon – the Kohen – tried to stave off everyone by reminding them חג לה’ מחר — there’s a tomorrow — but the impatience couldn’t be held. Only Shevet Levi held it.

And this was the aveirah of Korach. Not accepting avodas avodah. Not accepting that there’s a briyah where avodah is done, and you may not even see the peiros in your lifetime. Korach was a pikeiach; Chazal say he saw that his descendants would be Shmuel and the rest. He was a true ro’eh es hanolad. What he did not accept was that there is a gap between the hayom and the lemachar. His rationalization was gufeh the reflection of his chisaron.

Korach’s tainos were on this nekuda: The tallis kulo techeiles, the bayis malei seforim – those are the ideal tzura of l’asid lavo. The techeles alludes to a recognition of Shomayim. The sefarim teach about da’as Hashem. And in the futue ימלא הארץ דעה כמים לים מכסים. There will be that ideal in the future. But Korach was itching for that now — he wanted that lemachar to be here already.

HKBH showed him that there is a briyah where the sprouting comes quickly. That’s the shkedim. The shaked is the opposite of the charuv. It sprouts quickly, and it perfectly illustrates the idea of kahuna. Avoda with immediate peiros.

There’s a beautiful diyuk in this ma’aseh. After the nisayon, where מטה אהרן sprouted, it says ויקח איש מטהו — everyone took back his mateh. It’s modneh — why give them back? They weren’t klei kodesh; make a bonfire of them. The teretz is: their matos would sprout too. B’etzem, the avodah of this world is an avodah with a gap to the lemachar. You need one mateh to flower now — as a dugmah, so that you can say there is peiros there. Otherwise a person looks at dead wood and thinks nothing will come of it. But once מטה אהרן puts forth a tzitz and a shaked, every person can take back his own stick and know: there is zera in it, it will flower — for some it’s immediate, like Aharon, for some it takes seventy years. Avodas perech is to work without a tachlis; but the moment you see one stick in bloom, you know there are peiros coming, and you can stand and work b’leiv shaleim.

…

This is so much the challenge of avodah. A person who is matzliach straight off is excited and motivated. The real problem begins where you don’t see peiros: a person learns and learns, and this one is flowering and that one is flowering, and he is just plodding — barely treading water in his own perception. To be misyagea for nothing — that is a real hardship. That a person should work and work and nothing come of it – it eats away at the person. We are mispalel אל ניגע לריק ולא נלד לבהלה:

Of course, has to exert himself in the areas that are shayich to him. If he is barking up the wrong tree, if he is planting the wrong peiros in the wrong soil, then it’s understandable why there are no peiros. Avadah a person needs hadracha. But where a person is doing the avodah he should be doing and the peiros are simply delayed — that takes the taam out of avodah.

And for that, a person has to know: there is no such thing as avodah larik. If a person is doing the right thing be’emes u’belev shaleim, then he is doing avodas leviyah: his nisayon is to sink in koichos, and maybe two doros later there will be peiros. If a person is mazria zera ne’emanah, nothing goes levatalah; what kind of tree it is — shaked or charuv — you are not the baal habayis to decide. The biggest tzaddikim, Rashbi, Rebbi Chanina ben Dosa, live off charuvin; The Avodah of charuvin — to sit with the plow and plow and plow, knowing you will never see the peiros in your lifetime — that is shpitz avodah; that b’emes is the essence of avodah.

And there is one nechamah. It is only a one-sided perspective. In the great lemachar, when the peiros come, it will be lemafrea like a chalom. A person will look back and see: when I was toiling and exerting myself, I thought nothing was going in, nothing was connecting, I got nothing, — but then it started gelling. It took two years, or 20 years, but it sprouted. The brachah of היינו כחולמים is lemafrea — that the charuvin you planted, which from an early perspective showed no tzitz and no perach, did in fact grow, and now it’s paying dividends.

A person has to say Ani maamin be’emunah sheleimah that every avodah has a totza’ah; if you see it right away, that’s a brachah and a chizuk. But if you don’t see it right away, you must know that you are part of the shevet whose whole metzius is for the lemachar. When you understand that, you will relish all your years of avodas avodah.

Good Shabbos!