DON’T STOP SINGING!

Izzy is sitting in synagogue one Sabbath morning when he falls asleep and starts to snore. The synagogue caretaker quickly comes over to him, taps him softly on his shoulder and says, "Please stop your snoring, Izzy, you're disturbing the others in the shul."

"Now look here," says Izzy, "I always pay my membership in full, so I feel I have a right to do whatever I want."

"Yes, I agree," replies the caretaker, "but your snoring is keeping everybody else awake."

It is one of those strange Talmudic stories.

The weekly Torah portion of Korach tells of the mutiny staged by Korach and his many supporters against the leadership of Moses and Aaron. “The entire community is holy; why do you exalt yourself on the community of G-d?!” The story ends tragically: The earth opens up and swallows Korach, his family members (who all joined the revolt), Datan, Aviram, and their family members, alive.

Three portions later, in Pinchas, the Torah recalls the events in which Datan and Aviram and Korach were swallowed up by the earth. But then the Torah continues:

“And the children of Korach, Asir, Alkanah, and Aviasaf did not die.”

Yet, this is baffling. The Torah states clearly that Korach’s entire family was swallowed by the earth?

The Talmud, Midrash, and Rashi explains that Korach’s sons were the first to devise the revolt; yet during the fight, they contemplated doing teshuva in their hearts. Therefore, an elevated area was set aside for them in Geheinom (purgatory) and they dwelled there, singing the praises of G-d.

Indeed, the Talmud states, that the children of Korach were part of the team of poets who composed the book of Psalm. 

There are eleven poems in the Book of Psalms, beginning with chapter 42, attributed directly to the sons of Korach.

These poems are some of the most magnificent, inspiring, heartwarming and moving poems in all of Psalms. When you read them, you are overtaken by a profound sense of emotion and awe. One of them (chapter 48) we recite every Monday, in the “song of the day,” and one of them (chapter 47), we recite seven times before the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.

What is the meaning of this deeply curious story? Is this physical or symbolic? Is hell somewhere underground and G-d gave them some “box seats” there so they can compose poetry?

There is a profound message here.

What was Korach’s complaint? Why did he stage a revolt? How did he manage to garner such wide range support, including 250 spiritual leaders of the Jewish people?

Korach a confused vocation with status. He mistakenly believed that some Jews are fundamentally and essentially closer to G-d than others. The Jew who dwells in the Divine home, he is close to G-d. But the Jew who is out there in the boondocks, physically or conceptually, is lower in status. Korach and his supporters felt that Moses had “hijacked” G-d for himself and his family, so that only he and his brother could enjoy intimacy with G-d, to the exclusion of all others who were left outside “the inner circle.”

Korach thundered, this is not the vision of Judaism. “The entire community is holy and the Lord is among them.” We all belong in the Holy of Holies.

But Korach made a profound mistake—and it is a mistake we sometimes make to this very day. Just because your vocation is holy does not make you essentially holier or closer to G-d. “The entire earth is filled with His glory,” we say in the daily Kedusha, repeated three times during the morning service.

There are kohanim who G-d wants to serve in the Holy Temple; there are others He wants not to serve in the Temple. That does not mean you are any less holy or close to G-d. It means that your job is to find G-d where you are. The Jewish people are comprised of all different types, and each soul was endowed with its particular mission and destiny. I connect to G-d through my journey, and you find G-d in yours. Each soul is placed exactly where it needs to be in order to achieve what it needs to achieve; and in it is that space, geographically and spiritually, where it finds G-d.

We all make the Korach mistake when we think that we find G-d only in our “holy” moments. But when I feel like I am in the abyss, I am detached and alienated.

Now we can appreciate the extraordinary story of the sages about the children of Korach.

A space was designated for them in hell, where they sat and sang.

The children of Korach initiated the revolt, but then at some point, internally they defected from their father. They realized his fateful error. They discovered that even in hell you can sing! Wherever you are in the world, on top of a mountain, or in the depth of the abyss, G-d is available for you! You can sing G-d’s praises and connect to Him.

What does that connection look like? It has no specific “look.” That’s the point. A relationship with G-d never has a certain shape, or look, or style. It captures the truth of that moment and that experience. Indeed, this is best captured in the first Psalm of the sons of Korach composed in the depths of the hell, Psalms Chapter 42: For the conductor, a maskil of the sons of Korah.  As a hart cries longingly for rivulets of water, so does my soul cry longingly to You, O God.

Korach’s children teach us that no matter how far from holiness we find ourselves, we are not too far away to sing G-d’s praises, to carve out from our darkness itself a meaningful connection to the Almighty. We can still give G-d infinite pleasure and satisfaction from our efforts, wherever we are, and we can weave our very distance and void into a Divine tapestry.

In many ways, this theme represents one of the most central teachings of the Rebbe, whose 25th yartzeit is commemorated on the third of Tamuz this the year it is on this coming Shabbat Parshas Korach.

Let me share an anecdotal story.

Recently, the Tolner Rebbe living in Benei Berak, Rabbi Yitzchak Menachem Weinberg, spoke of the Rebbe. He asked what is the difference between Breslov and Chabad?

His answer was this: A Bresolver Chassid sometimes ends up in purgatory. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov once said that he wants all of his followers to have long “payot,” sidelocks so that one day he can come, hold on to them and pull them out of hell... As this Chassid starts feeling the heat of purgatpry, he starts screaming: Father! Rebbe! Help me & Sure enough, the holy Reb Nachman shows up. Grabs him by his side locks and shleps him out of hell.

Now a Chabad Chassid comes to heaven. “You learned Torah as a Jew should learn?” they ask him in heaven.  “Not enough.”

“Did you pray as a Chassid should pray?”  “Not really.”

“Did you at least dance as one ought to dance in life?” “No.”

“Were you connected to the Rebbe?”

“I tried to, but I can’t say I was really connected...”

“In that case, go to hell!”

So he listens and he goes there. But as he starts feeling the heat of the cosmic BBQ, he screams out: Rebbe! Rebbe! Help me.

And the Rebbe shows up. Looks at this Chassid in his eyes, takes out a dollar from his pocket gives it to him and says:

“Hatzlacha in your shlichut there”—success in your mission there!

There is a profound message here. Every single soul a Divine ambassador sent down to this world to bring light into a space of darkness, warmth into a place of coldness, and the locale of our “shlichut” is every single place we end up in. You might wake up one morning, and suddenly you are overtaken by all types of depressing thoughts. You feel like you are living in hell. Remember: You were sent! G-d has sent your soul into that space, knowing your power, evaluating your strength, appreciating your mission and prowess. He sent you as His agent, to bring light into the darkness. Even when a situation seems very difficult, we are never stuck. We are His ambassadors in every situation, at every moment, in every place.

You think you are in hell? Start singing and you will discover G-d wherever you are.

For the Rebbe, no person, no place, and no circumstances were too remote or forlorn to be rejected from the ultimate calling of holiness. His moto was the song of Korach’s sons: “As is Your name, O God, so is Your praise upon the ends of the earth…”

The Rebbe sent his shluchim to every corner of the earth, to the end of the earth. The Rebbe’s mission statement was to transform the entire landscape of earth into a Divine abode. No city, no community, no person, was too far.

It was at the weekly ceremony of distribution of dollars by the Rebbe. Thousands of people from all over the world, both Jews and Gentiles, flocked to the famous house in Brooklyn to receive a dollar and a blessing from the Rebbe.

On this occasion a man approached the Rebbe and said: "I'm a Christian. I'm from a Jewish family but I became a Christian at age 29. I'm a Catholic today and I write these books." He offered the Rebbe his Christians books and urged the Rebbe to embrace what he has embraced.

The Rebbe characteristically did not request to remove the apostate, but he responded: "If a person is born a Jew, he is a Jew for his entire life. He cannot change that. He can only make his life more complicated and more miserable."

The renegade Jew retorted to the Rebbe by saying: "My life is not miserable today. I am very content. I have discovered Yashke". The Rebbe, calmly on the outside answered: "If somebody is ill, but he thinks that he is healthy, that is the worst type of illness.”

The Rebbe explained to him, that for a Jew to convert to Christianity is a profound betrayal of his soul and of G-d. And if he did not realize the severity of this, it only means that he really needs help.

At this point, something strange happened. The missionary who came to “influence” the Rebbe, suddenly melted…

The apostate started to apologize for who has become: "My parents never took me to a synagogue, ever."

The Rebbe, his eyes now full of compassion, said to the man: "There's no reason for someone healthy to become sick just because his parents never gave him the medicine he needed.”

The apostate was left speechless. Literally, he became quiet. The Rebbe brought his soul back from the abyss.

The Rebbe blessed him: “You should merit to be a Jew in public and announce to all those around you that it was a big mistake (to convert) but Hashem has such mercy that he forgives even the biggest sins that people commit.”

After blessing him the Rebbe told him not to get involved in arguments with people about the religious issues, because he was born a Jew and would always be one. The Rebbe added that he should act like a Jew publicly and "all those around you, especially your family, you have the ability to bring them back to Jewish observance by declaring that even one who has sinned grievously has the power from Hashem to recover from his deep sickness."

The apostate asked the Rebbe if he could give him a copy of his book, and to his surprise the Rebbe agreed, explaining that in this way he would have one less book to give out, and in this way he might prevent another Jew from mistakenly accepting his ideas. Immediately afterward, the Rebbe threw the book to the side.

This the entire exchange is available to watch on video. It is incredible beyond words.

All this happened in 1991.

Now the amazing conclusion to this story came in 2015, 24 years later.

In a summer camp for Chabad Yeshiva students in Lugano, Switzerland, the boys found this same Jew, adorned in Talit and Tefillin, studying Torah in a shul!

The man has reclaimed his Judaism – and he was a Jew in public.

This is how the Rebbe explained why there is a mitzvah to remember Exodos twice, once during the day, and once during the night. Why need twice daily?

So the Rebbe explained:

When you are full of light, shining with the brightness of day, you may think, you need not be liberated. You are just fine. Comes the Torah and says, no! Truth is infinite. Do not get smug. Reach even higher. Do even more.

Conversely, when you are in darkness and think you can’t experience liberation, comes the Torah and says, no! Even in the thickness of darkness of night, you can touch the Divine and touch infinity. Even here and now, you can climb and connect to G-d. As is Your name, O God, so is Your praise upon the ends of the earth…

You think you are in hell? Don’t stop singing! And you will create the most powerful Divine melodies.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky