~ Thoughts on The Parsha ~
Parshas Korach
Seeing is Believing, but Believing is Seeing
וַיֹּאמֶר משֶׁה בְּזֹאת תֵּדְעוּן כִּי ה' שְׁלָחַנִי לַעֲשׂוֹת אֵת כָּל הַמַּעֲשִׂים הָאֵלֶּה כִּי לֹא מִלִּבִּי: אִם כְּמוֹת כָּל הָאָדָם יְמֻתוּן אֵלֶּה וּפְקֻדַּת כָּל הָאָדָם יִפָּקֵד עֲלֵיהֶם לֹא ה' שְׁלָחָנִי: וְאִם בְּרִיאָה יִבְרָא ה' וּפָצְתָה הָאֲדָמָה אֶת פִּיהָ וּבָלְעָה אֹתָם וְאֶת כָּל אֲשֶׁר לָהֶם וְיָרְדוּ חַיִּים שְׁאֹלָה וִידַעְתֶּם כִּי נִאֲצוּ הָאֲנָשִׁים הָאֵלֶּה אֶת ה': וַיְהִי כְּכַלֹּתוֹ לְדַבֵּר אֵת כָּל הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה וַתִּבָּקַע הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר תַּחְתֵּיהֶם
“Moshe said, 'Through this shall you know that Hashem has sent me to perform all these acts, for it was not from my heart. If these die like the death of all men, and the destiny of all men is visited upon them, [then] it is not Hashem Who has sent me. But if Hashem will create a new creation and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them and all that is theirs, and they will descend alive to the pit, then you shall know that these men have provoked Hashem!' When he finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split open.”
-Korach 16:28-31
Continuing in the series of unfortunate events throughout the B'nei Yisroel's travels in the midbar (desert) is the story of Korah v'adaso (Korach and his assembly) who gathered together to challenge the authority of Moshe and Aharon. However, the truth is that Korach's arrogance was one which challenged the authority of Hashem. After all, everything Moshe did and said was a fulfillment of what Hashem commanded him. Indeed, Moshe's response to Korach and his assembly was that Korach's fight was with Hashem and therefore it will become clear from Hashem what happens to those who dare challenge His authority. Moshe declared that an unprecedented cause of death be what kills Korach and his wicked assembly. It was at that precise moment that the mouth of the earth opened and swallowed Korach and the men who were with him.
Now, although it is true that the Moshe davened that it be a new creation which devours Korach, we know from the gemara[1] which cites the passuk (verse) from Koheles[2] that there is nothing new under the sun. As a matter of fact, the mishna[3] itself states that there were ten things created on the eve of Shabbos at twilight – during the last moments of the six days of creation – and the first one mentioned on the list is “the mouth of the earth”. The commentaries[4] on the mishna all agree that this refers to the ground which was destined to swallow Korach and his assembly. So, the creation was not new in the sense that it was created at the time that Korach rebelled, but rather new in the sense that despite being conceptualized during sheishes y'mei Beraishis with everything else in the world, it was reserved to be used at this point in time. New, no; unprecedented, yes. Based on this mishna It would seem as if the hole that swallowed Korach was created with a built in timer-clock waiting precisely for the predetermined time moment for it to wipe out Korach v'adaso. If so, the classic question which could be asked here is that if the foundation and purpose of the creation of the world is all for man to have free choice and to choose correctly, how could Hashem know what Korach would do before he did it? If Hashem knew in advance the path that Korach was going to choose then to an extent, Korach's decision was predetermined. It would have been impossible for Korach to choose good, because Hashem already knew he would choose evil and already conceptualized the punishment. How does the concept of Hashem knowing all fit with the necessity of free choice in this world?[5]
We have all traveled through time before. In fact, contrary to popular belief, it is quite easy and we do so all the time. Let us begin by explaining this simply: If one merely travels west faster than the sun, one is sort of going back in time. Nowadays, with faster means of transportation such as trains and planes, it is quite often that one finds himself to have arrived at a destination before he even left. One could leave at 11am from an hour away and arrive just in time as you cross over a time zone. This is because the world is divided into 24 sections, each one by definition representing an hour of the day at every possible angle the sun could hit it from its stationary point. As the world revolves, time advances. However, truth be told, this is a fairly recent innovation established in the late 1800's and early 1900's in order to make a standardized time for everyone to use.[6] The reason this became necessary was because reality is that every single spot on earth has its own unique timezone. The sun does not simultaneously hit earth in 24 zones, but rather from every single slightly different angle possible. For example, despite being in the same timezone, there is about an eight minute difference between New York and Boston. The millions of different times, however, became impractical with the surge of travel when trains became a popular means of transportation. However, the reality of their being slight differences in time is something very relevant to us and is reflected of course in our zemanim (such as for determining sunrise, sunset, candle-lighting for Shabbos, etc.). We cannot depend on a universal time frame within a zone to set our times for davening and Shabbos, because that is not accurate. We must depend on real time based on the latitude and longitude lines of each individual city.
However, of course even as a person changes time zones, he is not really traveling through time, just as an astronaut in space cannot see past, present, and future simultaneously. Time is linear and continues forward, despite the fact that some parts in the world got a “head start” depending on where they were positioned when time was set in motion during sheishes y'mei bereishis. It is impossible for us to understand what it would mean to be external to time because we were programmed to be bound by space and time.
When it comes to science the general rule is seeing is believing. Hypotheses and theories remain as such until they are proven absolutely. Hashem created this world with teva (nature). The natural world is extremely complex and intricate and indeed allows Hashem to work the world in many ways and yet remain hidden. One could choose to see Hashem from teva or one could choose to attribute everything to teva and ignore Hashem completely.
A couple of years ago, a team at Ultra Tech International, inc. made UltraEverDry, a super-hydrophobic and uleophobic coating which repels almost all water-based and even oil-based liquids. The way that it works is that it changes the form of molecules at the nano-level. Nanotechnology refers to the manipulation of matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Just to get a visualization of how small we are dealing with: the way to measure nano-tech is in nanometers, which is one-billionth of a meter. The width of a human hair is about 50,000 nanometers; so one could imagine that when it comes to nano-technology, we are dealing with things which until recently have been invisible. If someone would have come to you twenty years ago claiming to have a magic solution which could make any surface unbelievably water repellent, you would have disregarded him completely. However now that science and technology has advanced, we are able to see more and therefore the impossible is suddenly possible, the unbelievable is suddenly believable.
The relatively recent change in human perception regarding how the teva of the world works is not something which just advanced our insight into the tiny physical world around us, but the truly invisible one as well. The fact that we live in a world now which revolves around invisible forces: phone service, Internet, WiFi, GPS tracking, bluetooth, and radiowaves is something so remarkable but yet something we have become so accustomed to. There is a constant invisible electric buzz in the air. For example, the other day at a concert, the lead singer brought his microphone too close to someone's iPad and suddenly there was a loud shrieking sound. Some sort of interference between the invisible forces at play caused a fight between the two electronic pieces. Yet, even this invisible world is one which we are able comprehend because as people we were programmed with software capable of comprehending the rules and applications of the teva of this world. When it comes to things outside of teva, there is no program we have to understand it other then from what the Torah offers or from what we could perhaps glean from mosholim (parables) that we could apply from the world we know.
We cannot understand what it would mean to be external to time and being able to be every place and every time simultaneously. However, perhaps the following moshol (parable) could help. Imagine you take a full length movie and you are able to spread it out on a table, beginning to end, one film segment after another. You, being in a different dimension from the characters in the movie could see the entire time-line of the movie simultaneously, while the characters have to live through it to get to the end point. The perspective changes as one enters a larger dimension and it is unfair to use the same terminology from the limited dimension. To say that you, who is watching the video, know the future, would be inaccurate. A later point in the film is something that is only a relevant term to those bound to the film. You who live outside it could access any point at any time. For you it is all the past.
So too perhaps we could understand Hashem's relationship with the world. Hashem is not bound by the confines of the world He created. Rather the world and everything contained is bound by the structure and rules Hashem set. Therefore, it is not accurate to say that Hashem knows the future, because that is a limiting term relevant only to a dimension bound by time. Hashem is timeless and therefore takes the position – so to speak – of the onlooker of film segments spread across the table.
Nowadays, with all the technology advancements, there are two approaches one could take. One person could choose to ignore Hashem and be brazen and arrogant to say that there is a scientific explanation behind everything. However, a different approach would be to learn from the access we now have to the invisible world of teva of nanotechnology and waves and think to ourselves that just as hidden intricacies exist in the science of the world, so too do hidden intricacies and complexities exist in the spiritual realm of the world. The fact that the way we speak has the ability to bring in positive or negative forces into this world should not faze us. The concepts of tahor and tumah and their effects on the foods, objects, and people should certainly be easier for us to visualize. However to use science as anything more than a moshol and instead use it as a standard of not believing until it is fully exposed, is incorrect; that would be a scientific approach to a spiritual idea.
The reality is that it is only us with our minute levels of bitachon (belief) that these questions even need to be asked and answered so delicately. The gemara[7] discusses a number of people such as the Romans who challenged the chochomim of the time with questions such as “How do you know t'chiyas ha'meisim (resurrection of the dead) is true? The answers that the chochomim responded with do not include long proofs, rather simple passukim alluding to a time when the deceased will join us again. This is because really, we have it all backwards. Our Torah contains all the secrets of the world, and everything in it is by definition the ultimate proof of something being real. Everything else is an allusion. Science is what needs to keep up with reality, the Torah is already there. Raindrops stick to windshields so a fact is stated regarding the effect of water on glass, until a new development is made or a stronger microscope is created and one sees that all it has to do with is how hydrophobic a surface is – which depends on its molecular structure. In a few more years, more developments will be made and the facts of today will be thrown out and new ones will take their place. One day certain foods are cancerous and others help lose weight, and the next day it turns out the exact opposites are found to be true. Science is always struggling to keep up with the times finding explanations, while the timeless Torah is already there. In the end of the day things exist and have the properties they do because Hashem willed them as such. Teva is all an allusion, and therefore the rules behind them can never be facts. They will have guidelines to human eyes, but those who cling to the Torah, will experience a world where believing is seeing instead of having to depend on the constant changing and inaccurate lifestyle of seeing is believing.
In the end of the day, questions such as this have little application to us because our job is not to fill the role of G-d and therefore it is irrelevant to us how to be able to explain wonders He is capable of doing such as being outside of time and space. In fact we are encouraged to not even think of such things because they have little to do with helping us perform mitzvos and accomplish what we are here to do. However, to those of us who have the questions we must be honest with ourselves why we have them.
Rabbi Shafier, in a shmuz, relates a story about Rav Chaim Volozhin who was once approached by a student who had left his Yeshiva during the time of the Enlightenment. This student said to Rav Chaim that he wanted to return to yeshiva but had many questions he needed answers to first. Rav Chaim asked him to clarify if these were questions he had before he even left yeshiva or ones he thought of after leaving. The student asked back that he does not understand what difference it would make – they were questions he had regardless. Rav Chaim explained, “If these questions bothered you before you left yeshiva, then they are questions and for questions there are answers. However, if these questions only began troubling you after you left yeshiva then they are not questions, they are answers. and answers do not have answers.
We must be honest with ourselves when asking these questions if we are doing so out of curiosity and a love for appreciating how Hashem interacts on such a personal level with this world, or if we are asking them as answers – excuses we make for ourselves to feel more comfortable with decisions we made or things we would like to do which go against the Torah.
The mishna[8] lists the 48 necessary middos to acquire Torah. Two of them are anavah and yirah. Living correctly in this world and being a proper recipient of Torah requires one to have an approach of humility and fear. Humility in recognizing Hashem's fantastic and intricate role in the world, as well as fear that even the things we cannot see or perhaps even understand are not only a reality, but the only reality. Seeing is a very basic and wavering form of believing; but believing fully in the Torah is the truest form of seeing.
[1] Nedarim 39b
[2] Koheles 1:9-10
[3] Avos 5:8
[4] For example, Rashi
[5] See Emes L'Yaakov on Pirkei Avos who brings from the Ralbag in Malachim 1 22:38 in toeles 24, that it is not so that the mouth of the earth had a preset timer from the time of Bereishis, rather the mouth of the world was created in general to be reserved for a time when it would be necessary. It did not have to be Korach to be swallowed by it, but because of Korach's personal decisions, he fit the bill and activated it.
[6] In America this was finalized on March 19, 1918 when US Congress adopted Standard Zone Time in the Standard Time Act.
[7] Sanhedrin 90a-90b
[8] Avos 6:5
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