Korach – Torah with Joseph

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom, my name is Joseph Shulam, and in partnership with Brad TV, we are going through all the readings, the portions of the week, that are read in every synagogue around the world on the next Sabbath.

This week’s portion is called Korach. Korach is an infamous character in the Torah, in the Law of Moses, and even later on. In the New Testament, it is hinted of what he did, the rebellion that he did against Moses, and against Aaron, and of course, against God Himself.

So the reading starts from Numbers 16:1 to Numbers 18:32. From the prophets, we are reading 1 Samuel 11:14 to 12:22, and from the New Testament, we’re reading from 1 Timothy 2:14 to 3:9. But I’m going to concentrate on the Torah today, because this portion is less familiar for most Christians, but it’s a very important portion, like all of the words of God, from Genesis to Revelation; but this particular portion is very important for us today, for the church today, for the synagogue today, and has tremendous importance.

I’m going to start reading the last verses from the last portion. The last portion that we read was called Shelach Lecha, send the spies, talking about the 12 spies that Moses sent to spy out the land. But at the end of that portion, in Numbers 15:37, 38, and on to the end of the chapter, we read this:

Now, I believe that this is an introduction to what is about to happen with Korach and his band.

The Holy Spirit is telling Moses, and telling us, that we should be wearing these tassels. He’s not talking to the Gentiles, he’s talking to the Jews, And you’d say, what a strange custom to have a four-cornered garment, and in each corner, to have a tassel, and each tassel will have a blue thread. Very rare, hard to get, blue, in English, they call it purple, whatever they call it, blue thread that comes from a shell that is on the northern shores of Israel, and mainly on the shores of Lebanon, and that shell secretes that color when it is boiled. When it’s not boiled, the color can be crimson, and when it’s boiled, it becomes blue. And why should they wear these strange things?

First of all, the truth is that the nobility in Egypt wore something similar to it. You can see it in the walls of the temples in Karnak, in Luxor, and in Kom Ombo, and in other temples along the Nile River of the ancient Egyptians contemporary with the time of our forefathers in Egypt. So, it was a sign of nobility. But the Torah, the Law of Moses, gives us several reasons which are very important for us to understand. It says that this is for our need to remember the commandments of the Lord and not follow the prostitution, the harlotry of our own heart.

Now, Jeremiah the prophet, in Chapter 17 of Jeremiah, in verse 9, says there is nothing more corrupt, dirtier, than a man’s heart, human heart. Now, I heard in the news a week, two weeks ago, that in the United States, they’re attempting to transplant a human heart with a pig’s heart. I don’t know which one is more dirty or cleaner. But definitely, the Torah says, and Jeremiah the prophet, says that our hearts need circumcision. That circumcision of the heart appears twice in the Law of Moses, and appears in the New Testament, as well, and in the Book of Hebrews.

So, this tassel is for us to remember not to follow our hearts, the harlotry of our hearts, and not to be inclined to fall into the temptation of our eyes. We need something, a reminder. That’s why we wear wedding rings, to remind us we’re married. We have certain laws, certain structures that we are obligated to as a result of our status as married men, and the Israelites, and the Jews today, have certain status, certain commands, certain demands by God to remember who we are, and not to fall into the temptations of the world, and to the temptations that our eyes lead us to, and that is this tassel.

You look at Orthodox Jews; they’re all wearing the tassel. In the United States, because of the persecution and because of antisemitism, they have it tucked in their pants. In Israel, they’re wearing it out completely. And when we wear a four-cornered garment, like the tallit, like the prayer shawl, which is a square, four-cornered garment, on each corner, we have these tassels. I have one set that is a tallit that I inherited from my dad, that it didn’t have tassels at all. He never wore it. It was brand new, handmade. And after his death, I got it, inherited it, and I put tassels with the real blue thread made from the shellfish that was brought from Lebanon.

So, we remember the commands of God, and do them, and remember that God brought us out of the land of Egypt from slavery into freedom.

Now, the text in the New Testament is fascinating. We have a couple of texts in the New Testament that clarify this to us, and two of them in the Gospel of Matthew. One with the Syrophoenician woman that comes and begs Yeshua to heal her daughter, and she gets ahold of His tassels. It says here, in the English, “the hem of His garment”. The translators to the King James and to the English Bible Wycliffe, and then the King James translators, didn’t know about the tassel. They didn’t know the Jewish custom, so they wrote “at the hem of His garment;” but it’s something else.

The other text, which is much clearer, comes from Matthew 23:5, and that text is really amazing. Actually, it’s a very amazing text. Yeshua is talking about the Pharisees. He’s talking to His disciples and to a crowd about the Pharisees, and He says to them: “But their works they do in order to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad.” In other words, the leather straps that tie the phylacteries, the boxes in which have four texts from the Torah in them, and we put one on the head, and one on the hand, and on the arm, and the one on the arm and the one on the head is tied with leather straps, and they make their straps broad, according to Yeshua, so that they may be seen that they are doing something important. They value it.

And the second thing is they lengthen the borders of their garments. Again, the translators didn’t know what the word tzitzit means, the tassels, and so they translate the border of the garment in English. But it’s talking about this. But the interesting thing is, did Yeshua and His disciples wear the phylacteries every morning? Did they have four-cornered garments with these tassels? Yes, they did because He continues, in Matthew to tell the disciples, “Don’t do what the Pharisees do,” implying that you don’t lengthen your tassels, and you don’t broaden your tefillin, your phylacteries, the straps of your phylacteries. You can’t lengthen something you don’t have; you can’t broaden something you don’t have, and obviously, from Matthew 9:20, and from this text, we understand that Yeshua and His disciples wore these things.

Now we’re going to our portion of the week, which is Korach, starting in Chapter 16, verse 1, immediately after this. Why did I start with the end of Chapter 15? It’s because I believe that the Holy Spirit gave us this instruction so that we remember who we are, remember that we are holy unto the Lord, remember what our job and what our task is in this world. And here, we come to Korach. How do I know that it’s talking about this? Because the first word in the English translation in Korach, is Now.

That’s the introduction to Korach’s rebellion. The introduction tells us several things that we need to remember. First of all, they were leaders. Second of all, they had a pedigree. They weren’t just anybody. They were leaders of their tribes, of their families, and they were a part of the elite of the congregation of Israel that came out of Egypt. They weren’t just anybody. They were the elect.

And in the history of human rebellion, whether it’s the French Revolution and other revolutions, it’s oftentimes the elite that led the rebellion. The opposition to the British in the War of Revolution in the United States didn’t come from sharecroppers in Georgia, or in Tennessee, or in Kentucky, or North and South Carolina, from the 13 colonies. It came from the leaders, the lawyers, the generals, the rich people. That’s where it started. The ones who signed the Constitution in Philadelphia, they weren’t the plain blue-collar workers of their day.

And here, too, Korach and his band, they are the elite, they are the leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown. What does it mean, renowned? Well-known, respected. That’s what renowned means here in the text. They were well-known people, respected people, and they gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why, then, do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?

Ah, we’re democrats, we’re democrats, folks. We think that you should share your authority, your job, allocate, give privileges to the people of the camp of Israel. They’re all holy. We’re all holy, we’re all smart, we all know the Torah.” It’s one of the prayers in the prayer book. Democracy is a wonderful system, and I wouldn’t want to live under dictatorship or tyranny; but it has some weaknesses.

Democracy hasn’t existed, ever, in history much more than 250 years. United States is a little bit more, but my fear is that even in United States, democracy has some cracks in the system. So this idea we are equal, like the French revolution, liberte, egalite, fraternite, yeah, that’s what the crowd shouted when they burned people and put them in the guillotine, and we all live today under the shadow, or the benefit, any way you want to put it, of the French Revolution. Through that, was born the Industrial Revolution. Through that was born what we’re experiencing now, good things, and some not so good things.

But the Korachite rebellion has the excuse: “Moses and Aaron, who made you the top dogs in the camp of Israel? We are all holy, we’re a holy nation. God said so in the giving of the law in Mount Sinai, and therefore, you should share some of your authority and some of your tasks, with us.”

Verse 4 of Chapter 16:

Notice, they’re all from the same tribe of Moses and Aaron, Levites. Their job is to serve the tabernacle, their job is to serve the people with their religious and faith issues, and so Moses says, “Okay, okay, boys, dress up for high noon in the OK Corral. We’ll meet there for the showdown.” That’s essentially what Moses says in the context of the Wild West and Gary Cooper.

So:

Brought you near to Himself, it means He has literally brought you near to Himself, but also, He has offered you to Himself. The word karev, karov, is the same root as the word korban, which means sacrifice. He has brought you near to Himself, and you are seeking the priesthood. “No, you’re Levite, but you want to be kohanim, priests, also.”

Oh, wow, wow, wow!

I’m sure Moses felt bad at this accusation. It’s a false accusation, and not only is a false accusation, it demeans the promises of God. It cast a dark shadow on God’s promises, and His prophetic plan for the children of Israel to come to the land of Canaan. And the abomination that Dathan and Abiram did, it’s not the first time that they are mentioned, by the way, in the Bible. They’re all mentioned in bad context. They took what God said, He’s giving them in the land of Canaan, the land of milk and honey, and they apply it to what? To Egypt, where they were slaves, where they had nothing, where they had no freedoms. They take the holy things of God, the holy promises of God, and they transform them backwards, project them backwards, to Egypt, to the land of their slavery. This abomination is very powerful, very powerful.

And in addition to that, they remind Moses, “What, you are a prince over us? You’re the prince of Egypt, now you want to be a prince over us? Moreover, you have not brought us into the land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us inheritance of the fields and the vineyards. Will you put out eyes of these men? We will not come up.” They refuse to come up.

The accusations against Moses and Aaron are very serious. Essentially, they say, “You’ve lied to us. The God that you serve has lied to us. He said he’s going to bring us to the land of milk and honey, give us an inheritance of fields and vineyards, but we’ve got nothing. We’re in the wilderness still.”

They didn’t remember the previous portion of where the 12 tribes went and the bad report they brought, and therefore, they had to spend another 38 years in the wilderness. It’s because of them and the 12 tribes, not because of Moses and Aaron, and not because of God. God said, “You boys are not ready to inherit the land of Canaan, yet. You’re too green, you’re too rebellious, you are too ungrateful, and therefore you need to go to boot camp a little longer, 38 years in the wilderness until that generation dies.”

Verse 15 of Chapter 16:

In other words, “I have treated them fairly, I have blessed them. I have got no salary, no payment, even of one donkey from these guys. I did all my work for the sake of heaven and for their sake, but they’re not appreciative.”

And Moses said to Korach, verse 16 of Chapter 6,

Censer means like a shovel that you put coals in it, and then the herbs and the good-smelling stuff, and you bring that smell into the house of the Lord.

Verse 18:

That’s the argument that Abraham used with God at Chapter 18 of Genesis, about Sodom: “You can’t punish everybody because a few have sinned.”

So, they got away from around the tents of Korach, Dathan, and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram came out and stood in the door of their tents, with their wives, their sons, and their little children.

And Moses said:

Here is the principle: Rejecting the servants of the Lord is rejecting God Himself. This principle we see in the positive way and in a negative way in the New Testament. Yeshua was sent by God, and therefore, rejecting Yeshua is rejecting God Himself. And that principle is true in every court in every democratic country in the world. A messenger sent is equal to his sender. His authority is not his own personal authority, it is the authority of the one who sent him. That’s why the New Testament says about Jesus, all authority was given to Him in heaven and on earth. He’s equal to God in every respect, yes, as a messenger is equal to his sender.

They learned their lesson. We also need to learn our lesson. Playing with God’s holiness, playing with God’s sincere love for us, is always going to bring us a disaster. Our faithfulness will bring us tests, but it will bring us blessings. In Yeshua’s name, let’s learn from this portion. Amen.