Remember Who You Are: From the Tassels to Korach’s Rebellion

What the Portion Before Korach Has to Do With Korach

Most people read straight from the spies' report into the story of Korach's rebellion without noticing what the Holy Spirit placed between them. Numbers 15:37-41 contains a command about tassels — tzitzit — on the four corners of garments, with a blue thread in each tassel. The proximity is not accidental. The Holy Spirit is telling us: remember who you are. Remember what your job is in this world. And then — immediately after this reminder — we meet Korach. The first word in the English translation of Korach's chapter is "Now." The Holy Spirit gave us this instruction of the tassels precisely because what is about to happen with Korach and his band is what happens when people forget who they are.

Why blue thread? The color comes from a shellfish on the northern shores of Israel, mainly along the shores of Lebanon. When the shell is not boiled, the color it secretes is crimson. When it is boiled, it becomes blue. Why should Israelites wear these strange things? First, because the nobility in Egypt wore something similar. You can see it on the walls of the temples in Karnak, in Luxor, and in Kom Ombo, and in other temples along the Nile River. It was a sign of nobility. But the Torah gives reasons that go far deeper: this is for our need to remember the commandments of the Lord and not follow the harlotry of our hearts. Jeremiah the prophet, in chapter 17 verse 9, says there is nothing more corrupt or dirty than a man's heart. So we need something — a reminder. That's why we wear wedding rings: to remind us we are married, that we have a certain status, certain commands, certain demands as a result of that status.

Orthodox Jews today all wear the tassels. In the United States, because of persecution and antisemitism, they have them tucked in their pants. In Israel, they wear them out completely. I have one tallit that I inherited from my dad — brand new, handmade, never worn, never had tassels. After his death I inherited it and put tassels on it with the real blue thread made from the shellfish brought from Lebanon.

Why Every Bible Translation Gets It Wrong

In the book of Matthew, when the Syrophoenician woman came and grabbed "the hem of His garment" (Matthew 9:20) — that is a mistranslation. The translators of the King James Version and of Wycliffe's Bible before it didn't know about the tzitzit. They wrote "hem of His garment," but it is something else: the tassels. She grabbed the tassels of Yeshua's garment.

The second text, which is much clearer, comes from Matthew 23:5. Yeshua is talking about the Pharisees and says:

Again — the translators didn't know what "tzitzit" means, so they translated it as "the border of the garment." But it is talking about the tassels. And the interesting thing is this: Did Yeshua and His disciples wear phylacteries every morning? Did they have four-cornered garments with tassels? Yes, they did — because He continues to tell the disciples, "Don't show off like the Pharisees do," implying that the disciples also have these things. You cannot lengthen something you don't have. You cannot broaden something you don't have. From Matthew 9:20 and from Matthew 23:5, we understand clearly that Yeshua and His disciples wore both the phylacteries and the tzitzit.

From the Tassels to Korach

Now we come to Korach. He was the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi — from the same tribe as Moses and Aaron. In Hebrew we say "rich like Korach" — the equivalent of the English idiom "rich like Midas." He was not just anybody. He was from the elite. And the 250 men he gathered to stand with him were "leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown."

In the history of human rebellion, it is oftentimes the elite that lead. The opposition to the British in the American War of Revolution didn't come from sharecroppers in Georgia or Tennessee. It came from the leaders — the lawyers, the generals, the rich people. Those who signed the Constitution in Philadelphia were not the plain blue-collar workers of their day. And here too, Korach and his band — they are the elite, the well-known, the respected. And their claim sounds righteous:

They had already forgotten the tassels. They had forgotten that they were brought near to God — not to rule over men, but to serve Him and to serve the people. The word Moses uses is "karev/karov" — to bring near — the same root as "korban," which means sacrifice. God brought you near to Himself. And now you are seeking the priesthood as well? You forgot who you are. And that forgetting — which the tassels were designed to prevent — is how Korach's rebellion began.