These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Series on the weekly portion: #1342 – The Case of The Man Who Now Deines That He’s a Kohain Good Shabbos!

Over the years, we have spoken about certain Gemaras very many times, always trying to find new insights. Ohn ben Peles of Shevet Reuven is initially enumerated as one of the main protagonists of the Korach rebellion. Later on, he is not mentioned. A famous Gemara (Sanhedrin 109b) says that his wife saved him.

How did she save him? She argued to him that it does not make any difference to him whether Moshe is the leader or Korach is the leader. Either way, he is just a follower, with no power of his own. “You have nothing to gain from this dispute. You will always remain just an Indian and not a Chief.” Ohn ben Peles conceded that his wife was right, but said that at that point he had no choice in the matter. He had already agreed to join the rebellion. Korach and his followers were on their way to pick him up to join the fight with Moshe.

The Gemara relates that Ohn’s wife came up with a great plan: She got her husband drunk. He was sleeping. She sat herself in the front of the tent, removed her hair covering, messed up her hair, and basically “scared away” the “very frum” rabble-rousers who came to pick up her husband. They did not want to look at a woman whose hair was uncovered! They just left the tent, and that is how Ohn ben Peles was saved. About this incident, the Gemara cites the pasuk, “The wisdom of women saved the house…” (Mishlei 14:1).

The ba’alei mussar ask the following question:

Korach had a whole litany of complaints against Moshe Rabbeinu: Moshe practices nepotism. He gave his close family members all the important jobs. Look at the embarrassment he causes to the Leviim – he shaved them, leaving them bald from head to toe. Then he picked them up and shook them like a lulav. Then, Korach related, there was this poor widow with two daughters. Moshe forced her to leave leket, shikcha, and peah (gifts to the poor) from her crops, reducing her harvest yield. Then he made her give terumos and ma’asros (additional gifts to the Kohanim and Leviim from the harvested crops). The Kohanim took her first born animals. Then they took the zeroa, lechayayim, and keivah (the parts of slaughtered animals that are given to the Kohanim). After leaving her penniless, she and her two daughters died in famine.

Ohn ben Peles must have bought into this litany of complaints. He was one of the chief antagonists. So, the ba’alei mussar ask, how was his wife able to convince him to abandon his rebellion? Granted, he would never become the leader of the people. But how does that answer all the complaints against Moshe Rabbeinu? How does that answer the fact that Moshe practiced nepotism? That he embarrassed the Leviim? That he caused the poor woman and her daughters to die?

The answer is that the list of ostensible complaints is never the real issue. When people get into a machlokes, it is not about the laundry list of “It’s not right! / It’s not fair!” issues that the antagonists come up with. People get into machlokes for one reason – because of personalities! They get into arguments because they want money or they want kavod (honor) or they want power. That is always the fuel that feeds machlokes.

When Ohn’s wife explained to him that he was not going to get any money or honor or power out of his participation in the Korach-Moshe contest, all the arguments and taynas against Moshe Rabbeinu became irrelevant. Who cares whether a garment that is entirely techeiles is obligated in tzitsis or whether a house filled with sefarim is obligated in mezuza or not? Those are academic discussions. What about the poor woman and her daughters? That story never happened. There was no planting in the midbar. There was no leket, shikcha, or peah. There was no zeroa, lechayayim, or keivah. It was all ‘fake news.’ Fake news did not start with Donald Trump. It went back to Korach. They made it up. There was no such thing. It all became irrelevant once Ohn ben Peles realized that there was nothing for him in joining the machlokes.

That is what the Gemara means when it cites the pasuk, “The wisdom of women saved the house.” The great wisdom of the wife of Ohn ben Peles was that she could tap into that crucial point of showing her husband that he had nothing to gain from joining the rebellion. She didn’t get into a polemic with him to convince him about a garment that was entirely techeiles. She said, “I know what this about – this is about kavod.” So she told her husband: Listen here, you will not get an iota more of kavod, whether Moshe is the leader or Korach is the leader. That was her chochma – to see the real reason behind the machlokes. That is the case with every machlokes, ninety percent or more of the time. No matter how it starts out (perhaps for the noblest of reasons), in the end, it devolves into an argument over kavod and power. One of the greatest forces in human nature is the urge to win.

Forget all the high-sounding arguments, “Kavod haTorah! Kavod Shem Shamayim!” In the end, the major motivation is “I need to win.” In the end, it is “all about me.” That was the wisdom of the wife of Ohn ben Peles.

The Real ‘Anav’ Is Not Haunted by ‘What People Are Going to Say’

The pasuk says that Korach and his followers gathered around Moshe and proclaimed: “It is too much for you! Because the entire assembly – all of them – are holy and Hashem is among them; why do you exalt yourselves over the congregation of Hashem?” (Bamidbar 16:3). The Rebbe Reb Simcha Bunim of Peshische asks a powerful question: If I were to say, “Albert Einstein was a smart fellow, but he knew nothing about physics,” that would be the stupidest thing that anyone could say. He was the greatest physicist of the twentieth century. He may not have known how to balance a checkbook but he sure knew physics. If I were to say “Warren Buffet is a bright guy, but he can’t pick a stock to save his life” that too would be idiotic. Warren Buffet is the best stock picker in the world. Don’t tell me he can’t pick a stock!

So, what are they complaining about Moshe Rabbeinu? “Moshe Rabbeinu is a ba’al gayvah (haughty person).” If you want to say things about Moshe Rabbeinu, fine. But don’t accuse him of haughtiness: “The man was very humble, more so than any person on the face of the earth.” (Bamidbar 12:3). It was his most outstanding character trait. So how can anyone claim that Moshe Rabbeinu was a ba’al gayvah? What is the meaning of this?

The Sefas Emes says something very interesting: There are two types of humble people. There is a fellow who is an anav, who knows he is highly talented. He knows he is smarter and more talented than most people. He knows who he is, except that he makes a conscious effort to act with humility because he knows that it is not good to be a ba’al gayvah. He works on himself so that he acts like an anav and never acts in a haughty fashion. This person is definitely an anav because even though he feels inside that he is better than other people, outwardly he behaves like an anav. He is very careful to never, in any way, shape, or form, act in a way that can be misinterpreted by people, causing them to think that he is a ba’al gayvah.

However, there is another type of anav – the type of anav that Moshe Rabbeinu was. Moshe Rabbeinu was the greatest anav on the face of the earth because he had the greatest relationship with the Ribono shel Olam. Any person who has that kind of relationship with the Ribono shel Olam truly feels that he is, in fact, nothing. It is not an act. That is, in essence, how he feels.

Such a person never needs to worry about “what are other people going to say.” That does not motivate him. I act the way I act because I really feel like this! Since Moshe was this type of “essential anav,” sometimes he did things that could be interpreted by people as being haughty. Moshe Rabbeinu had no problem talking with authority and absolute certainty because he was not worried that people would thereby view him as arrogant. When he had to assert himself, he asserted himself without worrying “what are people going to say?” If he had to give people mussar, he gave people mussar. He was genuine to the core.

That, says the Sefas Emes, is why people could say, “Moshe Rabbeinu is a ba’al gayvah.” Sometimes he would act in a fashion that typical talented people would not act – just because they don’t want to be considered a ba’al gayvah.

I would like to briefly share the following incident. It was apparently a cause célèbre that I did not know about. There was a fellow named Rav Moshe, son of Rav Pinchas m’Koretz. He had two sons who were in the printing business, in the city of Slavuta (Ukraine). They printed a Shas. Before printing the Shas, they wanted to make sure that their investment would be protected, so they went to all the Gedolim of Europe and got an agreement from them that for the next ten years, no one else would print a Shas. They figured that in ten years, they would be able to sell out their entire inventory of printed Shasim and could make a profit on their up-front expenses.

After five years, they sold out most of the Shasim. So, a fellow from Vilna – whose last name was Romm – said, “I want to print a Shas in Vilna”. This was the “Vilna Shas.” He went to the other printers and told them what he intended to do. They told him, “Wait a minute. We have an agreement from all the gedolim in Europe (including Rabbi Akiva Eiger) that no one is permitted to print a Shas for ten years, and it has only been five years.” Mr. Romm told the original printers that they had already sold most of their Shasim, and that he was willing to buy up every single remaining copy that had not yet been sold.

The case went to a Din Torah: Was Mr. Romm permitted to print the Vilna Shas after five years, with the condition that he would buy up all the remaining sefarim from the original printers? Rabbi Akiva Eiger paskened that he was permitted to print the new Shas. However, the original printers were not going to take this sitting down. They went to other Rabbonim, who sided with them and ruled that Mr. Romm could not print his Shas for another five years.

These original printers started the following rumor: People should not rely on the “heter” of Rabbi Akiva Eiger to print the Vilna Shas because he is already elderly, and everything he says is really based on the will of his son, Rav Shlomo Eiger. Rabbi Eiger senior doesn’t make his own decisions anymore. Therefore, you can discount what Rabbi Akiva Eiger says. He is not the same Rabbi Akiva Eiger as he was five years ago.

Without getting into the details, Rabbi Akiva Eiger was an extraordinarily humble person. The story is told that when he and Rav Yakov m’Leesa (the “Nesivos”) were going to a certain town, there was a large reception at the train station of people who gathered to greet the two gedolei hador. Rabbi Akiva Eiger was sure that everyone was coming for the Nesivos and the Nesivos was sure that everyone was coming for Rabbi Akiva Eiger. That is the type of anav he was.

Rabbi Akiva Eiger wrote on 4 Teves 5596 (December 25, 1835) “I am appalled by the chutzpah of these people and their words are blasphemous. Not only what they wrote about my son, the gaon Rav Shlomo Eiger, that he twists my heart, but also what they said about me, that I could be influenced to pasken against the din! All their correspondence to me (arguing on behalf of prohibiting the printing of the Vilna Shas) are devorim b’tailim (words that are null and void). I do not forgive them, for it is impossible to forgive shaming the Torah.”

So, we see this great anav, Rabbi Akiva Eiger, could write such a letter with such force and such self-righteous conviction! I am sure there were people reading this letter who said “Rabbi Akiva Eiger must be a ba’al gayvah!” The answer is that Rabbi Akiva Eiger was the same type of anav as Moshe Rabbeinu – a real genuine anav. He was an anav b’etzem (humble to his essence). That type of humble individual is not afraid to shout “Hey! This is a chutzpah! This is a bizayon haTorah!” Let people say that Rabbi Akiva Eiger is a ba’al gayvah, because he knows that he is not a ba’al gayvah.

That is how people could come to the erroneous conclusion that Moshe Rabbeinu – the humblest man who ever walked the earth – was “exalting himself” over the Khal Hashem. When you are a real anav, you act and you do what is right and you are not haunted by “What are people going to say?”

Transcribed by David Twersky; Jerusalem [email protected]

Edited by Dovid Hoffman; Baltimore, MD [email protected]

This week’s write-up is adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissochar Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Series on the weekly Torah portion. A listing of the halachic portions for Parshas Korach is provided below:

• 017 – Visiting the Sick
• 062 – May the State of Israel Extradite a Jewish Criminal?
• 106 – The Temple Mount Today-Obligations & Restrictions
• 151 – The Mitzvah of Pidyon Haben: Some Fascinating Facts
• 198 – The Ethiopian Jewry Question
• 244 – Tachanun
• 288 – “Masiach L’fi Tumoh”: The Coca Cola Question
• 334 – Leaving a Chasunah Before Benching
• 378 – Truth Telling to Patients
• 422 – Bais Din’s Power to Subpoena
• 466 – Tachanun: To Say Or Not To Say
• 510 – Pidyon Habein and Vending Machines
• 554 – The Kohain and the First Aliyah
• 598 – Siamese Twins
• 642 – Different Minhagim for Saying Kedusha
• 686 – Ma’alin B’Kodesh V’ain Moridin
• 730 – Divergent Minhagim in One Shul
• 774 – Tachanun: Most Fascinating Insights
• 818 – Bikur Cholim on Shabbos
• 862 – Preventative Medicine To Avoid Chilul Shabbos
• 906 – Tachanun Without a Sefer Torah?
• 950 – Pidyon Habein: Not Your Regular Cases
• 993 – Pidyon Habein Without A Bris Milah?
• 1037 – Should A Chosson Come To Shul During Sheva Brachos?
• 1081 – Ha’arama: Halachic Loopholes – Advisable or Not?
• 1124 – Segulos for Refuos
• 1166 – Do You Really Need Ten for a Minyan?
• 1209 – The Chasam Sofer’s Battle Against the Reform Movement
• 1254 – Why Shouldn’t You Park In a Handicap Space?
• 1298 – The Shul That Did Not Say Tachanun By Mistake; Now What? and Other Tachanun Issues
• 1342 – The Case of The Man Who Now Deines That He’s a Kohain
• 1386 – The Importance and Power of Saying Parshas Ketores
• 1430 – Should Chazanim be Paid?
• 1474 – Tachanun on Mondays and Thursdays
• #1519 – Should You Say Tachnun at Mincha?
• #1560 – We Want to Make Our Own Shul – Are They Allowed?
• #1602 – Some Interesting Tachnun Shailos

A complete catalogue can be ordered from the Yad Yechiel Institute, PO Box 511, Owings Mills MD 21117-0511. Call (410) 358-0416 or e-mail [email protected] or visit http://www.yadyechiel.org/ for further information.