Machlokes Kills

In Parshat Korach we read about the terrible machlokes [strife] between Korach and his cronies against Moshe Rabbeinu. The sad result was that the ground opened up and swallowed Korach and his family and a fire came out and consumed his 250 followers. Here we find an anomaly. Normally we know that children are not susceptible to Divine punishment but in this instance the children were the subject of the Divine wrath and were swallowed up by the ground.

Rashi [16/27] is bothered by the fact that children were punished. He answers that the harm of machlokes is so great that even children suffer the consequences.

The question remains - Machlokes Shmachlokes, children are not liable to punishment?! Explains the Holy Maharal in the Gur Aryeh: It is true that children aren't liable to punishment but here wasn't a case of punishment. The REALITY of quarrels brings in its wake terrible consequences. When someone eats poison he is not PUNISHED when he dies. The reality of poison is that it kills. Kabbala teaches that machlokes was created on the second day of creation [when Hashem split between the upper and lower waters] together with gehenom. Machlokes IS gehenom. Since the children were present there was no alternative - they had to suffer. The fire of strife burns regardless of whether a person is old enough to be held accountable. I have seen numerous times in my lifetime the dangers of machlokes. Families, shuls, schools - wherever there are Jews there seems to be some machlokes somewhere and it destroys.

I take this a step further. If machlokes is gehenom then shalom and ahava - the opposite of machlokes - is gan eden. There is nothing better. When you meet another Jew there is no greater bracha you can bestow upon them than SHALOM. Shalom is wholeness, a sense of belonging, of being part of everything and everything being a part of you. It is feeling that you are part and parcel of all existence and are critical to its continued functioning. Shalom is the receptacle for all Divine blessings [end of Uktzin].