From an email...
Shaaalooooom sweeeetest friends!!!!!!
This dvar Torah is dedicated to the zchus my beloved father R' Yitzchak Yonah ben Chana, my hero, who should be blessed with countless more years of good health and happiness together with my mother and they should see and dance at the weddings of his grandchildren [and his children should have the means to pay for them...:-)].
A special mazel tov to my beloved friend Alex Finkelstein on his upcoming wedding, to the special kallah and families!! Limitless simcha to this holy kohen and his lucky-lucky and wonderful eishes kohen!
A special mazel to my beloved friends Mr. and Mrs. Max Stern upon their marriage. It was a simcha that NOBODY will forget. Some people are STILL SWEATING from the spirited dancing two weeks ago. Second to hearing myself sing - Shwekey is MY FAVORITE! He just added to the already amazing simcha. May the chosson, kallah and families see many more smachot in the future.
In this weeks parsha we learn about the horrible results of machlokes [strife]. It's an OOOOOOLLLLDDDDD STORY. 2 Jews on a deserted island and three shuls etc. The one I go to etc. and the one neither of us goes to...
In one shul they had a new Rov and a big fight broke out about whether to say אב הרחמים before mussaf one particular shabbos. The Rov asked the gabbai what the minhag and the gabbai pointed to the people fighting and said "THAT is the minhag..."
So much machlokes in Klal Yisroel.
Korach is the parsha where this issue is highlighted. Dosson and Aviram were two of the main rabble rousers who wanted nothing more than to pick fights as we see from their long history. The pasuk [16/27] says "Dosson and Aviram went out boldly to the entrance of their tents with their women and young children." Rashi adds that we see from here how terrible machlokes is, for even the women and children get punished.
Why does Rashi make this comment here when it belongs later when the punishment of the earth swallowing them up was carried out? In fact the medrash that Rashi quotes is written on the later pasuk on the punishment and not here.
Also - why do little children get swallowed up by machlokes? What did they do?
There is a very important lesson for life here. When a home is filled with strife it will always trickle down to the children. They learn from their parents how to be critical and argumentative and grow up to be contentious difficult people. The punishment of the earth swallowing them up was only an outcome. The REAL punishment was the very machlokes itself. A person who lives a life where he NEEDS someone to fight against has a miserable existence. He is always uptight, nervous and angry at someone or something. El Al, the electric company, his boss, his wife, the gabbai at shul etc. etc. He then passes that torturous existence on to his children. They too find fault with everybody and everything.
The possuk says that Dosson and Aviram were standing at the "entrance of their tents" - the entrance to their tents is the place where they view the world with an angry fragmentative critical eye. They were יצאו נצבים - they didn't just "come out and stand" but their very approach was נצבים - to stand up against anybody who didn't agree with them.
Rashi tells us even before the ground swallows them up that machlokes is horrible because the very stance of machlokes is a terrible self inflicted punishment. The childen are punished because they soaked up into their bones this destructive attitude that must be eradicated.
[Based on last night's shiur from the Tolna Rebbe Shlita. Here is another http://www.yutorah.org/
SWEETEST FRIENDS!!!!! IT'S EVERYWHERE! In yeshivos, shuls, schools, the workplace, homes with terrible strife and divorce, everywhere. It's like unhealthy food - everyone knows it's bad for you but still eats it. So let us uproot this cancer from our midst. If you are in a fight with someone - make peace. Hatred and anger eat away at a person. If you are in a shul and there are different factions - stay away. It will only bring you heartache. I have seen much machlokes in my like and I know בעלי מחלוקת and can tell you how miserable their lives are.
The best life is when one is at peace with all.
A sweet shabbos!
Bi-ahava rabba,
Me
