When Korach and his band came to Moshe with their demands, the response they received was silence.
"Moshe heard and fell on his face" (16: 4).
Rashi adds that this was the fourth time that the people had taken a stand against Moshe or his directives. However, it remains unclear why the fourth time should be different from the third or the second. Why is it that here Moshe seems to have given up and does not try somehow to set the people straight?
As matters develop, Moshe enters into discussion with the malcontents. It becomes clear that Korach and his band are going to pay a price for their rebellion. They will be punished and die a terrible death. Moshe says, "If these die in the manner or all men… then it is not Hashem that sent me" (16: 29).
It is Moshe who connects the punishment of Korach to question of faith and belief that Hashem has sent him. The objections and complaints of Korach did not seem to revolve around whether or not G-d had not sent Moshe.
In the famous midrashic account of the dispute, Korach's claim was rationally based: Moshe's authority was limited and did not automatically prevail in matters connected to halachic reasoning.
On this reading, Korach asks Moshe a serious of halachic questions: "Does a room filled with sifre Torah need a mezuza? Does a garment of all tchelet (the biblical blue thread) not require the extra string of tchelet in its tzizit? Moshe ruled that indeed these cases still required the standard halachot. Korach disagreed.
Nonetheless the argument does not seem to have revolved around authority. Korach had arguments base on a kind of reasoning, the kal v'chomer. Either Korach's reasoning was valid or not. If not, why not? That would seem the way to engage this kind of intellectual dispute.
On this point, Moshe maintained a surprising silence refusing to respond. Moshe knew that he could not justify his position logically: the Korach analysis was acceptable by the cannons of right reasoning; it was also surely wrong. Moshe needed a specific miracle to deny the logic presented by Korach and his party. This is the meaning of the previous verse (verse 25): "In this manner you shall know that G-d has sent me, to perform these acts, for it was not from my heart" (16: 25).
Rashi explains: "Hashem has sent me to do the things which he directed me to do. If I did everything on my own, Korach justly disputes me".
Rambam in his introduction to helek, section 4, uses this verse to prove that "all the Torah and its understandings come from Hashem and were taught to us by Moshe. The interpretations which were taught in the desert about the succa and the lulav and the etrog are exactly what was taught by Moshe and received by him with the Torah."
Korach new that Moshe received the Torah and that he taught what was received to the people. He had no quarrel with that basic position. However, it was not clear that all derivative information came to Moshe in the same way. Korach accepted that the Torah taught about a succa but not that we are obliged to accept the Moshe interpretation of succa.
Korach had a path of reasoning. Why should we give preference to Moshe in logical analysis? Korach's questions meant to demonstrate that his talent for logical analysis was not inferior to Moshe's own. It was as though Moshe has completed his work with the giving of the Torah, but in the analysis of the halacha all were equal and might venture their interpretation. This was not true. The teaching of Moshe always had the status of given Torah. A miracle came to Moshe's aid to reinforce this.
While the matter seemed in doubt, Moshe did not respond. When the miracle seemed to be imminent, Moshe made reply: the dispute between himself and Korach would be settled by God.
Gut shabbos, Chaim Brovender
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