REVEALING THE HIDDEN WISDOM OF THE MYSTIC MASTERS
For all of us leader types and future leaders out there:
„זאת חקת התורה“ — דער עיקר לימוד התורה דארף זײַן לשמה, ניט כדי גערופענ צו בבערען „רבי“ אָדער „חכם.“ (ר’ משה’לע קאָזשעניצער)
“This is the statute” — The main thing in studying the Torah is that it must be lishmah (for its own sake), not inorder to be called “rabbi” or “sage.”
(R’ Mosheleh Kozhnitzer)
✓ COMMENTS
Although it is wonderful to examine and unpack these verses of Torah and to study the wisdom of our Masters’ commentaries, it is also important to look at their work (and ours) from a bit broader perspective. There is significance not only in their interpretations of verses, but also in what they chose to make comments about.
In looking through this treasury, it is surprising to note that the bulk of the commentary is devoted to the first two words of the parsha. As mentioned previously, there are 36 comments on “Korach took.” There are a few comments on the exchange between Korach and Moshe, a few about the events leading up to the gathering of the staffs, and surprisingly, only one commentary in 44 (in this particular book) that deals with the flowering of Aaron’s staff.
By my way of thinking, the flowering of the staff should be getting much more air time. Afterall, that was the miracle that the entire parsha is there to set up. Why isn’t it more significant in the minds of our Masters? Or perhaps it was merely the choice of R’ Kirshenbaum, who compiled this collection, to focus so strongly on “Korach took” and barely mention the flowering of the staff. And on top of that, the one commentary that does deal with the flowering staff is not terribly insightful as far as I can see. So what does this say about this whole story?
In any case, we do have one commentary on the staff flowering, and this is it:
Digital Maggid
