Parshah Musings
Saved from the Brink

Three weeks ago a congregant approached me with a query. He'd been listening in the synagogue as we read the tale of Korach's rebellion and subsequent destruction. The verse had been quite clear: "The earth opened its mouth, swallowing them and their houses, all of Korach's people and their property. They descended alive into the grave."1 And yet the haftorah we read that week was about the prophet Samuel, a descendant of Korach. How, he wondered, does a man who dies together with all his family and friends end up with great-grandchildren?

How does a man who dies together with all his family end up with great-grandchildren?Great question. I was instantly transported back 25 years to my favorite children's book, Shpeter. I loved that book and reread it over and over till the covers fell apart and the pages became confetti-like in appearance. It was a novelized version of various Midrashic and Talmudic stories as told from the perspective of a young boy, Shpeter, who had the habit of unwittingly blundering into dramatic moments of Jewish history. He overslept the Exodus and was forced to cross the Red Sea on a raft, received the Torah on Sinai directly from Moses, accompanied the twelve spies on their journey through Canaan and approached too close to Korach's hole and fell halfway to purgatory.

Instead of falling down the bottomless pit he came to rest on a ledge and was saved. He had company on his climb back out of the hole; Korach's three sons were spared and accompanied our hero on his journey back from the center of the earth. As I remember it, the book describes their dramatic climb back to the surface and their subsequent efforts to clear their names.

Obviously the author took liberties with the details; the Shpeter character is imaginary, but the fact that Korach's sons were saved is indisputable. We read in this week's Torah reading: "And Korach's sons did not die."2 The Midrash fleshes out the details: The three of them had been equal members of their father's plot to agitate against the established order. They were jointly and severally responsible for the sin and richly deserved to share their co-conspirators' fate. Yet, at the very last moment, as the dramatic denouement drew to a close, they had a fleeting moment of remorse.

And that was enough. That miniscule moment of regret was enough to deliver them from their fate and allowed them to resume their rightful place with their co-religionist on their march to Israel. They married, brought up their children in faith and one of them became the ancestor of Samuel. Far from striving for inconspicuousness, they became known as men of piety, to the extent that the book of Psalms has a number of songs written by "The Sons of Korach."

That miniscule moment of regret was enough to deliver them from their fateWhat an amazing life lesson! They griped at length, recanted briefly; their sin was public, their regret but a fleeting thought at the very gates of Hell—and yet, when the scaffold dropped out from under them, G‑d had already forgiven them in full.

The natural state of a Jew is to be united with his G‑d. He is not a hard taskmaster, nor does He make overwhelming demands of His people. It takes no huge effort to live up to our responsibility and our Father in heaven is always waiting and willing us to return. Even when we go wrong; when the fiery pit of temptation yawns at our feet and there seems no way out but down, we can always come back home. It is our prerogative to change our mind and G‑d guarantees to take us back. Even way down in the depths, when freefalling into a bottomless chasm, G‑d has already prepared our landing ledge and is waiting for any sign that we're finally ready for Him to cushion our fall.