The Other Side of Light

Parashas Korach appears after the tragic story of the spies—men Moshe sent to the Holy Land by Divine command.

All but two spoke slanderously, praising the Land’s beauty and fertility but warning that its giant inhabitants were too powerful to defeat. As visual proof, they brought oversized fruit, implying that unnatural produce meant undefeatable foes.

The Torah portrays the spies as classic villains. They began as righteous men, but like Darth Vader, turned against their values.

Korach, too, began as a righteous Levite. According to Onkelos, “ויקח קרח” means he “set himself apart” to challenge Aaron’s priesthood. The Ramban cites a Midrash interpreting it differently: Korach’s heart “took him,” meaning jealousy overtook his faith. Ramban concludes that Korach and his followers were likely firstborns upset that, after the Golden Calf, priestly service passed to the Kohanim.

Many mefarshim emphasize that, like the spies, Korach and his followers used their intellect and prestige to rationally challenge Moshe’s authority.

According to Rashi, Korach argued that the Kohanim’s elevation was unjust, since all the people had heard the Divine Voice at Sinai and thus every firstborn should retain their sacred role.

In Bamidbar 16:13, Dathan and Aviram call Egypt a “land flowing with milk and honey,” contrasting it with the miracle-dependent desert.

They exploited two timeless ideas:

First, that the world is governed only by physical laws. While physics reveals truth, this view denies the possibility of realities beyond human understanding. When G-d suspends nature, it’s a “shinui ha-teva.” The Ben Yehoyada, commenting on Ta’anit, explains that from G-d’s “perspective,” the natural and supernatural are indistinguishable.

So Dathan and Aviram’s error wasn’t just in romanticizing Egypt—it was in dismissing the desert’s miracles as less real than Egypt’s natural sustenance.

Second, they relied on the “availability heuristic,” a psychological fallacy explained by Kahneman and Tversky. People tend to assess situations based on recent memories rather than imagining future outcomes.

For many Israelites, this yielded visions like Bamidbar 11:5:

“We remember the fish we ate in Egypt, free [of spiritual obligation], the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.”

Egypt worshipped physical objects and people. In contrast, the Torah demanded faith beyond objects, transmitted through oral tradition and stone tablets—not idols or kings.

Why, then, does Hashem grant great intellect to those who adopt such distorted views?

One answer is free will. Another, from Psalm 139, is: “Darkness and light are the same” to Hashem. Even Korach’s ideological darkness was part of Divine light. His children survived and later appear in Psalms.

As we end this month and enter Tamuz, may our learning bring Moshiach Tzidkenu and a world of peace.