The parsha begins with Korach gathering a gang together to rebel against Moshe (Numbers 16:1). Within this group, there are a few people who initially take part in the rebellion but later change their minds and do teshuva, decide to make a different choice. I would like to look at these people as models for transformation and the possibility of following your heart amidst a crowd.
On Ben Pelet and the Sons of Korach
One such person is On ben Pelet who is initially part of the rebellion but who then strangely disappears from the story. The midrash fills in that his wife convinced him to reverse course (Talmud Sanhedrin 109b-110a). The other people who have a change of heart are bnei Korach, the children of Korach, who, we hear in a later parsha, did not die with their father Korach when he got swallowed up by the earth (Numbers 26:11). Again the midrash fills in a story about their process of teshuva and how they eventually became the singers that we hear of in the book of Psalms (Talmud Sanhedrin 109b-110a and Midrash Tehillim 45:3).
Why Change Is Difficult
So we have these models for the possibility of change. Before we move into that possibility, I want to spend some time exploring and acknowledging how difficult it is to do something different, something different from the crowd, from our families and from our own previous actions.
On a social level, there is a strong gravitational pull to be like those around us, to conform and fit in and not stand out. Surely there was tremendous pressure on On and on the children of Korach to participate in the rebellion that was all around them and was perceived to be just and righteous.
And even more so inside a family, as with the children of Korah, the children of the main rebel himself, the pressure to agree and continue the family way is intense. We all have these genetic and environmental pulls, conscious and unconscious, to perpetuate our family’s legacies and patterns, a mixture of love, respect, guilt and genes, and with all of that, a sense of inescapable destiny, making it difficult to break free from the orbit of our past and our family.
And not just the past of our ancestors, but also our own past actions. It is so difficult to make a different choice today from yesterday and the day before, as On and the children of Korah did. The neural pathways of all our previous choices are so well worn, our habits so well formed; it is often the path of least resistance to continue in our old ways, even if we know they cause us suffering. The natural tendency is to stasis, to remain stagnant and stuck, to keep repeating the same choices, like we are in a rut or a loop that we know goes nowhere, but we can’t escape.
But Change Is Possible!
But here is the beauty of the human being. God made us able to change and heal and make different choices from those around us, from our community, from our parents and from our own previous decisions. God made us with neuroplasticity. Yes, it is hard, but it is possible, always possible, to make a different choice, to break the chain, to do something different and new today, each day. History is not destiny.
A Wonder!
What a wonder that possibility is, the possibility of change, of teshuva! Indeed, the rabbis see in the name On this aspect of wonder. He is On ben Pelet, On the son of Pelet, and they say “Pelet” is like pele – a wonder, a miracle, the miracle of change despite the odds, despite the social and family pressures, despite the internal entrenchment, the miracle, the pele, of an individual’s capacity to change, to return to God and to their own truth.
Also Grief
Change is of course never easy. The rabbis read the name On as related to aninut, meaning grief. To change is to be “Grief the child of Wonder.” There is grief in any act of change and transformation, because change, even for the better, always involves some loss. To stay steadfast in our process of change, we need to allow the grief and the sadness of whatever loss is incurred by our transformation, and at the same time also hold onto and remember the pele, the wonder, of being able to start each day anew, to step forward into a new uncharted course. Maybe you can sense both of those in you, imagining yourself on a road, stepping over an invisible borderline into a new unfamiliar territory, sensing its sparkling appeal, the excitement of doing something new, the wonder of it, and at the same time, looking back and seeing what you are leaving behind with a heavy heart.
At First, Just An Inkling, A Heart Whisper
This stepping out into a new choice is also not always so clear to us. Often we are not entirely sure which way is right. We are like the sons of Korach, who looked first at their father and then at Moshe, feeling torn, not knowing which way to go. Finding this new choice, the one that aligns more fully with our divine destiny, that finding takes time, and it often begins as a tiny unconscious, nonverbal inkling. The midrash depicts the children of Korach as tongue-tied and insecure in their initial steps of teshuva. Rachash libi davar tov, “my heart whispers a good thing (Ps 45: 2),” are the words of one of the psalms attributed to these children of Korach, and the midrash understands these words as describing their own teshuva process. At first it is just rachash libi, my heart whispering in a barely audible voice, a yearning, a tiny spark of knowing – leave these people, go the other way. A heart whisper, perhaps not even expressed verbally but viscerally, an inexplicable pull in a new direction.
Rachash libi. My heart whispers. Davar tov. Something good. Maybe you can feel inside for your own heart whisper, listening, noticing, paying attention. Perhaps there are no words yet. That is the place it starts, the place of truth, the place of newness just beyond our current conscious cognition, a different kind of knowing that leads us to new things, to the next unseen horizon, beyond where we have ventured before. We are being called through these subtle heart whispers, called into our full divine potential, called to leave behind the constraints of social, familial and personal barriers, our former ways of being, called into davar tov, something good; we can feel that it is good even if we can’t yet fully see it.
The Outside Whisper: The Wife
The midrash says that for On, it was his wife speaking to him that helped him realize that he needed to make a new choice. Sometimes indeed there is someone outside us who is whispering to us as well, helping us see the new possibility, helping us see that where we are now, the choices we have been making, are not davar tov, not good for us, not aligned with our higher truth, that we have been programmed into making these choices and it might be time to try something new.
Our Inner Wife
So sometimes the help is from the outside, at least as a window opener, a direction pointer. But maybe the midrash is also referring to our inner wife. The wife, the feminine, the voice that previously was shut down and is less honored, the feminine voice of the neshamah, our soul, and the shechinah, the divine presence, these voices do speak in whispers and are not always attended to either in the world or inside ourselves. Sometimes it may be this less listened to intuitive voice inside us that holds the way. That voice in you that may have been previously discounted as irrational or nonconformist, or even as wild or crazy – maybe that was your wife, meaning your soul, your heart, whispering.
We Get Help
Sometimes just listening to this inkling is enough. The sons of Korach, the midrash says, they never even fully made the turn or said the words, but God heard their heart whisper and helped them, rescued them, like roses from among the thorns, the midrash says, God plucked them up. We get help. We just need to make those first efforts of inclining, of listening and yearning, and then doors begin to open for us, the path begins to emerge, God helps us, shows us the way. The sons of Korach were standing with fire all around them and a pit right beneath them. They inclined their hearts towards God, towards teshuva, towards their own truth, despite everything swirling around them, and out of that storm, there emerged a rock formation, says the midrash. A rock formed beneath them to hold them steady in the storm. All around people were falling and being swallowed up by the earth. But for them, somehow, through that heart’s turning, a rock was formed beneath them, a tiny piece of solid ground.
This Solid Ground of Ours
That’s what it feels like. There is turmoil and confusion all around us – go this way or that – and then we incline our ear towards our own heart’s whisper, the whisper of our soul, the whisper of the divine inside us, we break the chain of our habitual social. familial and personal patterns, and in this turning, we find our ground. We are no longer swallowed up by the earth and the storm around us because we have found our own personal truth. We stand by it and God strengthens us, forms a rock beneath our feet so that we no longer falter. We are steady in ourselves, come what may. Can you sense that ground for yourself right now, feeling how your heart whisper, when listened to, offers you ground, a ground more steady than any that could be offered by anyone or anything outside you?
Sitting on the Rock and Singing
We sit on this rock, this ground, and we sing, like bnei Korach, we sing. Before it was just a heart whisper, but now, we find our footing and we find our song, the divine song planted inside us from before time, and we sit on our rock, even amidst the swirling fire around us and the constant threat of pit beneath us – isn’t the world like that sometimes, full of despair and destruction– but we sit and sing our song, a divine song of love, shir yedidot (Ps 45:1), as the bnei Korach sang, we sing our song of love into the universe.
And when we sing in this way, we touch something eternal. Bnei Korach lo metu, the Torah says (Numbers 26:11). The sons of Korach did not die. Yes, they didn’t die like Korach, swallowed up by the earth, but maybe they also just didn’t die at all. The midrash imagines that they are still sitting on this jutting piece of rock and singing. And maybe we are, too, maybe when we find this ground, our own true ground, when we make a choice that is ours and is new, maybe we, too, touch something eternal, maybe we, too, become part of the neverending divine song of love.
Photo by Valentin Antonucci at Pexels
