The story of Korach - 2021/22

It is simply amazing how Hashem works in the world. And we, people, we only have to open our eyes and see it. But - most of us are completely blind.

I think I’ve written here before that it seems to me that for some reason, not sure exactly why, Hashem favors Netanyahu as the leader of the Jewish people at this point in time. Even his name, Netanyahu, means “G-d given”. I don’t think he is perfect – in fact, he is far from that, and there are many things I do not like about his personality (at least the way it comes across through the leftist media), but it seems that Hashem has chosen him to be our leader at this point. He was in power for the longest time ever in the history of the State of Israel, and in his time as Prime Minister, Israel has advanced in many ways, the most recent of which was the unbelievable, absolutely unimaginable, Abrahamic Accords – the peace agreements with previously enemy Arab states. Who could have ever imagined something like this, and now of all times…?

And, just like King David had many enemies (sorry for the comparison, I know it is not a perfect one, but still…), so does Netanyahu have many enemies who have coveted the Prime Minister’s seat. Rivals from all parts of the political sphere have gathered together and done everything in their power to oust him from the prime minister’s position – and they managed to achieve their goal. But thankfully - only for a brief time. Eventually, they failed. Sadly, while they were in power, the Arab population in Israel has become more violent, claiming to be the lords of the land, murdering us on the streets, taking down our flags and putting theirs as a symbolic way of saying: “Hey, this is our land! Go away or we will kill you!”. We started to feel like this has become an unsafe place for us to live in, that we lose our sovereignty over the land. We prayed hard to G-d to fail that terrible government. But - we didn’t expect our prayers to be answered that soon! Thank G-d for that!

The new prime minister, Bennett, took power with only a small minority of votes (while Netanyahu had something like 5 times more votes than him), and betrayed his voters when he teamed up with left wing parties and Arab parties to form a government, while his voters were right-wing voters. He gave the Arabs huge budgets and answered all of their demands, because he needed their cooperation. He justified his taking power at that price with all kinds of excuses, claiming he was doing it for the benefit of all of us, including his voters, but everybody knew – he did this because he wanted to be the prime minister, and he took advantage of some “breach in the (democratic) fence” to grab the seat. The political system here, the way it is built, gave him the opportunity to do that. He betrayed his voters for “15 minutes of fame” and ruined himself politically, while ruining a lot for us as well. It will take a long time to undo the damages he caused us. We are thankful that he will no longer govern us. It was such a happy day when I heard this! I couldn’t do anything else, I was just thanking G-d and listening to happy songs that express gratefulness. Justice was done.

Now I’d like to take you through the symbolic dimension of this entire occurrence.

The news about Bennett forming a government with the left wing and Arab parties emerged last year, in the week in which we read in synagogues the Korach portion. As you remember, every week we read in synagogues a different part of the Torah, and in that week, a year ago, it was the story about Korach. In the portion, the Torah tells of Korach, who wanted to oust Moses from power and be the leader himself, even though he didn’t have a wide public support or G-d’s approval to be the leader. But he wanted. So he organized a group of rebels and they talked against Moses, demanding to be the leaders of the people. Moses told them that G-d is the one who chooses the leader and that G-d will show His will. And then – the land under the feet of Korach and his group opened, and swallowed them alive. In this way, G-d showed His will and Moses continued to be the leader. This is the Torah portion we were reading on the week in which Benett and his group decided to take power. 

As if to accentuate this symbolism, in that same week in which Bennett signed agreements that allowed him to take power, the land in front of the Sha’arei Tzedek hospital in Jerusalem opened and swallowed a few parking cars (if it is too hard to believe, you can see the news from that time here: https://m.ynet.co.il/articles/BJc11eto9u). Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the symbolism didn’t escape me: In the same week in which Bennett was trying to unethically and undemocratically take power, we were reading the Korach portion and the land opened and swallowed some people’s expensive possessions. This is not a normal occurrence and I don’t remember it ever happening before. Interestingly, the name of the place, Sha’arei Tzedek, means gates of righteousness, or more literally: “Gates of Justice”. It is taken from Psalm 118: "פתחו לי שערי צדק, אבוא בם אודה יה". I knew at that time, that justice will be done and that I will be thanking Hashem.

And indeed, justice was done. This week.

This week, only one year later, again on the same week in which we read the Korach portion in synagogues (!!!), Bennett stated that his government cannot function anymore and that he resigns from power. The gates indeed opened and justice was indeed done! Now we are thanking Hashem profusely for doing something so great for us and showing His will in such a dramatic way! 

G-d speaks to us through reality. We only have to open our eyes, ears and hearts – and listen.

Thank you for reading this and I’ll be thankful if you reread and ponder this. G-d speaks to us through reality!

This is going to be a very happy, relaxed, joyful shabbat!

Shabbat shalom!