02 Jul PARSHAS KORACH: THE MEASURE OF A PERSON

The Measure of A
Person Is How He
Acts When He Is
Right
When Moshe
Rabbeinu wanted to
demonstrate that he was
correct and that Korach was wrong, he made
the following challenge: “If these men die a
natural death, that means G-d did not send me.
But if G-d will make a new creation such that
the earth opens its mouth and swallows them
alive, then this will prove that G-d did send
me.” [Bamidbar 16:29]
Let us analyze Moshe’s statement. 250 people
challenged Moshe. They questioned his
leadership. Moshe maintained that he was the
G-d chosen leader and that these challengers
were phonies. Let us suppose that the next day,
all 250 challengers had not woken up from
their sleep. Wouldn’t such an occurrence, in
and of itself, be a strong proof as to who was
right and who was wrong? Would we not have
seen their death as Divine Retribution?
Moshe was not satisfied with that level of
proof. He explicitly said that if they die in their
sleep or of other natural causes, then that
indicates that “G-d did not send me.” Why did

Moshe specifically need the creation of a
miracle and an unnatural death to prove his
legitimacy?
The Belzer Rebbe, zt”l, explained: Had they
all died in their sleep or by some natural means
of death, it would still have been possible to
conjecture that Korach was right. Perhaps we
would have said that they did not receive the
punishment because they were wrong but
rather because they acted improperly in
shaming a Talmid Chachom. [One who shames
another publicly is compared to a murderer
(Talmud B.Metz. 58b); all the more so when
the victim is a Torah scholar.]
Conceivably, Korach and his followers could
have been 100 percent correct that Moshe was
a power hungry nepotist who was appointing
‘his people’ and taking everything for himself.
But even so, they would have been deserving
of death for the disrespectful way that they
presented their argument. They humiliated the
greatest man of the generation and the leader
of Israel.
A person can be 100 percent right and still be
deserving of death for other reasons, such as
shaming a scholar. Therefore, Moshe insisted
upon ironclad proof that he was right — a
miracle to cause their death. Natural deaths

would not have proven Moshe’s legitimacy
since they already deserved death — right or
wrong — because of the way they presented
their claim.
The mussar that we must learn from this
insight is that even if one is right, he must
know how to fight! A person must present
arguments with tact and sensitivity, regardless
of the cogency of those arguments.
A person can have a complaint about a friend,
a spouse, sometimes even a Rabbi, but that
does not give him the right to fight or argue or
act improperly.
Suppose a Rabbi made a mistake. Perhaps he
did not treat someone properly. Does that
permit a congregant to chastise his Rabbi in
the middle of shul? Heaven forbid! That would
be shaming a Torah scholar. The congregant’s
complaint may be 100 percent valid, but that
does not justify improper behavior on his part
against his Rabbi.
Sometimes a person may have an argument
with his wife. He might be 100 percent right.
But nevertheless, he must confront her in a
proper manner. If he does not, he can be right
on the merits, but all can be lost if his argument
is not presented in the proper manner.

Sometimes we may be right regarding an
issue with our children. But there is a way to
talk to a child and a way not to talk to a child.
Sometimes a child may owe his parent an
apology. But the parent’s reaction can be so
bad that it makes the parent’s sin worse than
the child’s sin.
The Belzer Rebbe says that the true measure
of a person is to see how he acts when he is
RIGHT — not when he is wrong. If when he
thinks he is right, he feels that he has license to
act like an animal — to yell what he wants and
to act however he wants to act — then he is in
fact quite wrong! Even if Korach had been
right in his original argument, he was already
a ‘dead man’ because of the way he acted
towards his teacher.