The Mizbeach Made of Mistakes
Korach 5785
There are so many ways to practice Judaism. Chazal tell us that there are seventy faces to the Torah. Fascinatingly, we often feel that anyone who practices differently than we do must be getting it wrong. Anyone to our left is too lax, while anyone to our right is too extreme. We’re stubborn in our conviction that our way is the right way. Everyone else must be wasting energy.
Parashas Korach tells us that this is a mistaken and dangerous way to think.
Korach was a rebel, as he challenged the structure of leadership, the hierarchy that Moshe represented. In Korach’s eyes, all Jews were equally holy. The way I understand it is that he imagined a flat circle of holiness. Moshe, however, represented something else, a concentric circle with Hashem at the center and each person orbiting closer or further depending on their role, not their worth.
Korach asked a famous question: If a tallis is made entirely of techeiles, why does it need tzitzis? It's a clever question, yet it misses something crucial. Techeiles itself is a color of transcendence, meant to remind one of Shamayim and the Kisei HaKavod. Without tzitzis, even the most spiritually elevated garment lacks direction. The tzitzis provide contrast, tying lofty ideals to clear reminders. Holiness needs structure, just as purity needs humility. Everything in this world needs boundaries.
Korach was on to something. There will be a time in the future when we will all sit together in a circle, as equals, learning directly from Hashem. The problem is that this wasn’t that time.
So Korach gathered 250 respected men and staged a rebellion. They each felt that they could get the position of Kohen Gadol. Moshe proposes a test: each man will bring ketores in a firepan. Hashem will show whom He has chosen. All 250 agree, which means each of them believed he was the one.
Before judgment falls, Moshe and Aharon fall on their faces and cry out to Hashem. They plead not to destroy everyone due to the sin of one man. This is where Moshe invokes the unique name Elokei HaRuchos, asking Hashem to see into the heart of each individual and discern who is truly guilty and who is simply confused.
Then, Hashem's response is swift. The earth opens and swallows Korach, Dasan, and Aviram. A heavenly fire consumes the 250 who brought the ketores.
After that comes a striking moment I had never noticed before. Hashem tells Moshe that these pans, used in the rebellion, should become a permanent fixture, hammered into a covering for the mizbeach. The Torah says this is an os, a sign, for all generations. It is a visible, enduring reminder that even flawed, misguided spiritual striving can become part of the mizbeach itself.
A sign that Hashem sees the yearning behind the misstep, and doesn’t discard it.1
Why take the remnants of a chet and elevate them to something so full of Kedusha?
Rav Moshe Dovid Vali2 explains that the 250 men sinned with their nefesh (lower self), not their neshama. Their actions were flawed, but their deeper intent, to draw close to Hashem, was sincere. That sincerity, however misguided, was real enough to render their offering kadosh. Since their offering was directed toward Hashem, the firepans they used were considered Kadosh.
This also explains Moshe’s use of the name Elokei HaRuchos in his tefilla: Elokei HaRuchos means the God of all spirits. Moshe appeals to the Divine capacity to see beyond the surface and distinguish between those who are malicious and those who are merely confused.
The Chizkuni3 explains that Moshe was invoking Hashem’s knowledge of our innermost thoughts. Since only God can truly discern who is guilty and who is innocent, Moshe pleaded with Hashem not to judge the entire nation based on the sin of a few.
The Ramban4 similarly comments that the term Elokei haRuchos refers to Hashem’s capacity to distinguish between individuals in their thoughts and inner essence. Moshe invokes this title to argue that not all who followed Korach did so with malicious intent.
Rav Ruderman5 expands this further. He teaches that people are often unaware of their true motivations. Korach believed he was standing up for truth and equality. Deep down, he was driven by jealousy and a thirst for kavod. His negius, his personal bias, blinded him.
When someone is acting with spiritual intention, even if it stems from distorted self-awareness, their act retains some level of holiness. That’s why the firepans were sanctified. The men were punished for their arrogance, while their longing to serve was preserved. The fire was discarded, representing the overzealous, misguided heat, yet the pans remained. They were integrated into the mizbeach as a warning, and also as a quiet form of redemption.
The Shem MiShmuel explains that the pans were specifically made of copper, not gold or silver, like most other holy vessels. Copper represents strength of character, resolve, stubborn conviction. It’s the middah of Yaakov Avinu. In its healthy form, it enables you to stand strong against Lavan or Eisav. In its corrupted form, it becomes arrogance. Korach, a descendant of Levi and relative of Moshe, inherited that strength, but he misapplied it.
Even so, Hashem doesn’t discard the copper. He uses it.
Until this episode, korbanos were brought on bare earth inside the frame of the mizbeach. Afterwards, the copper from the firepans was melted and hammered into a new surface for the mizbeach. Korbanos were placed atop this layer of sanctified rebellion. The mizbeach becomes a symbol of transformation, of finding kedusha in the aftermath of failure.
All of this connects back to the opening point.
We’re so quick to judge others for practicing differently. We forget that sometimes, their intentions are real, their yearning sincere, even if their form looks foreign. We have all met people who daven differently, dress differently, define their Judaism in ways we never would. Often our gut reaction is sometimes to recoil and categorize. We must pause and remember that even the followers of Korach were privileged that their sincerity became part and parcel of the mizbeach.
Maybe the people that we dismiss are also bringing the ketores. Maybe they really want to serve and Hashem sees the neshama behind it.
The Zohar6 says Elokei HaRuchos is the name that reaches to the Olam HaNeshamos, the place where all Jewish souls are unified. Moshe was davening for the higher reality of Knesses Yisrael, the singular soul of the Jewish people in its ideal form.
The Maharal7 distinguishes between Eidah Yisrael, the physical collective, and Knesses Yisrael, the spiritual root. Moshe’s tefillah reaches that place of indivisible unity.
The Nefesh HaChaim8 elaborates that true tefillah is vertical at aligning with Ratzon Elyon, the higher Divine will, rather than the outcomes. Moshe, as the ultimate soul connector, appealed to the essence of Klal Yisrael, untainted by surface rebellion.
That’s why the tefillah worked.
Remarkably, this name, Elokei HaRuchos, appears again later in Sefer Bamidbar, in Parashas Pinchas, when Moshe asks Hashem to appoint a new leader before his death. There too, Moshe uses this title: "Yifkod Hashem Elokei haRuchos l'chol basar ish al ha'eidah", 'May Hashem, the God of all spirits of flesh, appoint a man over the congregation'9. Rashi explains that Moshe was asking for a leader who could understand and relate to each person according to their individual temperament. The same Divine attribute that Moshe called upon to spare the nation in Korach's rebellion becomes the measure by which true leadership is defined: seeing people for who they are inside.
Until then, our job is to be humble and pray vertically. We must recognize that what we see in someone’s guf may obscure the light of their neshama.
Perhaps that’s why we say on Simchas Torah: “Elokei HaRuchos, Hoshia Na”, God of all spirits, save us. Save us from our own blindness. Save us from judging harshly. Save us from negius. And save the sparks of holiness even in broken vessels. Watch us all dancing with the same Torah and see us for we really are.
Because maybe, just maybe, Hashem is still sanctifying copper firepans.
He still believes in people who seemingly don’t always get it right and we should too.
The world says the road to hell is paved with good intentions. However, the Torah might be saying something else entirely. Maybe good intentions, confused, messy, even misguided, can still be sanctified, melted down and hammered into the mizbeach.
It's possible to say that it is the road to redemption which is paved with our and their good intentions.
As Rav Frand notes, there’s a striking detail in who was given this task. One might expect Aharon, the one whose Kehunah was affirmed through this ordeal, to be the one to gather the firepans and fashion them into a covering for the mizbeach. Instead, Hashem commands Elazar, Aharon’s son, to do it. Why?
The Me’am Loez, quoting the Kesef Mezukak, explains that this was an act of Divine compassion. If Aharon had picked up the pans, he would have been painfully reminded of the death of his own sons, Nadav and Avihu, who had also brought unauthorized ketores and died in fire. He might have asked: why are the pans of Korach’s followers immortalized on the mizbeach, but not those of his own sons? The answer, says the Me’am Loez, is that Nadav and Avihu brought their ketores without being commanded, while the 250 were at least following Moshe’s directive as a Divine test. Their offering, misguided as it was, was still commanded. To spare Aharon the pain of confronting that contrast, Hashem assigned the task to Elazar. Such is the sensitivity of the Ribbono Shel Olam.
Bamidbar 17:3
Bamidbar 16:22
Bamidbar 16:22
Sichos Avodas Levi 60
Zohar Vol. 3, 176b
Netzach Yisrael, ch. 25
Shaar II, ch. 17, as explained by my father Rabbi Yaacov Haber -
Bamidbar 27:16
Really super way of looking at this parsha, thank you.