Parashas Korach - Cover ground before the ground covers us!

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Parashas Shelach teaches the mitzvah to wear tzitzis (fringes). "Speak to Bnei Yisroel and tell them to make for themselves tzitzis on the corners of their garments... place with the tzitzis of each corner a blue/green thread (techeles)...You will look upon it and remember all of Hashem's mitzvos, and you will perform them..."

The mitzvah of tzitzis is to remind us of all 613 mitzvos commanded by Hashem; since the gematria (numerical value of the letters) of the word tzitzis is 600, then add the 5 knots and 8 strings, which equals 613. The Gemara in Menachos brings in Rabbi Meir who asks, "Why is blue different from all other colors?" The answer given: "Because blue resembles the sea, and the sea resembles sky, and the sky resembles Hashem's Throne of Glory."

I once heard a cute vort about tzitzis and what they represent:

Question: "Why do we have all these fringes? Why all the strings?" The answer lies within a parable: When a person goes to get a button sewed on, or gets pants/skirts altered, the tailer has a thread with a needle, and goes in and out of the material. Upon completion, the last thing the tailer does is grab the scissors and snip off the string. Perhaps we may say that tzitzis is there to remind us that we (Jews) are NEVER finished with our Avoda. Our job is never complete. Look at your fringes and realize you have a lot to do in life; learn Torah, fulfill mitzvos, do chesed, etc...

In Parashas Korach, we have the main character, Korach (hence, the title) who rebelled against Moshe and Aharon. He claimed, "You have taken too much for yourselves. All positions of service has been given to your closest family members. We are all holy; it's time for us to do the service as well!"

Korach conjured up 'logical' ideas against Moshe: "Let's say I have a garment completely made of techeles, do I now need fringes on the corners? How is it possible that a garment made of other material is absolved by a single thread of techeles, yet one made completely of techeles cannot absolve itself? If the techeles is to remind us of all the mitzvos, surely a garment completely of techeles fulfills that. How about a house filled with Sifrei Torah, do I still need to put mazuzos on the door posts?"

Korach recruited two hundred and fifty men to rebel against Moshe and Aharon. He thought he was smarter than them, trying to make them look like fools in front of Bnei Yisroel. Korach wasn't looking for ways to fulfill mitzvos and Torah, rather was just searching for honor. He couldn't understand why he wasn't elected to perform any important services, but Moshe's closer family members were.

Korach received a harsh punishment: Hashem opened up the ground and swallowed Korach, his family, followers, and possessions alive.

We see the importance of tzitzis and the constant reminder of fulfilling all the mitzvos (and of course learning Hashem's Torah.) You can't go wrong doing the will of Hashem.

A lesson I learned from this week's parasha: Let's not be a Korach who rebelled against Moshe and his Torah (Moshe emes v'Toraso emes,) and instead do the will of Hashem.

B'ezras Hashem, we should have the koach to learn and cover ground before the ground covers us -- unlike Korach.

Have a wonderful Shabbos,
Nisso