In this week’s parasha, we encounter more than a leadership challenge. Some mystical sources reveal Korach as the reincarnation of Cain, while Moses carries the spirit of Abel. That ancient sibling tale of envy, wounded entitlement, and primal rage reappears in the sands of the wilderness.
Cain’s jealousy began with offerings. His gift from the ground was rejected while Abel’s was accepted. That silent rejection twisted into violence. Korach, too, had status, wealth, and prestige. Yet he believed Moses had received too much. He framed his protest with holy language: “All Israel are holy,” he claimed. But like Cain, he disguised deep insecurity as moral principle.
Kabbalistic commentators emphasise a haunting symmetry. The earth that once covered Abel’s blood now opens to swallow Korach and his followers. This is not a dramatic coincidence. It is divine measure-for-measure justice. The earth remembers. It does not forget.
The same commentators also draw our attention to the names of Moses and Korach: Moses emerges from the water, flexible, patient, nurturing. Korach shares a root with “ice” (kerach), which is cold, rigid, and unyielding. In a personal context, this asks us: are we flowing and forgiving or hardening and withholding? Ice fractures. Water nourishes.
The reading of Parashat Korach calls for truthful courage and not for comfortable spiritual solutions. This is not a Shabbat moment to distract or defuse. Instead, it is an invitation to look into ancient patterns within ourselves and to name envy without shame, to notice where cold rigidity has replaced curiosity or compassion.
Korach refuses to release his bitterness. Moses, at great cost, does not. Which character will you echo?
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Adrian
