In this week’s sidrah a group of people approach Moses and Aaron effectively requesting an entire national catch-up option since they were unable to offer the Pesach offering (they were ritually impure from carrying Joseph’s bones).
This would be the equivalent of accidentally oversleeping and missing the entirety of Yom Kippur then asking the rabbi if he can create a catch-up day. Moses refers the matter to God, who then creates an entire new mini-festival, Pesach Sheni.
Compare and contrast this to the events seven chapters later, as seen through the eyes of the Netziv (Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin). Korah desired power and leadership. But his 250 followers had purer motives — they felt the lack of being unable to serve in the Tabernacle (they were not priests) and campaigned for “equal rights” to serve.
Both groups (Pesach Sheni and Korah followers) were asking for the impossible.
Yet the former is rewarded and the latter punished. Why?
Rabbi Dessler (the 20th-century ethics master) touches on a poignant feature of human nature. Described by King Solomon as “stolen waters taste sweeter” (Proverbs 9:17), there is a certain mischievous pleasure in pushing limits too far. Drinking water can taste sweet, but stealing water can make it taste even sweeter.
Empirically, when the Netherlands decriminalised certain drugs, consumption fell for they were no longer illegal “stolen waters”. Deeper still, the human condition is such that sometimes we think the activity is producing the pleasure, but it is actually the illicit stolen waters quality that is fuelling the pleasure.
A person driving beyond the speed limit with the roof down and music blaring may feel it’s the ambience creating the thrill, but much of it is the independence feeling of “I know I should not be doing this but I don’t care, I’m doing it anyway”.
Life contains two kinds of ambitions. I can want something because I genuinely lack it and feel I can attain it. That is a noble aspiration. But there is also a “stolen waters” ambition whereby I want something only because deep down I know I can’t have it.
Perhaps this is the key difference. The Pesach Sheni group wanted something genuinely, and therefore they asked respectfully. The Korah followers wanted to be cohanim because they knew they could not and therefore ended up joining a fatal rebellion.
When we educate people to aspire, let’s make sure they are not driven by a shadow-chasing culture that screams “go for it even if you can’t have it” — that’s not a sensible way to dream.
Rabbi Daniel Fine
