קרח

And in the words of Chazal there is another claim that Korach asked: Does a house full of books require a mezuzah? And Moshe said: It requires [a mezuzah]. And they laughed at him in this manner: One passage exempts it; books without a house—what did they say? A house full of books, that the entire Torah is within it—should it not by law be exempt from mezuzah.

Behold, according to the plain sense of the matters, Korach hinted at a reality that there is a preference for one thing over the whole, just as there is importance to one thread of tekhelet more than a tallit that is entirely tekhelet, and just as there is value to the two passages of the mezuzah more than the entire Torah.

And consequently, his wrath rose over the fact that there is one person who stands on a superior level over all of Yisrael, as in his words, “for the entire congregation— all of them are holy, and HaKadosh Barukh Hu is among them; and why do you raise yourselves over the assembly of HaKadosh Barukh Hu?” (Numbers 16:3).

See, there was in this a special meaning according to the two examples, for it is clear that it was not for nothing that he took specifically these two examples. And you will see a hint: his question about a house full of books, and about the tallit that is entirely tekhelet, is connected to that which he was not allowed to look at the form of the vessels. In Korach’s claim we learn that he was claiming about the Ark of the Covenant; it is the Holy Ark, at which it is forbidden to look. We say that the Ark was covered with a covering of tachash-skin and with a covering of tekhelet above, as it says (Numbers 4:5–6): “And Aharon and his sons shall come when the camp journeys, and they shall take down the partitioning curtain and cover the Ark of the testimony with it. And they shall put upon it a covering of tachash-skin, and they shall spread a garment wholly of tekhelet above, and they shall put its poles.” If so, when the Ark was traveling in the wilderness, although it was within the camp, they did not see it, for it was covered above with a garment wholly of tekhelet, and the tablets of the testimony were within it.

And Korach hinted in this that they were still not able to see the Ark itself, even though the Torah was placed within it. And he answered by coming dressed in a tallit that is entirely tekhelet—which is like the garment wholly of tekhelet—and claimed that it does not need the matter of the threads of tzitzit; and thus he distinguished between the outer Ohr Makif that is entirely tekhelet and the inner Ohr Makif. For the one who sees the covering of the Ark can also see the Ark itself.

And he further claimed about a house full of books, that it exempts from mezuzah, for the inner [holiness] bursts forth and spreads, and one no longer needs a mezuzah; so too, the tablets of the Ark—the tablets of the covenant placed within it—spread outward in their holiness.

And he cries out and roars over the fact that one cannot nourish one’s eyes from the sight of the hidden holiness through the garment of tekhelet.

But still, the entire course of Korach’s claim needs clarification—what is all this claim of a tallit that is entirely tekhelet and a house full of books? It is as we explained, that he was jealous of it, that one cannot look upon the vessels of the Mikdash; and why specifically through these matters did his anger flare.