Korach: Are Egypt and Israel equal?

Parshat Korach

In 16:13-14, Dasan and Aviram are giving their response to Moshe who had called upon them to come talk with him. He was trying to sway them to drop out of the fight. They respond by saying (passuk 13) that he took them out of a land flowing with milk and honey... and (passuk 14) he did not even bring them into the promised land flowing with milk and honey.

Chazal broke up the aliya right in between those two psukkim. That is very unusual - to break an aliya in the middle of a sentence. Really it should even have waited, possibly, to break it up after Moshe's response, but at least wait until Dasn and Aviram finish saying what they were saying?

I would suggest that the reason Chazal put the break there is to cause us to think about what they were saying. Dasan and Aviram used the same exact words to describe Eretz Yisrael and Egypt. They described both as being the land flowing with milk and honey. They were equating the two lands - you took us from one, bring us to the other.

Chazal are making us think about that and saying stop. Dasan and AViram want to equate Eretz Yisrael and Egypt, but you cannot. they are not equal. We will make a division between them to show that.

Korach: they keep complaining

Parshat Korach

After the fight with Korach has been concluded, then a plague ran through the camp killing people, and Hashem stopped the plague, in 17:6 the passuk tells us how the people complained that Moshe Aand Aharon were killing off Gods nation, which leads to Hashem offering to Moshe that if he has had enough of them yet, He (God) would be willing to kill them all. He (God) is just waiting for the word from Moshe.

It is amazing how the people just keep on complaining. A group of people just complained a short while ago. They forced a confrontation, and even after Moshe warned them off they kept going, they all got killed with unusual deaths.

The past few Torah portions have given us other examples of the people's complaints and how Hashem dealt with them, often resulting in the deaths of the complainers.

The people complain and get killed. So how do they have the gall to complain yet again, especially after they just witnessed the horrific deaths of Korach and his group of supporters?

People like to complain. A leader has to know that before he takes the position as leader - he has to know that no matter what he does, no matter how much integrity he has, no matter how honest he is, the people he is leading will complain and kvetch.