It is not enough just to learn the meaning of this verse (pasuq). I would recommend that you memorize it. Or print it out and keep it in your desk, purse, or wallet. It is a very short pasuq, which belongs to the Parasha that we will read in a few weeks (Pinehas), but it refers to what happened in our week’s Parasha KORACH. The pasuq consists of only 4 simple words. “UBNE QORAH LO METU”. Which literally means “And the sons of Korach did not die.” i.e., they survived.
What does this short text refer to?
CHILDREN vs FATHER
Carried away by his ambition, envy and bad advice, Korach decided to rebel against Moshe and Aharon and removed them from their leadership. Korach was not alone . More than 250 people accompanied him on his rebellious adventure. The end of Korach was horrifying: he died swallowed by the earth. And the people who were with Korach suffered the same fate. However, as this pasuq mentions, the children of Korach were the exception: they survived! Why? The sons of Korach, who were already adults, joined the movement led by their father and participated in the protests and demonstrations against Moshe. However, “at the last minute,” when the time came for the final showdown against Moshe, they woke up. Realizing that what they were about to do was an act of insanity and that if they didn’t back down “right now”, the damage was going to be irreparable! Korach’s children survived because they repented just in time, in the final minute.
And I think about the moral challenges that all of us experience daily.
ANGER MANAGEMENT
Sometimes we get carried away by anger and we may be about to raise our hands and physically harm someone or seriously offend or insult someone with damaging words. Sometimes these impulsive acts of physical or extreme verbal violence can have irreversible consequences no just for the victim but also for the offender. In one impulsive act that lasts less than a minute one can condemn himself or herself to suffer the consequences of what he did for the rest of his life.
LETHAL ATTRACTION
Other times we let ourselves be carried away by our passions and low instincts. We get emotionally close to someone we should not … our common sense is clouded and so, in a brief moment, we might let ourselves be dragged into an instinctive act and we can ruin our name and that of our children, and destroy our family.
THINK BEFORE YOU TWEET
Sometimes we are about to send a text that we write while angry, where we express or unwind from our own frustration. We do it more to vent out than to convey a message to others. And perhaps we do not measure or calculate the consequences of what we sent. There are famous cases of political personalities or celebrities who lost their jobs due to an impulsive Twitter that, once sent and seen by one single follower, they were never able to make disappear. You can ruin your life (and or someone else’s life) via WhatsApp, Twitter or Instagram, just by sending an inappropriate picture.
Sometimes, we might not realize the seriousness and irreparability of sending a wrong “text” or a “picture” because unconsciously we assume that acts that carry far-reaching negative consequences are very difficult to execute…. and clicking “send”, seems so easy!
THE LAST RESOURCE
The odd thing is that in many, if not most, famous cases of people who sent an inappropriate Twit for example, the sender realizes his or her mistake a few seconds AFTER sending the message!
We must remember that our names and reputation can be saved by remembering the lesson of this pasuq “AND THE CHILDREN OF KORACH SURVIVED”, that’s is, they saved their lives because they realize the potential consequences of their actions a brief moment BEFORE the facts. They backed off and were saved.
I recommend memorizing these four little words and if ח”ו you are about to fall into the destructive trap of your own impulses, say this Pasuq to yourself and remember “the last minute wisdom” that saved the lives of the children of Korach and that can save yours.
וּבְנֵי־קֹרַח לֹא־מֵתוּ
UBNE QORAH LO METU
But the children of Korach, survived!
