Parshas Korach: The Sad Bald Egg

What drives a distinguished leader to rebel against divine authority? In Parshat Korach, we discover a fascinating psychological insight that resonates powerfully in modern life.

Korach wasn't merely challenging leadership—he was struggling with a profound identity crisis. After being ritually shaved "bald as an egg" and rendered temporarily unrecognizable, this esteemed Levi felt stripped of his significance. The Medrash reveals his lament to his wife: "No one recognizes me anymore." Rather than seeing his transformation as elevation into greater holiness, Korach interpreted it as diminishment, triggering a rebellion that would ultimately destroy him.

This narrative unveils a challenge many of us face today. Within our beautifully functioning religious systems—our yeshivas, seminaries, and standardized pathways of Jewish life—we risk becoming just another person in the crowd, "floating through" without feeling remarkable. The painful thought lurks: "If I weren't here, would anyone notice? Does my contribution even matter?"

The antidote lies in creating meaningful impact. Whether teaching someone weaker than yourself, showing up at simchas when it's difficult, or taking on community responsibilities, these actions combat the Korach syndrome. As one Rosh Yeshiva wisely advised: guaranteed but mundane work where you're easily replaceable will "quickly rot" your spirit, while work that challenges your unique abilities nourishes your sense of purpose.

Are you making yourself known to your community leaders? Are your children experiencing opportunities to give, not just receive? Does your Shabbos table function as a mini-Shabbaton where everyone feels valued? The popular slogan "Hashem needs every Yid" addresses precisely this human need for significance—while theologically Hashem needs nothing, your unique soul was created for a purpose only you can fulfill.

Join us in exploring how to avoid Korach's fatal mistake by embracing your irreplaceable role in the divine plan. When you feel most invisible is precisely when you must find ways to make your impact visible—not just for your sake, but for the world that needs your unique contribution.

Chapters

• 0:00 Korach's Mutiny Against Moshe
• 9:52 The Medrash: Shaved and Unrecognizable
• 15:24 Korach's Fatal Mistake
• 21:31 Feeling Unremarkable in the System
• 22:52 Creating Your Place and Impact
• 26:01 "Hashem Needs Every Yid" Examined

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

We have our work cut out for us Because from the very onset of the Parsha, it goes downhill with a took himself to the other side, set himself apart, strengthened a, launched a mutiny against Moshe Rabbeinu, against what he felt was a slight. It took personally that he wasn't selected for a new shteller. That became available and he was able to find cohorts, win them over to his cause Rabble rousers, gang members and they came forward. They said Moshe Rabbeinu, we're all holy members. And they came forward. They said Moshe Rabbeinu, we're all holy. Why do you lord yourself over the nation of Hashem? From start to finish, it's a shvera parasha and we have our work cut out for us because Korach now that we're not young school children, we know that Korach was a long, black, frock-wearing Jew, a white, long beard, big pace. He had already earned a shteler carrying articles of the Mishkan Korach. He was able to win people to his cause to actually start up with the man whose face shone, who was 10 amos tall, who was talking face to face to God. He took up a battle with Moshe Rabbeinu, a man whose very last name is our teacher, and he had raised his arms up multiple times, and every time that he raised his arms, did Moshe Rabbeinu either win a war for us or open up seas, ripping them open? And now somehow Korach is able, with his tact, his finesse, to win people to try to turn on Moshe. That tells us a great deal about who Korach was and how powerful, influential and maybe even holy he really was. Pirkei Yavuz tells us that there's a difference in the dispute between Moshe and Korach and Hillel and Shammai, and it is very slight. The only difference was one fought for the sake of heaven and one fought not for the sake of heaven. Was one fought for the sake of heaven and one fought not for the sake of heaven? But besides, for that little difference, it seems like Moshe's battle with Korach would be on the same exact level as a fight between Hillel and Shammai. It's just one had L'shma a super high level already attained and one didn't. Clearly, korach is a serious player, but all throughout the Parsha we see different choice decisions and where he goes wrong.

Speaker 1: 3:18

I want to advance an idea this week that is crucial for contemporary times the way the system works and what a person needs to do to feel happy, good, responsible, productive. And especially, I want to elaborate upon a controversial sentence that has been going around. That seems to be like it's become a battle cry of the Jewish people. But I want to discuss to see if it's something that we agree with and if we're ready to jump on that bandwagon To unpack Parshas Korach. We'll do it by way of Medrash Tanchuma, number three Medrash Tanchuma, koyrach Gimel.

Speaker 1: 4:08

What went on on that fateful and notorious day? It all started with Korach taking himself, says the Medrash. He took his talis and he went to go get advice from his wife. Okay, he's got his talus bag in hand. He's marching home, maybe from Shachres, going to ask his wife something.

Speaker 1: 4:50

At this point, moshe has been commanded to take the Levites, shave their hair and make them wholly consecrated, to become Levim, to step in for the Bechorim who had lost, squandered their role as carriers, as doers and protectors of the house M'yad asa. Moshe came to Korach. So, korach being a Levi, moshe Rabbeinu did what he had to do to purify Korach, which is shave the man. No payas anymore, no hair on the man. No payas anymore. No hair on the head, no eyebrows, nothing, totally bald. That's what the mitzvah is, or that's how it was to be. Everyone had to have this sort of reboot, restart. No, old hair, totally shaven, purified. And so it happened to Korach. He was kind of going through this car wash of becoming a Levi, becoming a holy Levi. So Moshe shaved his head, shaved Korach, said.

Speaker 1: 6:00

Korach began to walk around outside after his new haircut, buzz cut, aloha, yema kira, no. So Nobody chopped who Korach was anymore. He was unremarkable, unrecognizable, looked like an egg, totally shaved, without any hair on him. Nobody paid notice to him, nobody recognized him. They walked right to him. Nobody recognized him. They walked right past him, not even batting an eyelash, or maybe batting an eyelash, but just looking with a bit of curiosity about the totally shaven man, I think it's. She said to him.

Speaker 1: 6:44

Mrs Korach said to Mr Korach, who did this to you? Moshe did this to me. He shaved me bald everywhere and now no one recognizes me. But not only that. Rebbit said it gets worse. It was like a car wash nightmare. After they shaved me, they picked me up and waved me. Because this is the process that Moshe was told to do Shave the Levites and then wave them. The Aaron was to wave them, make them holy, consecrate them, wave him to and fro, bald as an egg Kind of sounds a little bit Dramatic Korach. No one recognizes him. He's been waved, he's bald. Now he's been declared Tahar. Behaviors are on Acha v'kishtak et kalavai shiva b'ol mayit. It gets worse, robinson. Mr Korach continues.

Speaker 1: 7:51

Moshe took his brother, adorned him like a bride, ate different articles of clothing and told him that he could hang out in the very tent of meeting. Told him that he could hang out in the very tent of meeting. Then became all the haters of Moshe. Everyone, that seems, got haters. Moshe always stood up for the will of the God and sometimes those that were not in favor of the word of God they took it Not too kindly, not too favorably. Again, moshe's haters stand forward. He's gone too far. He thinks he's a king and he just anoints his brother as the Kohen Gadol and he just anoints his nephews to become the second in command. They get all the truma, the ma'isarijon, the Kohen, the esen, the arba, matlos, lacohen, mi'yad V'Yikalu, al-moyshev, al-aaron, and then Korach launches his muted tini. Korach launches his frenzy.

Speaker 1: 8:55

Korach bowled as an egg through this traumatic experience. The Medrash shows us why did he do what he did? Where did he go wrong at his level? What lesson needs to be internalized? It all seems that it went wrong when he told his Rebbetzin Aloha yuma kira, no, so I'm done. No one recognizes me anymore, I'm gonna lose my shteller, I'm totally not going to be different or special anymore, I'm not going to be able to make any sort of impact and I'm just going to walk through the streets and become a total nobody and it's all Moshe's fault. He begins to think, oh, maybe Moshe did this to just make a fool out of me was what his wife suggested.

Speaker 1: 9:50

But it all started. I heard this idea from one time, mentioned by Rabbi Orlovsky, that every single person needs and wants to make an impact and wants to be able to give and wants to feel uniquely, contributing to society. And Korach had a tremendous shteler, a tremendous position where he was making an impact and making a difference, and he thought now that it all would be taken from him. He came home from work after being shaved and waved and said it's over and so, in a bit of craziness, his very name actually touches upon this, as it says in the Zohar Parshas Hazria 49a, that Korach is also Kerach, which means bald same letters, but unrecognizable gone.

Speaker 1: 10:54

It's interesting to note in this measure also just how Onben Peles' wife, who was the wife that dissuaded her husband from joining all of the rabble-rousers and cohorts of Korach. She got her husband drunk and then loosened her hair to keep anyone from going to get her husband into this machlokes. But that's what we see. How a wife should build her home with wisdom. We could really have a whole podcast as to.

Speaker 1: 11:26

Directly and diametrically opposed to this is Korach's wife, who only incited violence, incited his anger, ire even more Stoking the coals of his anger. But it all happened. Let us not lose what we're here to talk about, that nobody recognized him and he felt like he wouldn't be able to provide. He felt Moshe Rabbeinu was now stripping him of his role in society, his role in life. He felt there'd be no more position for him and an inability to give, because now look at me, no one even knows who I am.

Speaker 1: 12:02

But, as man has said, perhaps there's no greater struggle for an aspiring bent Torah, an aspiring God-fearing Jew, than to feel like you're just running through this system and just a number that no one knows who cares who. No one knows me or cares who I am. I've thought it at times when I'm just one of a number one of the people learning in BMG, one of the white shirts, just one of the people sitting on these benches and learning. You can feel, hey, if I'm not here, someone else would have my seat, is my tower even worth anything? Everyone else, they're also learning. There's thousands of them.

Speaker 1: 12:46

You feel unremarkable and it's only a problem, as Manazeh, because it used to be that when a person would decide to be a God-fearing Orthodox Jew in America, you decided to go down the right path, the far right path, the orthodox path. You were a hero, you were a superstar. You gave up on matters to be able to fight through and make ends meet, build a family of Torah and holiness. But now the system is fantastic and it has burgeoned into this big, large movement of Torah and mitzvos. But also with that, it's now part of regular life to be able to grow up and then learn in yeshiva. That's how the system dictates it. Girls go to seminary, everybody davens with a minion goes to the events, many people learning in the morning. The system is excellent. It's almost so good. It's churning out god fearing jews ready to take on life. But you can float through the system and somehow be successful without ever feeling remarkable, without ever feeling like you're doing something, impacting something, making a difference or the slightest bit special.

Speaker 1: 14:19

Didn't used to be that way, but a person can feel, like Korach, like he's just walking through the streets, shaved like an egg, doesn't really have a place, doesn't have a shul, doesn't have a rabbi, doesn't have a chavrusa, nothing really matters. Why does Hashem need my Torah? There are millions of Jews. That's how Korach thought. Korach made a mistake. Korach made a very grave mistake, not only because he was an incredible levy and his haircut shouldn't have bothered him and Moshe Rabbeinu was just following the rules and actually making him even more of a significant player in Klaal Yisrael, really getting him courtside seats up in on the action, making him super holy. He's involved with Moshe Rabbeinu. Aaron Cohen is waving him. He really is in with the cool kids.

Speaker 1: 15:28

We need to not make Korach's mistake and we need to understand how important our voda is Before we start to talk about this concept of how special we each are and that God needs every Jew. Maybe you've seen those bumper stickers around Before. That, the kumbha. I say the action to do is that one needs to make sure that he creates for himself a place that he does feel good, that he's giving and he's different Definitely needs to create that for his children.

Speaker 1: 16:07

A child who doesn't feel like he's giving anything, he's not making an impact. How quickly you can change that when you encourage him to. Hey, why don't you learn with a kid in the morning, someone a little bit weaker than you, where you can actually teach him and help him out? You will not believe how quickly that person who's teaching, how quickly your child feels like he's making an impact, how easy it is to create obligations, join causes, things that let you do and make a difference, that you're not just taking the whole day but instead giving. How quickly it gives you that hero feeling again. How important it is to unite and cause us, make meetings, do things that make change, so that you can feel like you're making change and you can feel not like you've been shaved bald like an egg and just unnoticed. You got to put your right foot forward and make a difference. This makes you feel successful. Growing up out of town, we didn't struggle with this as much Ten kids in a class. You get personal attention. It's important that you walk up to the rabbi of your community and let him know who you are, let him know what you're struggling with, let him know what you're succeeding in and make yourself known, make yourself have a place, make yourself have a makkam kavua that when you're not there, one day the oylam is wondering where are you?

Speaker 1: 17:43

They say about Rav Hutner once that at his shiurim he had many, many older fellows that would come to every single thing that he said, every talk 80, 90, 100-year-old men coming to listen. And one time one of them was asked at your age every shiur, you need to come. He said my friend, let me tell you what happened 50 years ago when I was davening in Chaim, berlin, with the holy Rav Huttner. I had a stomachache during Ne'ilah and it was very, very hard, but I had to leave Nihila and it was very, very hard, but I had to leave.

Speaker 1: 18:30

At the end, after Yom Kippur, when all of the Nihila was over, all the davening, everyone was finishing up with their Kiddush Levana Rav Hutner he came over to me and said where were you? I didn't see you in there with us davening Kol Nidre. I didn't see you in there inside davening Nihila with us. And he had said I saw Rav Hutner was davening with tremendous Kavana, but the fact that he still was able to pick up that I wasn't there made me feel like I belonged somewhere, made me feel like I was a part of something and made me feel like I was part of a group of people that is making a change and making an impact and doing something, a part of something, part of a brotherhood. I had a spot. I wasn't just floating along and that's why I come to Oliver of Huttner Sheurim, because he notices me, that I'm there. We can all notice people and go to their simchas to notice they're there. I can remember I got married during COVID and only had around 50 people at my wedding. I still remember the certain people that came out of their way to travel to Virginia with a mask on just to be able to come to my wedding. That forever. That makes me feel so happy inside and I have so much gratitude and it makes me feel like I'm not walking through the world bald as an egg.

Speaker 1: 19:47

I heard this piece of advice Once when my holy rabbitson was looking to take a job. There was one offer that was more risky but would require real skills and real working Putting her head to it and problem solving and the other was more basic Pencil pushing a hundred people in different cubicles clicking buttons. That's very mindless work. It was guaranteed salary, it was easy. I thought maybe don't take the risk, do something that's easy. I asked my Rosh Hashiva what job we should take. The Rosh Hashiva said that your wife, if she should take the job that's just pencil pushing. That's the more guaranteed salary. She's just going to sit there in a cubicle and she will feel absolutely miserable about herself. She won't feel like she's making a difference. There's a thousand people behind her that want the same job. She can be replaced in a second. Nobody ever will recognize her work. She won't feel like she's making an impact. She won't feel like she's making a difference, and that will quickly rot, quickly rot. That's stellar.

Speaker 1: 21:12

A person needs to feel like he matters. A person needs to feel like he has the ability to change people, change himself and change the world, and not to just be totally unmemorable. It has to feel like he can give something, and every single Jew can. There's an old, and by old I mean it's actually within the last couple months it's become rather popular to see these purple bumper stickers that say Hashem needs every yid. Have you seen them? Apparently, they're from Urah and Torah Mates. It's a big movement to try to show how important every single Jew is. So it would seem. On their website, torah Mates, it says that Hashem is perfect and lacks nothing, but he needs us to do our part in order for Him to fulfill His will to share His goodness with us.

Speaker 1: 22:05

Seems like they are taking this idea from Ramachal's Mesil as Yisharim. They made this into a song Hashem Needs Every Yid, featuring Shmuley, unger and Ura Original. And I ask you, does he Capital H? Does Hashem need every Yid? I have a Rambam that says he doesn't.

Speaker 1: 22:30

The Rambam Mishnah Torah. Foundations of the Torah, chapter 1. If one would imagine that none of the entities aside from him would exist, he alone would continue to exist, and the nullification of their existence would not nullify his existence. The laws of God, the entity HaKadosh Baruch Hu that runs the world, says the Rambam, everything that's created, everything that's found, it needs God. He doesn't need them, doesn't even need one of them. That seems like the Rambam's arguing on Urah, but the truth is that I'm just overstating this to create this bit of conflict of interest here, because what Urah means to say they don't mean to tell us that God needs something.

Speaker 1: 23:24

Of course, god is all-encompassing and isn't dependent upon anything, but what Ura means to do is to understand that what's going on in Bezman HaZeh is that people feel like they cannot and do not matter. They're trying to bring awareness to that. Every Jew is his own, unique Jew that can do only what he can do and he's a part of God's plan. And God oversees each individual Jew and cares for him and loves him and wants him and is rooting for you and wants you to bring about good into the world and wants you to enable that there should be more good in the world. But God doesn't, of course. God doesn't need anything. But what they mean to say I think what they mean to say is that Jews don't fall into the Korach mindset. You're the only you in the world and if you were born, that means that the world could no longer exist without you. Every single Jew is his own species. There's not one human. Everyone is different. There's 8 billion species of human in the world.

Speaker 1: 24:41

Parents are obligated to see to it that their children feel like they're making an impact. Parents, they need to know that they are the CEOs of a bunch of souls and every Shabbos should be like a project-inspired get-together, inspiring your family around the Shabbos table, just like going up during Parshas Nachamu to Stanford, connecticut, and to sing and dance with Yaakov Shweki, along with all of the Hasidim, singing to the Hinei Havdalah, with a special special guest soloist. All of the food incredible, but that's how it should be. Every Shabbos, a man should understand that he needs to be able to fill the void of who will run the Shabbos Suda in a way that people understand how important they are. A dad and a mom are CEOs of a Shabbaton.

Speaker 1: 25:39

Every Shabbos, parents matter. Going to your friend's Simchos, that matters. Letting people know that you see them matters. You matter to your family. You make a difference in your community. Take on more prominent of a role. Go out of your way to show and ensure that you don't go unnoticed and unrecognized. Take on more prominent of a role. Go out of your way to show and ensure that you don't go unnoticed and unrecognized.

Speaker 1: 26:13

Khorak felt just for a second that he no longer was going to be able to make a difference. Nobody else would care about him anymore. It was a grave error that sent him spiraling. And it was a grave error that sent him spiraling. And, friends, even if you are shaved bald and go through this traumatic experience of being waved, looking like an egg. You should still remember that there's only one of you and without you the world would not be able to endure. Without you stepping forward and doing the mitzvah with heart and with love, bad things could happen in the world. You're one of the soldiers in God's army. You're out there fighting with us side by side. You got to notice your fellow soldiers and ensure that your soldiers and your little baby soldiers and your spouse as a soldier, all feels like they're making a difference and they feel noticed, no matter how many children you have or how many people are in your community, that you're the rub of notice.

Speaker 1: 27:31

People make an impact. Don't fall into the trap that Korach fell into. It's one of the most powerful takeaways and important messages that a Jew needs to know and internalize, to feel that without us, the world just wouldn't be the same. You need to make a difference. You need to make an impact. You need to feel you're making an impact. You need to take on roles that allow you to be making more of an impact Teaching, studying, giving, focusing, encouraging and empowering. Perhaps we'll conclude just with this that, in kind of a weird way, even if you are shaved totally bald, waved in the air. Go through this traumatic experience, you still shouldn't feel down about yourself, because I guess Ura and Torah made said it best that Hashem, maybe in a weird way, does need every single yid.