Shavua Tov, Oy

The "Oy" is because I think I caught what was making my granddaughters sick last week. Shabbat's over, and I feel horrendous, though it was a lovely Shabbat.

There was a Bar Mitzvah in our shul and a nice kiddush on the family's new lawn. And then I went down to a great "Shiur Nashim" after lunch, which I will write about, and for Seudat Shlishit a neighbor invited friends for her mother's yartzeit.

This week, in Israel, was Parshat Korach. Korach incited rebellion against Moshe, and this is the parsha right after the "Sin of the Spies." When Korach and his followers approach Moshe and announced:

Verse 3: ..."You have [taken] too much for yourselves [and] since the entire
congregation are all holy and Ad-noy is in their midst, why do you raise
yourselves above the assembly of Ad-noy"?

And what did Moshe do in reaction? What sign of strength, leadership?

Verse 4: Moshe heard, and he fell upon his face.

Why? How weak and wimpy! That's how I always thought of it, until this afternoon. Tired from the heat, the summer flu filling my head, my eyes were closed, and periodically I dozed, but I heard those words in Hebrew, echoing:

וַיִּפֹּל עַל-פָּנָיו he fell upon his face.

and it sounded so familiar in my aching head, just like the Yom Kippur עלינו Aleinu prayer, during Musaf, that "the Priests and the People... the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, ...at the height/epitome of their purity and holiness... ונופלים על פניהם they fall on their faces." That was in prayer, on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, when we beseech G-d for forgiveness.

My friend researched the shiur to give her answers to: "what should we be doing?" She felt that Moshe's response to Korach's rebellion would be a good example, because in the end Moshe reasserted his leadership and the rebels were killed by G-d. We were all troubled by the picture of Moshe "folding" so quickly at Korach's accusations.

I guess Moshe didn't "collapse;" he prayed, like we pray on Yom Kippur. He prayed for the survival of his people. And I hope that even though we seem so "down," we're just praying to G-d and gathering strength to not just survive, to flourish as a free Jewish People in our own Independent Land.

Shavua Tov