When the Earth Swallows You Whole: Korach and Iran

It’s 1 am on Tuesday the 24th of June. You’re sleeping in your Tel Aviv apartment. Or failing to do so. A bad feeling shakes you awake. Images of you burning up as you toss and turn. Tripping as you run for a siren. Your apartment full of ash. You open up your Tehillem app. You say the שמע על המיטה. You look at the news, “Ceasefire is announced between Iran and Israel.” A few hours later, Iran launches three waves of missiles. You decide to read Tehillem from a Chayeinu booklet. You are still reciting it as the ceasefire goes into effect. The booklet your Chabad Rebbetzin gifted you in Tel Aviv. The same Rebbetzin whose apartment came under attack mere days before. Who also decided only the Torah stood strong as buildings collapsed.

The next day when an antisemitic pro-intifada mayor wins the Democratic primary in New York City. The Jewish community of New York witnesses the same chaos of establishment. Systems. Infrastructures. That all come tumbling down. You text your friend, “I think I’m entering my Chareidi era again.” As you travel to work you see a group of Chareidi girls helplessly looking at the map. “Need help?” You direct them. You make no quip about how you went to Bais Yaakov. How you know ידיעות כילוליות by heart. How you wear pants now. It suddenly feels immature. Childish. 

Before I had a TikTok or an Instagram I was infamous because of this blog. Because when I was 19, I walked into the YU Beit Midrash determined to watch it crumble. I wrote about tsnius and sexual assault. I was young and brazen and traumatized. I thought that ascribing blame to systems and rabbis and communities would heal some broken part of myself. That all that anger would do anything but destroy the thing I believed was most eternal.

Because when everything becomes chaotic. The most uncertain. Who do I turn to? My own thoughts? Beliefs? Experiences? Or do I recite the words written thousands of years ago? Do I suddenly feel the need to turn inward? To read Tehillem from a Chayeinu booklet as missiles rain above.

The body and shame is an interesting dance. When we feel shame toward our body we feel the need to reject the importance attributed to it. If I was touched in a nightgown as a child how can someone say that my elbow is sexual? However the danger in detaching from the significance of your body is dissociating from its value. Do I believe what I wear is permission for someone to touch me? Never. Do I think there are parts of me others don’t get to see? Yes. Do I think Rabbis should decide which parts of me I get to show? No. Do I know the answers yet? Absolutely not. Is that why we are still not living in Moshiach? Certainly. 

This Parsha is Parshat Korach. A famous quote in Pirkei Avot faults its antagonist with, “הקנאה והתאוה והכבוד מוציאין את האדם מן העולם.” “Jealousy, desire, and honor take a person out of this world.” My Rabbi in seminary used to say that applies to the three stages of our lives. In adolescence we grapple with jealousy. In adulthood we chase desire. In our later years we fight for honor. In my adolescence I was jealous. I was jealous of the girls that never grappled with tsnius. Never felt shame because of it. I wished I could be a shayne maidele. Quiet. Demure. That I never struggled the way I did. In my adulthood I chased desire. I wanted to feel sexy. Confident. To be wanted. If my body was abused when I was covered, why couldn’t I have it desired when it was not? If I could never be perfect and innocent and pure…why would I even try? As I grow older, I fail to see how the two aren’t the exact same. How jealousy and desire don’t take us out of this world? Because in the end- they are both self-serving. They place value on the opinions and perceptions of others. Thoughts and beings that are fleeting and finite. Like buildings they crumble. 

My Chayeinu booklet taught me something the other day. It was Monday’s section and it was about מחלוקת. The ones rooted in growing closer to Hashem. And the ones rooted in selfish desire and arrogance. The person who exemplified selflessness the most in the story of Korach was On’s wife. She uncovered her hair. She became not tsnius. To distract her husband. She saved his life. To her my favorite quote is attributed, “חכמות נשים בנתה ביתה.” “The intelligence of a woman builds a home.” 

There are times when being tsnius. When covering up. Is not expected of us. Maybe it’s too triggering. Maybe our bodies have been through too much. Maybe it ren-

ders it impossible to serve Hashem in any other way. Maybe it doesn’t save On’s life. But it saves our own. Our foundation. Our home. And that’s okay. But there are other times. When we look deeper. Inward. And we question. Is it our arrogance? Our trauma leading us? Or is it our heart? Our soul? What flames make us crumble and which cause our soul to blaze? 

Empires fall. Buildings crumble. Systems collapse. We take pants off and we put them back on. They are insignificant? But who are we at our core? Who are we when we fight for what is most eternal? What do we read when missiles rain above? Where do we turn when the earth threatens to swallow us whole? And are we willing to know when it builds our home or crumbles its foundation?