Parashat Korah: The Same Boss

In this week's parasha , Korach staged a rebellion against Moshe and Aharon, telling them that they took all the good positions in Klal Yisrael for themselves. Chazal tell us, Korach's actions were motivated by jealousy. He saw others around him being promoted to different positions and he didn't get any of them for himself. He convinced himself, and others, that his motives were purely l'shem Shamayim , but deep down it was all about his own honor. Sometimes, people feel bad about their positions in life. They look around at others and see that this person is the president of a shul and that person is the president of a school, this one runs his own business, that one heads his own chesed organization, and the list goes on. A person may feel, what am I worth? I don't do anything big. Nobody knows about me, I'm just an average, regular guy . If that person would instead think, it's okay, I don't need honor or recognition. I don't need to be famous. Then, his job would become very valuable – working on his middot and becoming humble is an extremely precious avodah . But, if his position leads him to feel worthless and all he does is crave honor and is jealous of everyone around him, then his misery will know no end and he will be seriously lacking in his avodat Hashem. What is the attitude he should have? The Dubno Maggid explained with a mashal . There was once a king who gave his slaves different fields of his to work on. To one of his slaves, he gave many fields to plow and to seed, etc. The other slave only got one field to work on. That slave went to the king to complain. He said, "Why do I only get one field while the other slave got so many?" The king replied, "What difference does it make to you how many fields you work on? Are they your fields? Less fields means less work. You both belong to me. You're complaining that you don't have to work as hard as your friend? Must be you're planning on taking things from the fields for yourself so you want more so you could steal more." This, says the Dubno Maggid, is what Moshe told Korach: If your motive in getting positions is to serve Hashem then it wouldn't bother you what you got. What difference would it make to you if that's what Hashem wants from you? Must be you want the position for yourself so you could take honor. This is what we have to internalize. People may feel inferior for not having lofty positions like others they know, but if they could internalize that we are all working for the same boss – He is the One who gives out positions like it says, והמתנשא לכל ראש. What difference does it make what position we get? If we are doing what our Master wants, we'll be considered a perfect worker. If anything, it's just the opposite: The less honor we get the more real our service is to Hashem. Everybody has a special job to do, to serve Hashem to the best of his ability in the circumstances Hashem puts him in. If he does his job with joy and humility, then he'll be rewarded the same as anyone else who did his job, whatever Hashem wanted that person to do. The job doesn't matter as much as doing whatever we are asked of correctly. Shabbat Shalom.