Rashi tells us that when Moses avoided
responding immediately to Korah’s complaint,
his reason was perhaps that Korah’s supporters had not avoided
getting drunk that day. The great teacher-saint
called for a delay in case Korah’s supporters were intoxicated,
which would have made their presence in the tabernacle a sin.
Delay till morning caused the risk of such a sin to be abated,
morning commonly too early for consumption of alcohol to begin.
Moses’ postponement of his opposition to an evil foe
compares his fairness by protecting his foes‘ supporters,
to the fairness he would in a later story show:
helping as he did supporters, like Zelophehad’s five brother-deprived daughters.
Some wait until they hear God’s voice,
but, trying to be brave, some make a choice,
addressing Him before contacted,
strongly feeling so attracted
to a Power which they may
not meet, however much they pray,
yet daring to try reaching Him,
though chances of a strike are dim.
Regardless of how much you know,
if you wait you still can go
with God. The first step that is taken
by man is generally mistaken.
For most of all humanity
such steps are a profanity,
unless like Abraham you walk
with God, allowing Him to talk.
In Yiddish, people can describe an opinion that is unlikely to be correct as a nechtiger tug, implying that the opinion, which often reflects a wishful prediction, is as implausible as the mistaken belief that a day has turned into the night because no daylight shines in it.
My poem suggests that Rashi implies that Moses’ delay in his response to Korah and his 250 supporters, was based on this: night is the time for drunkenness and, when it is compared to the intention of Korah and his supporters to replace Moses with Korah to intoxication, may have reflected an opinion that their opposition to Moses was based on an opinion or prediction that was comparable to a nechtiger tug.
This suggestion implies that though Rashi spoke French, not Yiddish, his explanation for Moses’ decision to ‘delay until morning’ his confrontation with his foes, was based on his hope that their opposition would resolve the error on which their opposition was based, as soon as daylight cleared away their intoxicated mental darkness.
Indeed, possibly, the attribution of Psalm 90 to Moses is based on Ps. 90:5-6, can be read as a justification of the ‘delay until morning’ of Moses’ response to Korah’s opposition, regarding the opposition as a nechtiger tug:
זְרַמְתָּם, שֵׁנָה יִהְיוּ; בַּבֹּקֶר, כֶּחָצִיר יַחֲלֹף Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep; in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
ַּבֹּקֶר, יָצִיץ וְחָלָף; לָעֶרֶב, יְמוֹלֵל וְיָבֵש In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
