The Effect of Even the Smallest Action
Parshas Pinchas relates in short the incident of Korach’s rebellion and that all who were with him perished. Then, the Torah adds a detail that was not mentioned in Parshas Korach: “The sons of Korach did not die” (Bamidbar 26:11). Rashi explains that Korach’s sons were among the original participants in their father’s revolt against Moshe Rabbeinu, but at the last minute, they had thoughts of repentance, and therefore a place within Gehinom opened up for them and allowed them to remain higher than the others.
How did the sons of Korach make such a sudden change, that no one else in this group made?
The Yalkut Shimoni (Parshas Korach) answers that when Korach was sitting with his sons (soon before their final confrontation with Moshe), Moshe Rabbeinu approached them in a last minute attempt to reach a peaceful agreement. The sons turned their heads away, not knowing how to react. “If we stand up in honor of Moshe, this will be a disgrace for our father, but Moshe is the gadol hador—how can we not stand up for him?” In the end, they decided to stand up. At that moment, a seed of teshuva was planted in their hearts.
Nevertheless, up until this moment, the sons of Korach believed that Moshe had slighted their father and denied him the lofty position that he deserved. All they wanted was to make the minimum display of respect they felt necessary for the gadol hador, despite the fact that they felt he was wrong. Could this one act have changed them so quickly?
Rav Chanoch Leibowitz answers that this external display of honor built within them a real sense of honor for Moshe that was able to take root, such that they realized that if they really honored him as the gadol hador, then they had no right to make a machlokess against him.
Even though what happened to the sons of Korach was exceptional (in that such a profound effect took place in such a short time), what occurred is a principle in all of avodas Hashem, that every small act has an effect on us. The Mesilas Yesharim (7) explains this when speaking about zerizus (diligence). All human beings are lazy by nature, but if we want to acquire the trait of diligence, we should do mitzvos with an outward display of diligence. Over time, this diligence, which at first seemed purely superficial, will become more and more a part of us.
This principle applies in all matters of avodas Hashem. A person who wants to develop a love of chessed, but knows in his heart that he is stingy and selfish, can nevertheless change his entire outlook on life by simply resolving to do small acts of chessed on a regular basis.
This may seem like a natural sort of development, that by conditioning oneself to behave a certain way, it becomes second nature over time (and for the sons of Korach, this took root in them with exceptional quickness). However, when dealing with mitzvos, there exists another sphere of influence, one that is entirely beyond the framework of natural cause and effect. Chazal (Avos 4:2) describe this as “the reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah.”
Rabbeinu Yona explains that the word “reward” for a mitzvah refers to the mitzvah’s spiritual outcome. When a Jew does a mitzvah, he then merits supernatural assistance from heaven to do another mitzvah. The Maharsha (Makkos 10b) states that when a Jew does a mitzvah, an angel is created that helps him do more mitzvos. The tremendous jump made by Korach’s sons teaches us that even small actions on our part can lead us to awesome strides forward in avodas Hashem. This is not simply the fruit of self-conditioning toward good behavior, but also the supernatural outcome of divine assistance that even a small mitzvah provides.
The sons of Korach also teach us that when a mitzvah seems impossible to do, we should nevertheless give it a try. For example, we are commanded to “love your neighbor as yourself,” but when the neighbor is a difficult person, we may give up, thinking to ourselves: “I simply cannot get along with him.” Within families as well, parent-child relationships can run into complications. A son may feel that he is incapable of having a relationship with his father. “I don’t want to be with him,” he thinks to himself. People in these predicaments should learn from the sons of Korach. As angry as they were at Moshe, they nevertheless recognized their obligation to honor him as the gadol hador, and this saved their lives.
We have no way of knowing what potential greatness may result from our small actions. An acquaintance of mine told me about a large family In Yerushalayim who lived near an elderly woman who had never married. The father realized that this woman needed assistance, and asked one of his daughters to spend time with her.
The daughter agreed reluctantly, but soon found herself being asked to give more and more of her time to this woman. Often, the woman would complain of her bitter lot in life, and when they went outside, she would quarrel with people, much to the girl’s embarrassment. Never did this woman say thank you to the girl, even though she clearly was making a great difference in her life. Many times the girl considered stopping, and even asked her father once or twice if she could do so.
“Keep at it, please,” her father would say. “Just this next time.”
Eventually, this woman passed away, and the daughter resumed her normal schedule. Sometime later, when she began shiduchim, she met with an outstanding bachur and everything seemed perfect — except for the question of where the young couple could live. Neither family had money, so the daughter’s family suggested that they move out of town. However, the bachur’s rosh yeshiva felt that his progress in learning should be maximized, and pressed on the parents to enable them to remain in Yerushalayim, at least for the first few years.
This seemed impossible, and tensions began setting in.
Then, the girl received a phone call from a lawyer, who explained that the woman she had helped had left behind a savings of several hundred thousand dollars, and had written specifically that it should go to her. She wrote: “What better thing can I do with this money than to help this girl, who helped me so much at the end of my life?”
May we overcome difficulties in mitzvos!