"These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel… and Chatzeros" (Devarim/Deuteronomy 1:1)
In our time in history, there is tremendous strife and division in the world, as the Talmud (Sanhedrin 97a) predicted that before the Messiah comes, the Satan will endeavor to divide people into quarrelling groups like flocks of animals. Each group will claim that what they think and do is good and truthful, to the exclusion of everybody and everything else, which is false and evil.
The foremost cause of these disunions is arrogance, as our Sages taught (Sotah 47b) "when haughtiness of the heart increased, division increased in Israel." Whoever is drawn after the temptations of the Yetzer Hara to be arrogant, will come to believe that everything he has is on a higher level than others. He will then belittle the positive attributes in others, and only find fault in them. This will cause the fire of arguments to burn, and increase baseless hatred.
To our sorrow, this problem can be found even among groups of religious Jews. There are some who think that truth can only be found in the path and traditions of their own organization or congregation and with the opinions of their own leader, and that all others follow a path that isn't good. Such people often speak lashon hara against other congregations, and judge them negatively, due to their insecurity which causes them to want to believe that others are on a lower level than they are.
Along these lines, the late Mr. Ezra Gross, of blessed memory, once told me that the Gerrer Rebbe, the Beis Yisrael, zt"l, explained to him how negative Lashon Hara and Machlokes are, and how these negative traits flow from arrogance and jealousy, and this is why people often stumble in the sin of specifically speaking slander against pious and God-fearing Jews. The Rebbe related an incident he himself witnessed:
The Rebbe was once walking behind two young Torah scholars, who were members of a dignified Hasidic community whose Rebbe was very careful to judge everyone favorably, even secular Jews. These two young men had no idea that the Gerrer Rebbe was walking behind them. Throughout the entire walk, he could hear them speaking lashon hara about the Gerrer Rebbe and other Rebbes and communities, and each one sought to find more faults than the next. In the end, they passed by a secular Jew, and one of the young men said to the other one a bad word about the secularist, and it was only then that his friend rebuked him and said: "You know our Rebbe is opposed to speaking slander against any Jew!"
In Sefer Eser Kedushos, it is brought that my holy ancestor, Rebbe Tzvi Hirsch of Ziditchov zt"l once said in the middle of his Shalosh Seudos Torah sermon that anyone who says "there is no Rebbe in the world other than our Rebbe" is guilty of idolatry, may Hashem save us! Rather, he said, it is best to say that "each Rebbe is good for his disciples, and our Rebbe is the best for our own particular situation and spiritual goals".
Along these lines, my holy ancestor Rebbe Tzvi Hirsch of Ziditchov zt"l explained at length in his Sefer Sur MeiRa VeAsei Tov (p. 69) that Klal Yisroel constitutes a single body. Each body consists of 248 limbs and 365 sinews, and each body part has a particular mission that no other body part can fulfill, and no limb arrogantly thinks it is more important than another. Even though it is true that some limbs appear to be more important than others, the body needs each one to function properly. When there is an illness in one limb, the entire body is pained by this, because all of the limbs are connected in one soul, which is the main fundament of the human being.
This is how it is among the Jewish People as a collective. Every Jewish soul is connected to one another with a spiritual bond, as if they are one collective soul. This is why every Jew feels pained when he hears that another Jew was cruelly murdered, may Hashem spare us, even when he had never met him or even heard of him before. Every Jew has his own mission to perform in the world, according to his particular situation and particular abilities he was given from Heaven, and in accordance with the traditions he received from his ancestors and his Rabbis. Some spend more time studying Torah than others, and some spend more time in prayer than others, and some spend more time doing charitable works than others, etc. Hashem wants that each Jew should serve Him according to his own path, and to fulfill his own portion of the collective mission, and that there should be love and peace among them.
Our Sages said (Sotah 5a) that when someone is arrogant, or speaks lashon hara or increases machlokes, he causes the indwelling of the Holy Shechinah to be removed from its place. The Sefarim HaKedoshim explain that the powers of impurity come into its place, and this brings suffering and horrible illnesses to the world. This is what my holy ancestor Rebbe Yitzchak Isaac of Komarno zt"l wrote in the beginning of his holy sefer 'Adam Yashar', that epidemics spreads because of the impurity of Lashon Hara and Sinas Chinam, which stem from arrogance. And therefore, when an epidemic comes to the world, the foremost thing is to be strengthened in humility, unity, and love of our Fellow Jews.
We see this in Parshas Korach, where Korach and his family, and a portion of the tribe of Reuven who was the firstborn, were, on account of their arrogance, unable to stand the fact that Hashem gave important duties to other families or tribes, and for this reason, they spoke lashon hara and made machlokes. The Tzaddikim teach that this is the reason why the location where the rebellion of Korach took place was called "Chatzeiros", which means "courtyards" in the plural, because Korach caused there to be various "courts" which were separate one from another, which is the opposite of the mitzvah of "Eiruv Chatzeros", which unifies the hearts of all of the citizens of the various courtyards, making it as if they dwelled in a single courtyard. This strife brought a plague, and Korach and his assembly were wiped off the face of the earth.
Similarly, we find in Parshas Metzora, that when someone was arrogant, and spoke lashon hara, and caused machlokes, he was stricken with the plague of 'tzaraas', and became 'tamei'. This meant that he was thereby forced to practice social distancing, which prevented him from engaging in more machlokes, as our Sages taught (Arachin 16b), that because the leper caused separation between friends by spreading rumors and slander, he must be quarantined and live alone. It is only when his arrogance is humbled and broken by the illness and loneliness, and he thereby repents, then does the illness disappear.
Along these lines, the holy Rebbe Boruch of Kosov zt"l wrote in his sefer Amud HaAvodah (sermon 3 on Teshuvah), that when sinas chinam increased during the period of the Second Temple, Hashem wanted to diminish the attributes of hatred and strife which were liable to destroy the Jewish People, therefore He spread us out in exile among the various nations, in order that we should not be able to fight with so much Jews as we did when the entire Jewish People dwelt in Eretz Yisrael.
According to this, it is possible to explain that which we found in the beginning of Parshas Devarim, where Moshe spoke to the entire Klal Yisroel before their entry into Eretz Yisroel. He reminded them of the sin of the machlokes of Korach and his assembly that was in a location called "Chatzeiros", even though this was not a sin that the entire nation participated in and one might think they needed not to be rebuked for. However, he wanted to remind them of what Korach's rebellion caused, in order to teach them to avoid machlokes, and only then would they be able to enter and remain in Eretz Yisroel peacefully.
Therefore, in this current situation when we await salvation, we need to strengthen the cause of peace and increase peace, and in this merit we will be worthy to salvation and redemption.
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