Chevre, this week’s parsha is Korach (קֹרַח). We have a more significant revolt this week than we did last week. And it takes place in 2 parts, Korach against Moshe and Datan and Aviram. Datan and Aviram do not want to go into Eretz Yisrael. HaShem appears to be so angry that there is a threat to wipe out all of Am Yisrael. Moshe intervenes and tries to get Datan and Aviram to repent (do teshuvah), but they refuse. And the land opens up and swallows them (Korach, Datan, Aviram and their households) up. I heard in a Dvar Torah this morning (podcast as I was doing my morning errands https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oIU2DMDGOo) that last week the scouts came back and said the land would eat them up. This week, the land they were in now ate up the people speaking badly about Eretz Yisrael.
And Moshe and Aharon turn around and there is plague amongst the people. Aharon and Moshe go to the tent of meeting and the plague stops. And a new test is brought to verify Aharon’s position. Every “father’s house” brings a staff, engraves the tribe name on it and places it the tent of meeting. The next morning, Aharon’s staff has bloomed. And it remains in The Tent of Meeting and The First Temple.
As someone who has worked on technological automations for years (20+), I definetly know what it’s like to come online in the morning and see a flowering staff (success, whatever I was working on did what it was supposed to) or a “normal” staff (failure, some error or thing happened, or didn’t happen, so that the automation didn’t run). Building in the cloud for these 6+ years has made this process easier to develop and test and less prone to silly things like my home Internet going down or a power flicker overnight that knocks all my computers off. And when I finish writing this, I’ll be publishing this to my newly launched (this week!) website with an automation that hope works. (OK, I’ve tested it well, it should work). Shabbat Shalom.