While the parasha certainly grabs our attention when the earth swallows up Korach alive, there is another section of the parasha which is at the same time odd and noteworthy.

When the Jews sinned with the golden calf, the spies, and today, the Korach rebellion, Moses intercedes on their behalf and spares the people.  However, after Korach was punished, the people continued to complain: “you killed the people of HaShem,” they said to Moses and Aharon.

Here again, G-d threatens to wipe out all of Israel in just a moment, and rather than attempting to appeal for divine mercy or some other excuse, Moshe decides that the only way to prevent G-d from killing off all of Israel with a plaque is to send out Aharon on incense duty.

Moshe tells Aharon to run quickly through the camp with firepan, fire and incense and atone for everyone.  This suggestion raises many questions.  1) Who told Moshe it was okay to use incense outside the temple?  Aharon’s two sons were killed for improper use of incense.  2) What makes Moses think that this would most effectively solve the problem of the plaque?

The midrash says that Moses learned this procedure from the angels.  It’s an extra-legal, mystical ceremony, otherwise forbidden.

However, a more rational basis can be found for this use of firepan.  Whom did Moses send?  It was Aharon who was accused of illegitimately usurping power as chief Cohen.  It was Aharon who knew how to bring people together and who loved people and pursued peace as the sages say.

And where did Moses send Aharon?  Into the camp.  The rebels said Moses and Aharon were elitists.  They accused Moses of being insensitive to the deaths of Korach and company.  They began to associate Judaism with death.  (by the way, even today, too many associate death with Judaism and think of Judaism only at time of death).

Moses’ brilliant solution was to cure the people of their religious misconceptions.  Aharon is a man of the people.  He cares deeply.  He will save your lives.  The purpose of the temple is to atone and thereby save lives.  The verse states that Aharon stood “between the living and the dead.”  He showed that his purpose was to stave off the angel of death.

I too stand today between the living and the dead.  I look at my 3 young children, thank G-d, full of life and energy.  I look at my father-in-law, on the brink to another world, and we the family try to stand between the angel of death and the living, to share a few more precious moments together.

Does Judaism give meaning to death and dying?  Surely it does.  But at times such as this, it also becomes quite clear that the deathbed is no place for mitzvot.  It’s too late.  It is in life that my father-in-law and we all can achieve greatness and closeness to G-d.  The rebels said that Judaism brings death to its violators.  Moses taught that actually Judaism spares us from the meaninglessness of the material world.  Judaism allows us to face death, not because it alleviates death or purges us of death, but because it allows us to live knowing that we transcended the mundane, the inane, the material and the base world in which we live.  My father-in-law and many Jews who have lived a Torah life have taught us how to bring Torah to our lives.  With the Torah, we can face both life and death.