Millions of children all over the world go out for their summer vacation today. Here is a golden advice from the Portion we read on Shabbat, Korach:
Korach is considered till today as a person who initiated an unnecessary dispute that ended with a tragedy. What kind of background led to that sudden rebellion by Korach?
Our Sages turn our attention to the timing. After the sin of the spies, it was decreed that the People will stay for 40 long years in the desert. They now had a lot of time to burn, to waste, to kill. This is the exact timing in which Korach offered them to join the dangerous adventure that he led. He knew they were bored and had nothing to do. If he had come a few weeks earlier, when the whole People were determined and enthusiastic, when they thought that they were on their way to Eretz Israel within a few days - no one would have listened to him.
"Boredom brings about sin", our Sages stated thousands of years ago, and this holds true also for July-August 2019. On the news they report a special preparedness by the police for these days, but the preparedness should first of all be ours: to create an non-bored society, to make sure that all the time is filled with activity, initiatives and positive action. The Kotzker Rebbe once told his students a poignant sentence: "I want you to not sin - not because it is forbidden to sin, but because you will have no time to sin..."
May we and our children merit to live by this. Have a good vacation!
