A vort of the Rebbe on this week's פרשה, Parashat Korach, in connection to ג' Tamuz. In Korach, we learn that Korach complained against Moshe Rabbeinu, \"Why are you guys making yourself bigger? That כולם קדושים, all the Yidden are holy, ובתוכם ה', all the Yidden are the same. Why do you make yourself greater?\" And one of the things that he claimed: \"Why is Aharon the kohen gadol?\" Then later, when they made Elitzafan ben Uziel the head of one of the groups in שבט לוי, why he thinks he thought he had to do it. But this was all his ta'anah. It's all based on \"Why are you guys making yourself special?\" Says the Seder Olam, brought down in the Rashbam and Tosafot in Bava Batra, that the ta'anah of Korach, or the machloket of Korach, came after the story of the meraglim. The Rebbe asks: \"Why did Korach wait with his argument till after the meraglim?\" The meraglim came back on Tishah b'Av, so it happened Tishah b'Av. But Aharon was made the kohen gadol, and this whole thing happened in the beginning of Chodesh Nisan. Even Elitzafan ben Uziel was a little later, as pointed, but still, right in the beginning, a few months before the meraglim. Why didn't Korach argue and come with his ta'anah, \"Why are you guys making yourself greater than everybody else?\" Why didn't he ta'anah right away, as soon as Aharon was appointed kohen gadol, Elitzafan ben Uziel was appointed his job? Why did he wait till after the meraglim?

And the Rebbe explains as follows: We learn in Chassidut that what was the ta'anah of the meraglim? It started all with something good, wrong, but something like they thought was a positive thing. In the midbar, the Yidden didn't have to work, didn't have to get involved in gashmiyut. They didn't have to plow and plant to get food, they got the מן, the water came from the באר of Miriam, even clothes grew with on on the people, they didn't even have to clean it, the clouds cleaned their clothes. What did they do constantly all day? They learned and daven. In their mind, they were דבוק בה', they connected with Hashem' ruchniyut. They came to ארץ ישראל, and they saw what's going to happen there: they're going to have to get involved in gashmiyut. And they didn't want to go to ארץ ישראל. It was wrong because Hashem' doesn't want that. Hashem' wants the gashmiyut. Hashem' wants המעשה הוא העיקר, the physical act of the mitzvot, and getting involved in gashmiyut, and bringing אלוקות, Godliness into the gashmiyut, this is the kavanah of what the Eibishter wants.

After this happened, after the meraglim were shown wrong, Korach now came with a ta'anah. He said: \"If the ruchniyut would be the most important part, the intellectual part of the mitzvot, etc., etc., the kavanot, etc., we understand some people are greater, not everyone is the same. Some people understand it better, some people have deeper kavanot. So we understand that you guys are greater, so therefore you deserve to be the leaders. But now that you came after the meraglim and you proved that המעשה הוא העיקר, the main thing is gashmiyut, and that's why the meraglim were wrong, now he says: If so, then why are you greater? All the Yidden are the same. כל העדה כולם קדושים ובתוכם ה', all the Yidden are holy. Because when it comes to the מעשה המצוה בגשמיות, they're all the same. The tefillin that Moshe Rabbeinu put on and the tefillin that a simple yid puts on is the same. The difference could be in the kavanah, in understanding the reasons of the mitzvot, the כוונות המצוות, all the deep inyanim. But the מעשה, the that's the ikar, they're all the same.\" That's when he came to say, after he saw what happened by the מרגלים, now he came with this מחלוקת, and he said: \"Why are you guys make yourself great? The עיקר is the מעשה, and if the מעשה is the עיקר, we're all the same.\"

Why was takeh Korach wrong? The reason he was wrong is because it's true המעשה הוא העיקר, but nevertheless, the other things are also important. It's very important to have the proper כוונות. It's very important to have, so to speak, the mitzvot shine. And the way the mitzvah shine is when you have the proper understanding and the proper כוונות. Alter Rebbe says a לשון when it says in לשון Gemara מעשים טובים, מצוות are called מעשים טובים. טובים means good מעשים, good actions. טובים, he says, מטיבים ומאירים, they shine. And in order for the mitzvot to shine, you do have to have the proper כוונות, and that's also important. And the משל that's given is when you have a diamond. Diamond is the most important part is that there's a diamond and it has the greatest value. But imagine if a diamond is covered with dirt and it doesn't shine, it doesn't accomplish what it's supposed to, even though the diamond is there and you have it. Same thing with mitzvot. You have mitzvot and you have the גשמיות, and that's the most important thing, and you can't say we could avoid that like the מרגלים wanted. And that's why the מרגלים were wrong. But the same thing, you also have to have the כוונות, and you have to have the great things, and in that, there is takeh a difference. And that's the concept of Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon HaKohen and all the leaders, that they not tell us the mitzvot. Mitzvot, you have in the Torah, and you could learn Torah, and you could do mitzvot, and learn just simply, just learn a simple פשט. What they do is they bring out the depth of the Torah ומצוות, they bring out the yirat shamayim, the feeling you're supposed to have to the Eibershter that comes along with it. And that's why we need a Moshe Rabbeinu, and that's connected to ג' תמוז. ג' תמוז is the יום ההילולא of the Rebbe, that's the job of the Rebbe, and by the Rebbe, it's not only Till ג' תמוז that's what the Rebbe did, bring out within Chassidim and יידן בכלל understanding, the feeling towards the Eibershter, what comes along with it, the קיום המצות. But even now after ג' תמוז, he still is mashpia from shamayim all the גרעסטע השפעות like before, that we should be able to do everything with a deeper feeling, that besides the עצם מצוה, the maaseh, but we also have the light that goes along with the mitzvot.