The following is a brief summary of some of thoughts said over by R' Frand on the parsha this evening. I have attempted to reproduce these vorts to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.
This week's parsha includes the end of Dasan & Aviram who seem to torture Moshe at every turn. Although not always mentioned by name, the Medrash teaches that they were the ones who told Pharaoh that Moshe had killed the Egyptian and they were the ones who called out Moshe for being the instigator of Pharaoh's wrath against the Jews.
Yet, when faced with Dasan & Aviram and their role in Korach's rebellion (a fight in which they did not even have the possibility of gaining any position of power) the Torah writes in Bamidbar 16:25 that Moshe got up and went to Dasan & Aviram.
R' Frand quoted the Gemara in Sanhedrin which states that we learn from this that one should not be "M'chazek" in a dispute, because Moshe would have been within his rights to say that they should have come to him, but instead he went to them.
R' Frand also quoted the Sefer Menachem Tzion which explain the Gemara as teaching that when a person is in a dispute he should not view the other person as being part of a chazakah. He explained that while there may be a chazakah that certain things occur in halacha, such as dealing with found objects or tumah, there should not be a chazakah in disputes. A person should not assume that a person he is in a dispute with will necessarily act in a particular way and he should go out to meet with him.
R' Frand also said a vort about the almonds which sprouted from Aharon's staff. The Torah writes in Bamidbar 17:23 that Aharon's staff sprouted a flower and then budded and the almonds grew out of it.
R' Frand asked first - since Moshe had only said that the staff of the chosen tribe would flower, why did Aharon's staff also grow the bud and fruit? He answered by quoting the Rashbam, which explains that when Moshe found the staff in the Ohel Moed it was flowering, but had not progressed beyond that state. Only after Moshe brought the staff out into the public view did it grow the fruit buds and eventually the almonds. The Rashbam explains that the people could have said -- the reason that there are flowers on Aharon's staff is because Moshe put them on it before he took the staff out of the Ohel Moed. But when the staff grew almonds in public, there was no room for them to be skeptical.
R' Frand also noted that the almonds grew irregularly, in that usually the flowers come off and then the fruit bud appears and then that falls away and there is fruit. But here they were all present at the same time.
R' Frand addressed this by quoting R' Gedalya Shur, who explained that the Kohain Gadol's role is always to be fresh and new. He should be constantly blooming and showing energy, much like the pasuk Tzadik KaTamar Yifrach.
This was Aharon, much like he was described in Behaalosecha in connection with the Menorah as always performing the task with the vigor and excitement that he did on his first day.
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