What drives someone to rebel? What motivates an intelligent person to incite a machlokes, a dispute, that seems so illogical? Much ink has been used to explain the episode of Korach. R Yosef of Koidinov (Machsheves Nachum, Parshas Korach) provides a homiletic explanation which I feel speaks to many of us in our generation. The parsha opens with the following words: "And Korach took." What did he take? The Gemara (Sanhedrin 109b) explains that he took a "mikach ra l'atzmo", which literally means that he took, or made, for himself a bad purchase (see Maharsha ibid. for explanation). R Yosef explains that it means he took himself, he considered himself, to be bad, "she'hechzik es atsmo l'grua v'ra." This negative self-concept led him to depression, which in turn caused all of the bad things that he brought upon himself, leading him to challenge Moshe Rabbenu, and spread the seeds of conflict amongst the Jewish people. That is why we are exhorted in Pirkei Avos 2:13 " do not be wicked in your own eyes," in order that one not fall into depression.

This reminds me of the statement of R Shlomo of Karlin , " the worst yetzer hara (evil inclination) is that one forgets one is a ben Melech ( son of the King, royalty)." When we forget about how precious we are and start believing we are bad, we become bad. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we feel bad about ourselves, it can lead to depression. That depression is often anger turned inward, frustration with ourselves or others that we suppress, and comes out sideways in conflict.

To a great extent, we create our own reality. Each one of us is an olam katan, a miniature world. We reflect the world around us and the world around us reflects our inner world. When we feel bad about ourselves, when we have a lack of inner peace, we project that absence onto the world. If we are full of full of discord, then we will gravitate towards discord as that is our reality.

A healthy sense of self begins at home. What type of message are we sending our kids? This year at my seder as we were reading about the wicked son, the rasha, and how you are supposed to blunt his teeth ("hakeh es shinav"), one of my guests asked for a deeper and kinder explanation. After all, he didn't have to come to the seder. How will blunting his teeth endear him to the faith? Dissatisfied by the commentaries we saw in the standard Haggados, I figured The Carlebach Hagaddah would give us the answer that we were looking for. Lo and behold, we found the following commentary from one of the Belzer Rebbes (p.40):

Now, the word rasha, "wicked," is made up of three letters. The outside letters are reish and ayin, making ra, "bad"; but the inside letter is shin. And what does that mean? The three lines that make up a shin symbolize Avraham, Yitzchok, and Yaakov. If the shin, with its three lines, is on the inside of the rasha, that's to tell you that every Jew in the world is connected to our forefathers. His inside, the neshama, is connected to them. So we tell the father, "blunt his teeth-shinav, his shin." If you want to educate this boy, knock his shin loose from the rest of him; bring out his inner nature, that's connected with the Fathers. Give him courage. Tell him not to make you think he's not holy, because you know that he really is holy.

We live in challenging times, with great expectations and conflicting messages about who we are supposed to be. Let us not forget who we come from, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. Perhaps that is why the Torah does not trace Korach's lineage back to Yaakov (see Rashi) because when he viewed himself as bad, he denied his inherent greatness.

Let us instill in our children that no matter how "bad" we think they are behaving, they have a G-dly soul which is impervious to evil. We must focus on the good within our children and within ourselves and instill within them their special calling. Royalty live up to a higher standard. A holy haughtiness, a ga'avah d'kedusha, that it is beneath me to sin, is the calling for the day. The alternative approach is one fueled by guilt and anxiety.

As we inculcate our children with the proper values, we owe it to them to respect that they will choose wisely. Otherwise, when we come from a judgmental place, we do them a disservice as they start believing those judgments and proving how bad they really can be. Building our children's self esteem, constantly encouraging them, and instilling within them a positive self image is the best gift we can give them. It is the surest way to help them handle the challenges of life and prevent them from journeying down the slippery slope of self-destructive behavior that led to Korach's demise. Gut Shabbos.