Moshe and Aharon decide not to remove themselves from the sinners, but to fall on their faces, to stay connected to those who find themselvs at the buttom.
After the dramatic events that followed the dispute with Korach and his congregation, which included both the earth opening its mouth and the swallowing of “all Korah’s people and all their possessions”, and “a fire went forth from the LORD and consumed the two hundred and fifty men offering the incense”, God turns to Moshe and Aharon and command them: “Remove yourselves from this community (הרומו מתוך העדה הזאת), that I may annihilate them in an instant”. Their immediate response being: “They fell on their faces”.
The call to Moshe and Aaron to “remove” themselves, which reads literally as a call to “lift themselves up”, was interpreted by various commentators as “separating,” that is, as a recommendation (or a commandment) to Moshe and Aaron to distance themselves from the people who were going to be afflicted by the plague. Besides, it seems that “Remove yourselves” teaches us about another movement, which transcends separation, and is intended to transcend, to move to more esteemed, higher place. In such a way does Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Epstein, the author of “Maor Vashemesh” and one of the significant Admorim of Poland at the start of the 19th century:
Remove yourselves from this community”: Meaning, that you may lift yourselves higher than them and will not connect with them.
This movement of ascension that Moshe and Aaron are called for is a movement of detachment from the people - who find themselves in a reduced and low state - to a higher ascension, to a place that is seemingly appropriate to the righteous like Moshe and Aharon.
Except that the “Maor Vashemesh” binds this very ascension with the continuation of the verse: “that I may annihilate them in an instant!” According to him, the ascension of Moshe and Aaron would harm the “vitality”, the thread of existence of Bnei Yisrael, and hence the Almighty could destroy them. The connection of the righteous to the rest of the nation gives the people strength and the ability to survive various crises, and as it were, God can not harm the people as long as Moshe and Aaron do not lift themselves from Him.
The response of Moshe and Aaron: “They fell on their faces”, indicates the opposite step. Moshe and Aharon, according to the “Maor Vashemesh”, understand that everything depends on them:
And here Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon, when they heard this, understood from the words of Hashem that it all depended on them,
And that He [God] opened an opening for Moshe and Aharon to know that the essence depended on them…
So, instead, they right away tied themselves up with them and went farther down,
And this is the meaning of “They fell on their faces”
The ‘fall’ is neither one of despair, nor of prayer. The “fall” is the opposite reaction to the “ascension”. It is a movement of deep commitment to Am Yisrael, of connecting to those who currently find themselves “at the bottom”, of responsibility and readiness for complete devotion, and not to leave the people without its life engine.
This is the legacy of Moshe and Aaron, this is the legacy of the “Maor Vashemesh”. The tzadikim, those who excel, the leaders and those aspiring to go higher in any field, must also know how “to fall on their faces”. They ought to connect with the entire nation, recharging, enriching an nurturing them, and in turn to be recharged, enriched and nurtured by the entire nation with life and light.
