The Israelites have been wandering for a long time. Why does the rebellion of Korach occur now in the biblical story?

Rabbi Baruch Epstein, the author of Torah Temimah, in his commentary Tosefet Bracha, explains: There were always dissatisfactions, but the people held them in check for they had a great expectation. They were about to enter the land. In last week’s Torah portion, however, the spies returned with their evil report. God’s wrath was inflamed and God spoke through Moses.

“In this very desert shall your carcasses fall. Of all you who were recorded in your various lists from age 20 and above, you who have muttered against Me, not one shall enter the land that I swore to you, save Caleb son of Jephuneh and Joshua son of Nun.” (Numbers 14:29-30.) They will not enter the land as they had hoped.

Hope deferred, Proverbs teaches, makes the heart sick. (Proverbs 13:12). The disappointment led the Israelites to push against the leadership of Moses.

In his famous poem “Harlem,” Langston Hughes asks what happens to a dream deferred:

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
– And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over
– Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

The dream of going into the land was not only deferred but denied for the Israelites. And as the poet teaches, it explodes. This linkage also helps explain, writes R. Epstein, the answer to Rashi’s question. Rashi asks why the Torah places the story of the spies and the story of the rebellion back to back, since it is a scriptural principle not to juxtapose two catastrophes. Rabbi Epstein’s answer is that one essentially caused the other.

Part of the heartbreak of the current war is to see the hope of peace snatched repeatedly throughout Israel’s history. So often we had thought peace might be within reach, only to see it violently denied. But like the Israelites who did eventually enter the land we have to renew hope, despite discouragement, and work anew toward peace.