Was Korach a Gilgul of Kayin or of Yisro? Also, the earliest Torah code, perhaps known to Rishonim!

Summary: One kabbalistic source says Kayin, and one says Yisro? Can they be harmonized?

Post: Gilgul is likely a foreign superstitious import, as Rav Saadia Gaon asserts. Yet is is deeply embedded in kabbalah.




Thus, in this week's parsha, Rabbi Menachem Tziyuni (a mid-14th century kabbalist -- see Daat's Encyclopedia Yehudit), we read:

Thus, he will hint to us as he has himself received. The pasuk stated {Bereshit 9}:

ו  שֹׁפֵךְ דַּם הָאָדָם, בָּאָדָם דָּמוֹ יִשָּׁפֵךְ:  כִּי בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים, עָשָׂה אֶת-הָאָדָם.

6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man.

and this means within that man himself. And since you drowned someone, you were drowned, etc. And so too Hevel killed Kayin {and?} in the days of Moshe and the death of Korach was via swallowing {up in the earth} as midah keneged middah, as is known. And just as Korach investigated and darshened in the warf {shesi}, place the woof {erev} and you will find a wondrous secret.

I don't know what the secret is. However, I have my unfounded suspicions. And I am not a kabbalist and not privy to their secrets and their methods, but I can try to make an semi-educated guess.

Where was Korach choker vedoresh? In "Vayikach Korach". That is where Chazal explain that he had various arguments based on a techeles string on a beged entirely of techeles, or based on a mezuzah on a room entirely full of sefarim.

And if we form a matrix, counting certain letters across (=the warp, the shesi), we will find one secret. And if we then move down the matrix, counting certain letters down (=the woof, the erev) we will find another aspect. Shesi veErev means horizontally and vertically. I don't know that this is a Torah code, but the language can support it. And the Gra, a kabbalist, had various insights based on skipping letters.

Reuven Wolfeld writes the following insight in Truth in Numbers: Insights Into the Book of Bereshis:

There is thus a 'Torah Code' that brings in Kayin and Hevel, just here in the beginning of Korach. That is, highlighting Kayin in red and Hevel in blue:

א  וַיִּקַּח קֹרַח, בֶּן-יִצְהָר בֶּן-קְהָת בֶּן-לֵוִי; וְדָתָן וַאֲבִירָם בְּנֵי אֱלִיאָב, וְאוֹן בֶּן-פֶּלֶת--בְּנֵי רְאוּבֵן.

1 Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men;

This is an ELS skip of five followed by an ELS skip of two. Here is a graph I put together to demonstrate it:

My guess is that he is not speaking of Hevel at all; rather, just start your count from Vayikach Korach and arrange it as a matrix of five across. And then count words going vertically down. Thus, you have the horizontal plain text and the vertical secret text. And we are only supposed to go three rows down. Hevel is not part of it, since it does not form a vertical. Maybe you can form the words החי and קבר working vertically in those three rows.

I don't know how Hevel specifically killed Kayin in the days of Moshe, except if Moshe Rabbenu is the gilgul of Hevel. And that is how I have seen it reported.

I'll just make explicit what was otherwise implicit. Surely this pasuk is a part of it. In Bereishit 4:

יא  וְעַתָּה, אָרוּר אָתָּה, מִן-הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר פָּצְתָה אֶת-פִּיהָ, לָקַחַת אֶת-דְּמֵי אָחִיךָ מִיָּדֶךָ.

11 And now cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand.

In both places the ground swallowed them up, in Bereishit Hevel and in Korach, Kayin. And this is the midah keneged midah that Tziyuni was speaking about.

On the other hand, according to the Arizal, Moshe was Hevel's gilgul and Yisro was Kayin's gilgul. Thus:

The Arizal reveals for us a fascinating a piece of information which can provide us with a deeper understanding of several points in the beginning of Parshas Yisro. The Arizal writes that Moshe was a gilgul (reincarnation) of Hevel and Yisro was a gilgul of Kayin. His student Rav Chaim Vital notes that this is hinted to by the first letters of the words “Ani chosencha Yisro” – I am your father-in-law Yisro – which spell the word “achi” – my brother.

I would note a more straightforward derivation that this roshei teivos hint. According to the Mechilta, Yisro had seven names. Two of them were Chever and Keini, presumably based on חבר הקיני, husband of Yael. If Yisro is קיני, that he is Kayin.

Can two people simultaneously be someone's gilgul. Someone asked that question, Rabbi Yaakov Shlomo Weinberg:

Although he rarely spoke on these matters, the Mashgiach, Mori V’Rebbi Horav Dovid Kronglas zt”l, once mentioned that Korach was a gilgul (reincarnation)  of Kayin. (Indeed, they both fell because of the trait of jealousy. ) It’s also brought in seforim (books) that Moshe was a gilgul of Hevel. (Moshe is an acronym – in Hebrew – of Moshe, Shes  and Hevel .) Regarding Kayin, the pasuk (verse) states, “…min ho’adomoh asher potzetzoh es pihoh…”   (You are cursed from the ground which opened its mouth to take the blood of your brother from your hand.) Regarding Korach it says, “…upotzetzoh ho’adomoh es pihoh…”   That which Kayin did to Hevel, Moshe/Hevel did midoh k’neged midoh (measure for measure) to Korach/Kayin.
An Aside
As an aside, the Mashgiach once mentioned that Yisro (Moshe’s father-in-law) was a gilgul of Kayin. I asked him afterwards how could Korach and Yisro both be gilgulim of Kayin since they were contemporaries. He answered me that gilgul doesn’t necessarily mean the whole person is a gilgul. Rather, various aspects or traits can be a gilgul by one person and other aspects by another. 

I would answer in a different manner. While Chazal were content with inter-Biblical allusions and would call it maaseh avot siman levanim; or would draw midrashic comparisons and contrast between various stories or character traits, kabbalists have this new tool at their disposal, to claim that this instance of parallel is actually an instance of gilgul.

Maybe two people cannot simultaneously be someone's gilgul. And maybe it really was a machlokes. This certainly is not the first dispute in kabbalah. Of course, we cannot have a dispute in kabbalah, if it really is kabbalah. In other words, we would like to believe that these are mystical traditions and secrets, going all the way back to Moshe Rabbenu, that the holy Arizal is revealing to us, or that the holy Tziyuni is revealing to us. But in reality they are simply derashot created by human beings, applying kabbalistic hermeneutical methods, and operating in a kabbalistic framework and worldview.

If these are all derivations by human beings trying to discover the truth, then there is room for machlokes. But I am not sure that there is room for such an explanation in the mystical worldview, when it comes to contradiction in kabbalah.

{Update: See the comment section, where Arizal explicitly has different aspects of Korah in different contemporaries. So it certainly is possible, and would handily answer the question, just as Rav Kronglas did above. And this is the standard current understanding of gilgul, as different sparks of a root soul.}