Because the 250 men who rebelled lived in Korach’s vicinity, this became their community, their peer group. As such, it created their social environment. Korach yielded great social equity in that group, and he led the march to its abysmal failure. But those who lived in the immediate proximity of Moshe and Aharon were affected by a different force. The presence of Moshe Rabbeinu shaped the social fabric of that group. The social atmosphere had such an effect that Yissachar and Zevulun were changed for generations.
Chazal are teaching us that the great heights one group reached and the low depths to which the other sank were due to one factor: peer pressure. This is an eye-opening revelation as to the power of influence.
One of the quirks of human nature is that the average person assumes he is smarter than the average person. Often when we are confronted by the foibles of human nature, we exclaim, “How strange is the human!” But we forget to take that next critical step, remembering that “I too am a human.”
When it comes to issues like the influence of friends, we may agree it is significant in the lives of some, and certainly in the lives of teenagers. However, once we are fully formed adults with a mature understanding of life and the world, we think these concepts no longer apply to us.
What we see from this Chazal is a very different perspective. The 250 men who joined Korach were men of greatness. They were distinct and illustrious, singled out by name in the beginning of Bamidbar, yet they were influenced to rebel against Hashem. The tribes of Yissachar and Zevulun included many fully mature adults, and they became great Torah leaders, all because of the influence of others.
This is a powerful insight into the effect of the friends we keep and their impact on us.