After a two week break I returned to one of the more provocative parshiyot, Korach. Before the final "real" departure from Sinai back in B'haalot'cha Moses sought to unify the community because he knew that the differences would lead to unfortunate outcomes. We see rebellion after rebellion that began last week with the spies and continues from there, this week being no different either with Koarch himself or the people who tired of manna and wanted meat. This is why our Rabbis selected 1st Samuel 11-12 as the haftarah. The community wanted a king because everyone else had one, and while not a bad thing, it also meant they would have to own its consequences. In this case the king who was elected yielded bad results for Israel and another had to be chosen. In this week’s parasha we have the makings of a political insurrection that follows on the heals of a community mutiny because the right guy went about it the wrong way.
This week we meet Korach, who was a Levite from the family of the Kohathites who took care of the sacred objects in the Mishkan, who calls our Moses and his brother, Aaron, which is why the Talmud (Sanhedrin 110a) suggests it was also about nepotism. In this case Korach felt that they abused their power and horded it over the community, thus speaking on the behalf of others Korach says to Moses and Aaron, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s congregation?” In response Moses counters with “Is it not enough for you that the God of Israel has set you apart from the community of Israel and given you direct access, to perform the duties of the Lord’s Tabernacle and to minister to the community and serve them?”
Each had a role; Moses had oversight for the community, Aaron was the High Priest, haKohen haGadol, and Korach was the leader of the Levitical family the Kohathites as part of Israel’s polity, all three men played very important, and sacred roles, in the life of Israel. Still, Korach was not completely wrong either, “For all the community are holy, all of them,” basing that upon the words of Exodus 19:6 that the entire nation was “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” I actually do not think Moses would have had any issue with that whatsoever, recalling the words from Numbers 11:29 that said, “Would that all the Lords people were prophets, that the Lord put [the divine] spirit upon them!” But was it simply a matter of Korach wanting to be Moses, or if not Moses per se he wanted the perceived power of Moses? Or was it a matter of perception about how the direction of Israel should have a new administration?
Korach was not alone, represented by Dathan and Abiram of the non-Levitical tribe of Reuven (Numbers 16:12), who in opposition stood up to Moses and Aaron and the rest of Israel who sided with them. In the end there is a huge earthquake that caused the ground to open and swallow up Koarch and his followers, the writers of Numbers, like many today, read that as a direct judgement by God against those who came against Israel's chosen leaders. Yet here what we really have is the Left against the Right or visa versa, so to speak, two ideologies that fought to exist simultaneously; sound familiar? Regardless, turning to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 110a) once more we read concerning Korach, “Rav says: Anyone who perpetuates a dispute violates a prohibition, as it is stated: ‘And he will not be like Korach and his assembly.’” So the word for “dispute,” machloket can also mean “discussion,” but it needs to be read in context. In this case the Talmud used machloket as a divisive dispute that was perpetrated by Korach who accused Moses of unfair leadership practices with the attitude of “my way or the highway,” creating a lose-lose in the end. In short a machloket with the attitude of Korach created a divisive dispute instead of a platform for resolution.
The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, taught that divisiveness and true communal harmony are actually very similar; they are birthed from human desire. The conflict is part of the lower world and the harmony is part of the upper world, or the sefirot of Malchut as opposed to Keter. So while we physically live in a world that is in need of repair (Malchut) the human spirit is to be connected with the spiritual (Keter) to guide our actions, hence the connection between divisiveness and true communal harmony. Korach forgot that while the Kohen Gadol is wholly devoted to spiritual pursuits and "ordinary" Israelite's must contend with the mundanity of regular life, he and his followers failed to see there was anything mundane about the mundane, taking away the holiness within the ordinary.
Korach lost sight of what he claimed he fought for, actually going against his own argument, “For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst.” If that was so, he (and others) were just as holy, as opposed to thinking that true holiness came only in what Moses did. Torah looks to remind us that everything we do from the mundane to the sacred are equal because they are done with a sense of the holy, something that asks us to look beyond our own sense of right to walk with another who may have a different view of the same. Sure that is not easy and yeah we have extreme views that we cannot tolerate, but we are being asked to mange that, or how else can we be a community of diverse people? Conflict will happen, we all know that, but it must be in light of discussion, machloket, or it just becomes divisive disputes that leave us worse off than we began. More food for thought from Torah.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Adam
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