Demonizing Korach
This week's parshah, Korach, is challenging. Korach is portrayed as the source of conflict, distress and danger in the Torah text. This is a straightforward reading of the text. However, in the body of traditional interpretation Korach is portrayed as one of the great villains of Torah. This is problematic because some of the issues that he raises are not unreasonable and, from the point of view of the American libertarian psyche, perfectly legitimate. As Americans we are primed to accept some of the challenges that he raises in ways that our ancestors were not.
In our Judaism, Rabbinic Judaism, the laws are the Torah – derived from God’s word – and they are binding upon us, not in the simple way that they appear in Torah itself, but in the ways that the rabbinic tradition has interpreted them over time. There is a vast body of interpretation and commentary on the narrative non-legal aspects of the Torah. While many parts of that body of traditional thought have become hard to separate from the actual Torah text, none of those interpretations or comments are understandings that we are required to accept as more correct than one over another. The richness of the Torah text is in the spaces that are left within it for the imagination and the critical mind to go to work.
One of the habits of traditional Torah commentary is to try to find a way to write out the faults and flaws of the biblical heroes and to fully demonize those who opposed them. I find this problematic. If our heroes are perfect, then emulating them becomes an effort to mirror their perfection. Instead of learning from their struggles, we learn to denigrate ourselves. Rather than learn that our virtues are achievements, we learn that our flaws are in our nature and that we lack the power to improve ourselves with time and effort. Demonizing the heels of Torah prevents us from seeing where the flaws in our actions arise and how our struggles to do what we believe is right can fail.
Korach appears in our story suddenly and as the leader of a coalition of the highest ranking leaders of the whole of Israel. His named co-conspirators are Dathan, Abiram and On, all from the tribe of Reuven. Where has Korach been up to this point? He hasn’t played any substantive role in the life of the camp. However, since he is a tribal leader he has acted as part of the body of tribal leaders and he has gathered their support. They are the stakeholders in his action. The people as a whole seem to be observing and taking sides in the conflict between Moses and Korach as it plays out in the public square.
The conflict that Korach instigates is a familiar conflict in Torah. The elders want the primacy that the tradition of the time has promised them as their rights and where they feel that those chosen for leadership by God contravene that right they express their grievance. This is always a problem, because their insistence, like that of Esau and Ishmael, puts them in conflict with the plans that God has made. They are rejecting the way that God has chosen to raise a different model in the ancient world than the norm that the elders hold onto. Dathan, Aviram and On are of the tribe of Reuben and their objection is precisely the eldest son’s assertion of traditional legal primacy. The other elders who join the action of Korach follow in their logic.
This is not to say that there is no other reason for their discontent. Up to this point they have not raised this issue. They have been willing to accept the way that God has placed Moses (and Aaron) above them up till now, but after the failure of the mission of the scouts and the debacle that followed as well as the other minor rebellions that had occurred at Taberah and Kivrot-Ha-Ta’avah it is not unreasonable to think that they may have been swayed more easily than before by Korach’s argument. Morale in the camp was low. There are consequences for that. Still, this wasn’t a winning argument in the time of the patriarch. We know this, but it raises the question of how much the Israelites knew of their own history. (A fair question that is worthy of its own discussion).
Korach’s argument against Moses is of a different nature: “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why do you raise yourself above the congregation?” You have gone too far! Korach may be accepting Moses' chosen-ness to an extent, but expressing a disbelief in Moses' failure to self-aggrandize. Sometimes it is clear from the Torah text that Moses follows God closely, but there are times when Moses seems to have acted on his own without consultation with God. The prophet Bilaam, seeking to curse Israel at first recites God’s prophecies, but in the end is able to make God’s mission his and speak his own words clearly as God’s will if not God's words. We can fault Korach’s tone, but he is raising a valid question about the purity of Moses’ actions.
For all the community is holy. This is what God intends for the people. Kadosh means “separated out.” Even if the actions of those among the community fail to rise to the standard of holiness, they have still been judged to be capable of bearing the burden of holiness. In a way, Korach is expressing a similar critique of Moses to the one that Yitro expressed much more pleasantly: why don’t you delegate, why do you concentrate holiness in one place among one small group.
Why do you raise yourself above the congregation? This may be how Moses’ actions appeared to the average person. Korach’s judgement here is unfair, but it could have more to do with the limits of what Korach knows about Moses in his interactions with God. God repeatedly gives Moses the chance to set himself and his family above the Jewish people. God is ready to wipe out the rest of the Israelites and raise up a new people from Moses' line alone and each time Moses emphatically refuses God’s offer. (And it will happen again later in this Parshah). However, there is no reason to think that Korach knew this.
Korach seems unpleasant at least. We can easily judge him for that alone. The rabbis have been much harsher in their judgment. Moses' actions are not entirely transparent either. We can make our own judgments, but in the end God’s judgment is the fairest and the best informed. In the end the rebels are punished following Moses’ prophecy, but it is unclear whether they are punished for their arguments or just for the fact that they challenged Moses and the words of God that came through Moses.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Henry Hollander
