Numbers Cycle Five Korach

Korach

I had a friend once.  He had a website hammering  the IRS. In order to help small business owners, he pointed them to countries in Central America where they could register their businesses. This way they could avoid taxes.  He believed in what he was doing. He was standing up to the big bad government. He ended up in jail.

Here are more Korach-like characters. . Anyone who demonstrated in the 60s or 70s. The underground during the Holocaust. Rabbi Jonathon Ben Zakkai who faked his death so as to be surreptitiously carried out of the City of Jerusalem (during the Roman invasion in 70 CE). Then he continued Torah studies in Yavne. Scholars have pointed to him as being the most important person who contributed to the survival of Judaism.  The man who killed Lincoln. The man who killed Kennedy.

  

All of these people acted against a certain authority. Ah, we can think, but some acted for good reason and others simply to cause harm.  Some have enlightening ideas that can raise-up society. Some destroy. Ah, we can think, we need to support those who have right intention.

But who are we to say what right intention really is? We have our thoughts and our values. These change. Ways of living in a society change. Even ways of caring for the Ark of the Testimony change given modern invention, community and era.

 

But this is the point of the parasha Korach. It’s not about any ideals of rebellion as much as the behavior and method around it. For after all, Korach has a worthwhile contribution in the eyes of 21^st century Americans. He believes in the democratization of holiness.  All people are holy, he says. And yet he gets swallowed by the earth.  Why?

Let’s look at this carefully. The event of Korach is fast. It has taken on so much commentary  you would think it fills a whole book. But it doesn’t. In fact, the Korach-debacle itself is short and sweet, sandwiched in between one paragraph of the Sh’ma (vayomer) that commands the wearing of tzitit and a beautiful description of Aaron’s staff as it flowers.

The word for flower is tzitz. So you get the idea that the mitzvoth are very involved with this whole event. They create the frame. And more.  For after all,  after the dramatic Korach-climax  we get to experience the blossoming of Aaron’s staff.  And if flowers…or tzitz are blossoming from the staff… they are growing out of us. We are growing the mitzvoth in this beautiful surreal manner when pre-Korach-rebellion  they are simply attached to our clothes. In other words, Korach is the exact event we need to hone-in on what these mitzvoth are all about and embody them.  In the end, Korach is not about Korach, but about the mitzvoth. As Buber says:

The true argument of law is that in the world of the law what has been inspired always becomes emptied of the spirit…the living element dies off but that thereafter what is left continues to rule over living men. And the true conclusion is that the law must again and again immerse itself in the consuming and purifying fire of the spirit in order to renew itself and anew refine the genuine substance out of the dross of what has become false. This lies in the continuation of the line of the Mosaic principle of ever-recurrent renewal….And against this comes the false argument of the rebels that the law as such displaces the spirit and the freedom, and the false conclusion that it ought to be replaced by them.

Finally, Korach traditionally is the bad boy,  the one who takes himself apart from others (according to Rashi and Tanhuma) the one who takes 250 men (according to Rashbam) the one who is taken by his heart (according to Nahmanides). He’s the one who faces-off Moses, telling him that he’s not being a good leader, that he is causing some people to be more holy then others when this goes against God’s decree. We must remember that our beloved rabbis lived in constant upheaval, whether it be the devastation of the Romans, the Crusades or the Inquisition. Chaos was everywhere and stability highly valued.

Today the idea of the rebel is more like-able. We think of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. We think of Bonnie and Clyde.  Who knows how the rebel will be envisioned in a few hundred years.

Perhaps if Korach had spoken quietly to Moses God wouldn’t have acted so immediately. Perhaps if he didn’t try to face off Moses and squeeze him with the 250 men, if he had acted with loving kindness, the world would be different today.  But that scene would not have helped us much. No, God took Korach and through him allowed us all to experience and grow. There isn’t any resurrection here. Just learning. Just seeing how we can act if we happen to take-on the staff of the flowering mitzvoth and be the embodiment of patience, understanding and compassion. We may not agree with the authorities but if we want our ideas to be known and accessed...if we want to stay out of our own mind-forged jails...if we want to avoid physical or spiritual death... we must find ways to disagree in a loving, silent and powerful manner….and yes, like Rabbi Ben Zakkai, with a behavior glowing with Torah and holiness.