KORAH

Harry Schachter, June 15, 2002

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to wrestle with this dramatic and troubling parsha.

This week's parsha is the story of a rebellion, one of several uprisings which confront Moses during the wandering of the Israelites through the desert, but one which seems to represent a high point in the rebellious tendencies of the tribes.

We are presented here with several remarkable characters, principally Korah, a Levite like Moses and Aaron, their first cousin in fact, the son of Moses and Aaron's uncle, who is described in midrashim as charismatic and a great though flawed sage, and a man who makes a striking democratic assertion:

"You have gone too far!" he says. "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?" (Numbers 16:3)

Korah claims here that the people of Israel are innately holy. Therefore the role of Moses as prophet and leader, and the role of Aaron as high priest, is an unjustified assumption, even a usurpation, of power. The people of Israel do not need Moses to lead them to holiness, or to serve as an intermediary and interpreter of God to them. They already have a direct connection to God through their very being as Israelites. This is an important argument to which I will return.

Of course, the rabbis traditionally saw Korah himself as the would_be usurper. To them, Korah is the archetype of the demagogue, who uses democratic language as a cover or front for his own grab at power. In this traditional view, Korah is motivated by personal grievance, not by any principled concern. Why shouldn't he have been made the High Priest rather than Aaron? One interpretation (Ibn Ezra) suggests that he had already built his own competing tabernacle.

Korah is joined in his rebellion by a group of Reubenites, members of the tribe of Reuben, led by Dathan and Aviram. As usual, the rabbis add their own details, a sort of back_story about these figures. Datan and Aviram, they explain, were the very same Israelites encountered by Moses early in his discovery of himself as a Hebrew. You may remember that early in Exodus, Moses went out and saw two Israelite men fighting. To quote:

(Exodus 2:13) 'Why are you beating your brother?' he demanded of the one who was in the wrong. (2:14) 'Who made you our prince and judge?' retorted [the other]. 'Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?'

That well_known episode, the tradition says, is the first appearance of the rebels. Datan and Aviram were also among those, we are told, who said at the Red Sea "let us turn around and go back to Egypt" (Exodus 14,11).

So we are presented with a picture of these two rebel leaders as backsliders and complainers, from early on. Their grievance is different from Korah's, though somewhat related. This group is descended from Jacob's first_born son Reuben. But their primacy as the first_born has been superceded by the tribe of Judah, which is now listed first among all the tribes. Judah, of course, was the fourth_born son, but it is now Judah which is camped to the East of the Tabernacle and which carries the first banner while on the march, while Reuben is located to the south and marches second. (Numbers Chapter 2) Korah, by the way, also camps to the south alongside the tribe of Reuben, and there is a midrash that the charismatic and persuasive Korah incited the Reubenites; had they not lived side by side there might not have been such a substantial uprising. The conclusion of this particular midrash: "Woe to the wicked and woe to his neighbor."

With both the Korah and the Reubenite rebellions, there is an important link to the earlier rebellion episode of the Golden Calf, when in the absence of Moses the Israelites insisted on the creation of an idol, with the acquiesence of Aaron. The result was an orgy of wanton lustfulness, and then, when Moses returned from Mount Sinai, an orgy of retribution. The Levites, who remained faithful to Moses, were ordered by him to slaughter the unfaithful. Three thousand were executed and the Levites were rewarded with the hereditary priesthood.

The subsequent rebellion by Korah, with which we are now concerned, follows upon these earlier events. Aaron, one might have thought, would have been discredited by his role in the creation of the Golden Calf. But he retained his role as High Priest. Meanwhile, the non_Levite tribes, in particular the first_born Reubenites, were demoted for their participation in the Golden Calf heresy.

This new rebellion, like the earlier one, ends in violent retribution. In fact the Korah story includes one of the most dramatic and horrifying images in the Bible, in which Korah and the households of the Reubenite rebels, down to the tiniest infants, are swallowed up by the earth and plunged into the netherworld, so that not a single descendant survives. Their shrieks can be heard from down below. It is a fearful punishment yet one which the Torah treats as extremely praiseworthy. Further on in the Torah, in Deuteronomy, the swallowing up of Dathan and Aviram is listed as one of God's great deeds, equal to the engulfing of the Egyptian forces in the Red Sea.

This calamitous punishment leads to one more outburst, when the Israelites say to Moses, 'You have killed God's people!' (Numbers 17:6) (Here perhaps we also see echoes of a simmering anger against Moses for that violent conclusion to the Golden Calf episode as well.)

The result of this final rebellious outburst is an outbreak of plague, in which 14,700 more die before things simmer down. 14,700 is a curiously precise number. I have often been fascinated by the use of numbers in the Bible and in the tradition. As we know certain numbers have great significance. Forty for instance, which appears to represent an important transition or stage in life. The tribes spend 40 years in the desert; Jacob and Esau are 40 when they have their fateful confrontation over Isaac's birthright; later in Jewish tradition Rabbi Akiva is supposed to be 40 when he turns to the study of Torah, and so on.

Similarly the number 7 is highly significant; it took seven days to create the world; this number seems to represent completion or perfection. If we examine the rebellion death tolls, you'll recall that 3000 died after the Golden Calf, 14,700 after the Korah rebellion. 14,700 divided by 3000 is 49, or 7x7. Completion squared, as it were. Here, arguably, is another kind of evidence of the link between these wilderness rebellions; in which the Golden Calf is the precursor of the Korah rebellion, and Korah represents the culmination or conclusion of the earlier uprising.

The rebellion quashed, we are left to contemplate its meaning, particularly the apparent repudiation of the democratic ethos expressed by Korah. The rabbis, as I said, saw Korah as a demagogue, his democratic pretensions only a front or a pose. Nevertheless, it seems to me that his arguments must be taken seriously.

In our own age we must certainly be highly skeptical of anyone who, Moses_like, claims to speak in the name of God. But I think we can also see a respect for Korah and his views in the treatment of Korah by the rabbinic tradition, and indeed in the Bible itself. There are certainly passages we can point to in the Bible that support democratic principles. One example is found in the story of Samuel (a descendant of Korah's, by the way, and the subject of this week's Haftorah) in which the prophet warns, famously, against submission to an authoritarian figure, a king.

The rabbis too, in spite of their distrust for someone like Korah who challenges religious authority, had a feeling for democratic values. They took over the leadership of the Jewish people after the destruction of the Temple and the end of the hierarchical, hereditary priesthood. They owed their religious authority to learning, not to birth. They were a meritocracy, certainly a democratic and open institution.

When you compare their midrashic portrayal of Korah _ the flawed sage __ with the portrayal of Datan and Aviram _ whiners and complainers, you can certainly see a difference in attitude and approach. What, then, if anything, is the problem with Korah's argument? All the community is holy, he said, which is surely an expression of fairness and equality. But it is a dangerous notion to imagine that any group is innately holy. As one recent commentator wrote: "The people could kill, or worship gold, or rape the earth __ it could do anything, thought Korah, and still be sacred." (Arthur Waskow)

So contrary to Korah, the quality of holiness is to be achieved; it is a goal that we strive toward and work toward. It is related to what we do, not who we are. Martin Buber wrote, in describing the argument between Korah and Moses: "Generation after generation had to choose again and again...between the way of God and the wrong paths of their own hearts; between life and death."

There is a post_script to this argument and to this parsha, which to me offers a helpful way forward. You'll recall that all of Datan and Aviram's households perished, so no descendant could survive. By contrast, although Korah himself is swallowed up by the earth, several chapters on we learn that the children of Korah did not die. (Numbers 26:11). Instead, they became musicians and poets; the authorship of 13 of the Psalms is attributed to the descendants of Korah. The generations that succeeded Korah thus chose Buber's path, striving for holiness through their lives and their deeds.

And if we examine the psalms that are presented in their name, we find a measure of understanding from them, perhaps even forgiveness, for Korah himself. The Psalmist writes:

(Psalm 88) (and here I believe one can see the image of Korah)

88:4 ...I am like a helpless man,

88:5 adrift among the dead, like corpses lying in the grave, whom you remember no more,

88:6 You place me in the lowest regions of the pit, in the dark places...

88:7 Your anger bears down on me...

88:9 ...I call out to you, O Lord, all day long; I spread out my hands in prayer to you.

Shabbat Shalom.