MOSES SENT TO CALL DATHAN AND ABIRAM, THE SONS OF ELIAB, BUT THEY SAID, "WE WILL NOT GO UP. IS IT NOT ENOUGH THAT YOU HAVE BROUGHT US OUT OF A LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY TO KILL US IN THE DESERT, THAT YOU SHOULD ALSO EXERCISE AUTHORITY OVER US? YOU HAVE NOT EVEN BROUGHT US TO A LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY, NOR HAVE YOU GIVEN US AN INHERITANCE OF FIELDS AND VINEYARDS. EVEN IF YOU GOUGE OUT THE EYES OF THOSE MEN, WE WILL NOT GO UP."

(Bamidbar 16:12-14)

 

And He said unto the woman: Yea [af] God has said: "You shall not eat of any tree of the garden. R. Hanina ben Sansan said: Four commenced [their sin] with af' [yea] and were destroyed through af. And they are these: The serpent, the chief baker, the congregation of Korah, and Haman. The serpent: And he said unto the woman: Yea [af] God has said, etc. (Bereishit 3). The chief baker: I also [af] saw in my dream (Bereishit 40). The congregation of Korah: Moreover [af] you have not brought us unto a land, etc. (Bamidbar 41). Haman: Yea [af] Esther the queen did let no man come in, etc. (Esther 5).

(Bereishit Rabbah 19:2, based on Soncino translation)

 

But their impudence reached a climax in the very use they made of the description applied to the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. When was this description first applied to the Land? Surely it was the crux of God's revelation to Moses at the burning bush, when he was first apprised of the message of redemption: And the Lord said: I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their pains. I shall come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them unto a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey (Shemot 3:7-8). Go and gather the elders of Israel and say to them: "The God of your fathers appeared to me... and I have said: 'I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite and Hittite... to a land flowing with milk and honey'" (Shemot 3:16-17). This was the message imparted by Moses to the elders of Israel when he returned from Midian. Again, before their departure from Egypt, when the Lord imparted to the Israelites the precepts of the Passover they were told: And it shall come to pass when the Lord will bring you to the land of the Canaanite... which He vowed to your fathers to give you a land flowing with milk and honey, then you shall perform this service (Shemot 13:5). Then, even after the sin of the calf and Moses' intercession and the averting of the retribution, when the Lord became reconciled to His people and re-accepted them, they were again promised: Depart and go up hence you and the people you have brought up out of the land of Egypt... and I will send an angel before you... to a land flowing with milk and honey (Shemot 33:1-3). Even the spies, with all their malicious intent, could not deny, though but weakly, grudgingly admitting: We came to the land to which you dispatched us, and it does indeed flow with milk and honey (13:27). This description of the Promised Land, the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is applied by Dothan and Abiram to the land of abominations, the house of bondage, the iron furnace - to Egypt: Is it but a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey? (16:13). It is again evident here that the literalists (Ibn Ezra and RaShBaM) out of their slavish adherence to the wording have not plumbed the depths of its real and profounder meaning in their comment: Who brought us forth from a goodly place. By this all the sting is taken out of Dathan and Abiram's words. The Israelites had already lauded Egypt as the place of the fleshpot as the place where they had eaten fish for nothing. They had wistfully yearned for it even before this. But here is something new and unprecedented - a complete reversal of values, calling black white and white black. What was slavery is termed freedom, the land of uncleanness is given the title exclusively applied to the Holy Land. It is a symbol for all time to all those who in the lands of their dispersion proclaim: "Here is our Jerusalem!"

(Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in Bamidbar (Aryeh Newman, translator) pp. 205-210.)

 

"Korah Our Brother!"

Yehonatan Chipman

One Shabbat Korah some years ago, I happened to daven at a rather anti-establishment, bohemian sort of minyan. The rabbi–teacher–preacher began his talk on that occasion with the words: "Korah, you are our brother!" He went on to state that the Hozeh of Lublin  - a focal figure in early 19^th century Hasidism, who bridged between the tradition of the Maggid and the emergent school of Pshyshcha-Kotzk - used to refer to him as der Zeidey Koirakh - "Grandfather Korah." He added that anyone with sense refrained from taking sides in the great controversy between Moses and Korah; it was only after the Divine verdict was issued, in the dramatic form of the earth swallowing Korah, that it became clear that Moses' position was correct.

What is the meaning of this underground tradition that turns everything most of us have ever learned about Korah upside down? Is there indeed ground for a sympathetic, even positive reading of Korah?

A number of the best-known, almost canonical midrashim (Num. Rab. 18.3) about Korah show him challenging several basic halakhic institutions. Thus he ridicules the mitzvah of tzitzit, in which one thread suffices to make an entire garment kosher, parading before Moses with 300 followers, all dressed in pure blue robes. He similarly ridicules the mezuzah, the small container with two brief parshiyot from the Torah that is a sine-qua-non for the door of every Jewish home, by asking whether a house "full of books" still needs a mezuzah. Yet a third midrash relates the story of an unfortunate widow whose meager financial resources are depleted by Moses' relentless demands: first by the ordinances requiring tithes from field crops and fruits, then by the first-born of the flocks, the first sheering of the sheep, etc., etc. Several contemporary Rabbinic scholars have suggested that these midrashim may have served as an outlet for the Sages' own doubts and qualms about certain aspects of the legalistic, formalistic mind-frame of the halakhah - safely projected onto Korah, who is presented as the arch-heretic of early Biblical history.

In seeking an answer to my question, I turned to the arch master of paradox in the proto–modern period - the Hasidic teacher R. Mordecai of Izhbitz, author of Mei ha-Shiloah. The Izhbitzer has two interesting things to say about Korah: First, that Korah debunked tzitzit because they symbolize yirat shamayim, whereas Korah held that, in a certain sense, yirat shamyim is immanent in every Jew. That is, a person cannot help but do the will of God, because everything that a person does in life ultimately comes from God - even his own personal will. (What Korah overlooked is that we are nevertheless given free will, even if no more than the dimensions of a garlic peel, because God desires that man serve him with at least the illusion of free will.)

What is meant by this? At first blush, this doctrine seems perilously close to determinism, emptying of meaning the dictum of Hazal, "Everything is in the hands of Heaven except for the fear of Heaven" (Berakhot 33b). But one expert on Izhbitzer Hasidism explained to me that this does not mean that man has no freedom but that, to the contrary, he has radical freedom: so much so, that at times the "religiously correct" choice is to be found, not through a conventional halakhic-legalist approach, but by seeking "the will of God." And indeed, when confronting the truly significant choices in life, the crossroads, the major ethical nexuses, the halakhah is inadequate to show the way a person must walk. At times, God may show him the way; if a person looks deeply within his own soul, with absolute honesty and integrity, taking care to eliminate any ulterior motives, he may merit to hear the voice of God.

Second: Korah was a radical democrat. His basic charge against Moses was that "the entire congregation is holy, and God is in their midst; why then do you lift yourselves up above the congregation of the Lord." Korah is portrayed by Mei ha-Shiloah as anticipating that great day, portrayed inter alia in the aggadah at the end of Ta'anit, in which the righteous will dance in a circle, each one pointing with his finger at the Holy One, blessed be He, who stands in the center of the circle, saying: "This is the Lord for whom we have waited and who will save us; this is the Lord for whom we have waited, we will rejoice and be glad in His salvation!" Korah's error, according to the Izhbitzer, was not in assuming radical equality among all people, but in seeing it as something imminent in his own day rather than as an event that would have to wait for the End of Days.

These two issues - determinism vs. free will, and egalitarianism vs. hierarchy -  are central issues in the modern world. Many scientists, in studying the functioning of the brain, will argue that most of our rejections and behavior patterns are "hard-wired" into our physical nature, and that our conscious control and choice regarding our response to various situations is far less than we would like to believe.

One concrete example: the controversy regarding homosexuality, viz. same-sex marriage and ordination of homosexuals as rabbis, which recently rocked Conservative Judaism both here and in the United States, is closely related to the widely-accepted assumption that homosexual orientation is in some sense predetermined, non-voluntaristic, and thus not really subject to free will in any meaningful sense. Yet in the hundreds of pages of discussion by the best minds of the Conservative movement (at least in the major positions that I have read), the issue of free-will vs. determinism is barely mentioned. It seems to me that the issue of how to deal with people who seem to be forced by their genetic makeup to behave in ways forbidden by the Torah is a basic one, with far-reaching theological implications.

The second issue raised by the Izhbitzer, invoked by the image of all of Israel dancing in a circle, is that of democracy, of the innate equality of all human beings. There is hardly need to elaborate upon the fact that this is a basic element of the contemporary cultural mood or mentalité; the post-modern reluctance to make any unequivocal moral, aesthetic, spiritual or other value judgments may be traced to the feeling that "Who am I to say that my opinion is truer than that of anyone else?" This is diametrically opposed to the traditional view of Judaism, which accepts the obvious differences between human beings in terms of intelligence, learning, talents and abilities of various sorts, and even moral sensibility. Moses is seen as the true teacher and prophet, the exclusive conduit for conveying the divine Torah to Israel, and as the paradigm for the authority of Sages in later generations. And yet, as the Izhbitzer observes, in the End of Days all will be equal in their direct experiencing of the immanent God. Korah's "only" error was in "jumping the gun."

*****

To conclude, very briefly: What is implied by the choice of haftarah for this reading? On the face of it, it seems diametrically opposed to the message of the Korah story. Rather than the "populist" tendencies of Korah, here (in 1 Sam 8) the people practically beg Samuel to appoint a king, a centralized, authoritarian leader, "like all the other nations" - to which Samuel is adamantly opposed, reminding them that "the lord your God [alone!] is your king." Perhaps this haftarah was chosen for precisely that reason: that they must not give up on the messianic, utopian vision in which all stand directly before God as king; that the ideal of an egalitarian society, expressed davka through the mouth of Korah , is not a bad thing per se.

Rabbi Jonathan Chipman is a translator by profession, and a scholar in Jewish studies. He writes a weekly sheet (in English) on the portion of the week and the Haftara, titled "Hitsei Yehonatan". (Anyone interested in ordering a sample of subscription can write via email to: yonarand@internet-zahav.net.)

 

A tallit that is entirely azure [nonetheless] requires tziztit.

(Masekhet Tzitzit 1:1)

 

Rav said: Korah was an apikoras ["Epicurean" or heretic]. What did he do? He stood and made a tallit that was completely azure. He came before Moses and said to him: "Moses our Rabbi! Why should a tallit that is completely azure be in need of tzitzit?" He told him: "It is in need of tzitzit, for it is written: Make yourself fringes, etc."

"A house that is full of Torah scrolls, why should it require a mezuzah?" He told him: "It needs a mezuzah, for it is written: And write them on the doorposts of your house, etc."

He said to him: "What is [the law concerning someone having] a skin discoloration the size of a grit?" He told him: "[The person is] unclean." "If he is completely covered with it?" He said: "He is clean."

At that moment Korah said: "There is no Torah from Heaven and Moses is not a prophet and Aaron is not the High Priest."

(J. Sanhedrin 10a)

 

The Power of Enflaming and Inciting Demagoguery

You know how easily the "spirits" - the minds - of the masses can be swayed to wrong ideas by the influence exerted by the superior intellect of one who hitherto had enjoyed unbridled confidence and who places dazzling prospects and highly colored assertions before them. When the masses rise to commit crime, as a rule the true guilt lies with a few superior agitators. Then, when humans intervene against the crime, all too often it is the less guilty masses who have been led astray who bleed and suffer while the real guilty ones go free. But You are God, the God of the spirits of all flesh. As God Almighty you can reach those whom You recognize as the guilty ones, and as God, the God of the spirits of all flesh You know how to measure the real guilt of each one.

(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch on Bamidbar 16:22, based on Levi translation)

 

And Korah's sons did not die

For the conductor on shoshannim, of the sons of Korah. R. Pinhas said: Anyone who sees them says they are thorns - and why? Because they were together with the thorns, and it is natural for thorns to catch fire, as it says, thorns cut down that are set on fire, and it is written, and fire went forth from before the Lord. But the sons of Korah were roses who were gathered up from amongst them and the Holy One Blessed be he jumped to save them, My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the spice bed... to gather roses. It can be compared to a parable: A king entered the city and the citizens came to crown him with a crown of gold set with precious stones and pearls, but they were then told that the king does not want [a crown] of gold but rather one of roses. The citizens rejoiced. So too the sons of Korah and his congregation said, "The Holy One blessed be He wants pans of gold." The holy One blessed be He said, "Why would I need [pans] of gold? The gold is already mine! And even the incense, why would I want incense? It is an abomination to Me. But what do I ask for? Roses. The sons of Korah said: "We are roses." The Holy One blessed be he said: "You have won - Lamenatze'ah ["for the conductor - also literally: "for the victor"] on shoshanim [literally: "roses"].

(Yalkut Shimoni, Tehillim 45:747)

 

There were believers, sincere believers, throughout the generations, who believed in the holiness resting in the People Israel itself, due to its being the People Israel, and not because it bears a particular mission. If we wanted to formulate the idea in cynical terms, we would be able to say in response to that which was said about Korah and his congregation, who were buried in the ground, that elsewhere it is written, And the sons of Korah did not die. The sons of Korah are alive and well unto this day, only that their religious faith finds expression in that they depend upon the holiness having been granted to the People Israel, of which they are sons, and that therefore they have already achieved the status which someone who is commanded to read the Shema strives to attain... I want now to quote from the words of Rabbi Yaakov Moshe HaRLaP, one of the rabbis of Jerusalem and a student of Rabbi Kook (from his book of commentary and meditations upon the RaMBaM's Eight Chapters): "What is the most important thing in human existence?" - and for him human existence is, of course, existence before God - is it the achievements man reaches, or the efforts he makes towards those achievements? Rabi HaRLaP, following words he found in the RaMBaM and which he interprets, says that the most important thing is the effort a person expends trying to achieve something, and to this he adds something else of great interest: the value of that effort does not depend upon whether the goal is achieved or not. And not only that: it could be that man knows that he is striving to attain an unattainable goal, but the effort he makes towards reaching it is itself the ultimate value.

(Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, z"l, He'arot LeParshiyot HaShavua, pp. 97-98)

 

And Korah took: Korah was envious of Moses, and now he took advantage of the opportunity when Israel was grieving over the edict of [punishment for the sin of the] spies and the destruction, and he set out to execute his plan.

Korah and his congregation had seen all of the wonders performed by Moses; how could they possibly not believe in his commission [by God]? And if they, who were eye-witnesses, did not believe, then that creates doubts about Moses, that perhaps his [miraculous] deeds were fakes. However, the truth is that Korah and the people of his group did not deny the authenticity of Moses' signs and did not suggest that he used human trickery. After all, they said, For all the community are holy, all of them, thereby admitting that God did indeed dwell in Israel's midst and did perform signs and wonders for them. Rather, Korah and his group made a great error because they had grown accustomed to living among the idolatrous Egyptians, learning false opinions from them about the Divinity and Providence. Korah and his group believed that there was a God in Israel, and that that God, known as the Lord, had promised their fathers to give them the land, and that He performed signs and wonders. However, they further believed that through the action of special rites God had entered into a covenant with the priests and sages who knew the manner of His worship, that He would do their bidding. They believed that Moses, using God's power, did great things, but they also believed that God could be enticed by Moses, and hearken to him, when he would perform desirable rites before Him. Now that the Tabernacle had been erected and they came to know the laws of sacrifices, and the manner of worship that is pleasing to God, they thought that anyone could be a priest and prophet, not just Aaron and Moses. Korah aggrandized himself and said: I shall be a priest and a prophet, and the Lord shall answer me with miracles and wonders just as he had answered Moses and his elder brother - shall I and my brothers now serve as your arms-bearers? Moses understood his intention and told them: Take pans for yourselves, and see if your worship and incense are acceptable in their own right before Him - no matter who the burner of incense may be - or is it the Lord's will that he who burns incense before Him shall be special, chosen and beloved by Him.

(ShaDaL on Bamidbar 16:1)

 

 

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