Parashat Korach

July 2, 2022 | 3 Tamuz 5782

Torah: Numbers 16:1-18:32 | Triennial: 15:8-15:41

Haftarah: I Samuel 17:25-17:32

 

 

 

Disputation Without Denigration

Ilana Kurshan

 

Our parashah tells the story of Korach and his followers, who lead a rebellion to undermine the leadership of Moshe and Aaron in the wilderness. God responds by orchestrating a ceremony involving firepans and flowering staffs to prove that Korach and his followers are in the wrong. The story ends, rather dramatically, with the earth swallowing up the rebels and silencing their claims once and for all.

But the echoes of Korach s rebellion continue to reverberate in the rabbinic imagination, and we might even think of the entire Talmudic project as an antidote to Korach.

In Pirkei Avot (5:19), the rabbis consider effective and ineffective kinds of arguments. In some ways this is ironic, since this tractate of the Mishnah contains very little disagreement. Unlike other tractates, in which the rabbis offer conflicting opinions with regard to matters of Jewish law, Pirkei Avot consists of a compilation of the most famous or noteworthy statements attributed to each sage, with hardly any


dissent. In the fifth chapter, the rabbis teach that all arguments may be divided into two categories. There are arguments for the sake of heaven, which will ultimately endure, such as the arguments of Hillel and Shammai. And then there are arguments that are not for the sake of heaven, which will not ultimately endure, such as those of Korach and his company. In discussing the arguments of Hillel and Shammai, the Talmud teaches (Eruvin 13b) that their two schools disagreed for three years, each insisting that the law should follow their opinion. Essentially this was a meta-argument whose subject was not any one particular matter of law, but rather whose opinion should be followed across the board. Ultimately the matter was settled by a voice from heaven, not unlike the resolution in our parashah, where God intercedes to cause the earth to devour the rebels.

In the dispute between the schools of Hillel and Shammai, the

heavenly voice declared that the law should follow Hillel not because

Hillel was right and Shammai was wrong, since in fact these and these are the words of the living God both Hillel and Shammai spoke God s truth. It was not their particular dissenting opinions that mattered, but rather three aspects of the way in which they disagreed. First, the school of Hillel always spoke in a manner that was respectful and forbearing, showing restraint when affronted. Second, when they taught the law, they would always teach both their statements along with the statements of Shammai. Rashi interprets this to mean that whenever the school of Shammai offered a proof text for their stance,

the school of Hillel would offer their own, different interpretation of that same proof text, thereby using the dispute as an opportunity to teach more Torah. Finally, the school of Hillel would always state Shammai s opinions before their own, first considering the opposing stance and then offering their ruling in response. In all of these ways, Korach and his followers could not have been more different.

Korach s company spoke not from a place of respect and forbearance, but from a place of anger and entitlement: Enough with you! they lashed out at Moshe and Aaron, criticizing them for setting themselves


above the rest of God s congregation. Moshe responded to Korah s claims with a series of reasoned arguments God set Korach and his followers apart as Levites, and Aaron never sought the priesthood in the first place but the Torah does not contain any record of Korach s response. According to the midrash (Bemidbar Rabbah 18:8), Korach refused to engage: With all these arguments, Moshe tried to win Korach over, yet you do not find that the latter returned him any answer. This is because he was clever in his wickedness and thought: If I answer him, I know quite well that he is very wise and will overwhelm me with his arguments, so I shall be reconciled against my will. It is better that I should not engage. Korach was so afraid of losing the argument that he refused to listen to Moshe s side. Moshe then sent for Datan and Aviram, two of the leading rebels, and tried to engage with them, but they insisted, We will not come! (Numbers

16:12). The midrash adds, They too persisted in their wickedness and did not deign to answer him. The Torah suggests–and the midrash leaves no doubt that Korach and his followers stated their claims first and then disappeared, refusing to hear out the other side.

The Talmudic passage in Eruvin about Hillel and Shammai concludes with the lesson we are meant to derive from their style of argumentation: This is to teach you that anyone who humbles himself, God exalts him; and anyone who exalts himself, God humbles him. Anyone who seeks greatness, greatness flees from him; and anyone who flees from greatness, greatness seeks him. Korach exalted himself and sought out greatness, insisting that he and his followers should have the same honor and responsibilities accorded to Moshe and Aaron. As a result, God humbled him and caused greatness to flee from him; he and his followers were swallowed up by the earth, and they and their arguments did not endure.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 110a) imagines an even grimmer fate for Korach and his company. The itinerant sage Rabbah bar bar Hannah recounts that he was once traveling through the desert with an Arab tour guide who offered to show him the place where the earth


swallowed up Korach. The Arab took a patch of wool, wet it, and placed it on the tip of his spear, passing it over some fissures in the earth. The wool was singed from the heat. Rabbah bar bar Hannah leaned down to look more closely, and he heard Korach and his followers singing from the underworld, Moshe and his Torah are truth, and we are liars. In the rabbinic imagination, the rebels are consigned to eternity in the blazing underworld with no one to engage with; all they can do is repeat, in an endless damning loop, the truth they refused to acknowledge when they were alive on earth.

Not surprisingly, the Talmud quotes frequently from Hillel and Shammai, and rarely invokes the names of Korach and his followers. As a literary corpus, the Talmud is driven by disagreement dispute is the engine that propels the Talmud forwards. But in keeping with the school of Hillel, the Talmud will rarely dismiss an opinion from the outset. Rather, as Nahmanides noted (Sefer Milchamot to Sanhedrin

72a), Talmudic reasoning is about trying to come to terms with opinions that differ from one s own. Or, as Devora Steinmetz wrote in her article entitled Talmud Study as a Religious Practice, the Talmud teaches us that our encounter with a text or with the words of a person sitting next to us "demands that we try to make sense of it, that we experiment with ways of seeing whether it might be plausible whether there is a way in which we can understand the words of the other on the way to developing our own best understanding. From Korach we learn how not to argue; from the study of Talmud, we learn how to argue in a way that refines us as thinkers and as human beings.


Do as I Mean, Not as I Say

Vered Hollander-Goldfarb

 

 

Korach led a rebellion against Moshe (and Aaron). Ahead of the incense trial, Korach gathers the congregation against Moshe and Aaron:

 

Text: Bemidbar 16:20-23

 

20And the Lord spoke to Moshe and Aaron, saying, 21 Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in

a moment. 22And they fell on their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, one man sinned, and You shall be angry with all the congregation? 23So the Lord spoke to Moshe, saying, 24 Speak to the congregation, saying, Get away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.

 

What does God instruct Moshe and Aaron to do? Do they follow God’s instruction?

What do they do in response to God s instruction? Why do you think that they fell on their faces? How is that a response to what they were told to do?

Does God seem to accept Moshe and Aaron s argument?

 

 

Commentar y: R. Saadia Gaon (Rasag) Bemidbar 16:21

 

 

Separate yourselves If you separate yourselves [I may consume them in a moment]

How does Rasag understand God s apparent instruction to

Moshe and Aaron?


According to this reading, what do you think that Moshe and Aaron are supposed to do at this moment? Is the text supporting Rasag s reading?

 

Following the death of the people who brought incense, the people of Israel complained that Moshe and Aaron had caused the death of the people.

Here is what follows:

 

 

Text: Bemidbar 17:9-13

 

 

9And the Lord spoke to Moshe, saying, 10 Lift yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. And they fell on their faces. 11And Moshe said to Aaron, Take a censer and take it quickly to the congregation and atone for them; for wrath has

gone out from the Lord, the plague has begun. 12Then Aaron took it as Moshe commanded and ran into the midst of the assembly; and he put in the incense and atoned for the people. 13 And he stood between the dead and the living and the plague was stopped.

How is Moshe s and Aaron s response like that of the previous chapter? How does their response differ? What might be the reasons for the differences?

 

Commentar y: R. Saadia Gaon Bemidbar 17:10

 

 

Lift yourselves if you lift yourselves [I may consume them in a moment]

 

 

What caused R. Saadia Gaon to interpret this verse along the line of the verse in the previous chapter?


If God wanted Moshe and Aaron to intervene, why not instruct them to do so? When do we choose not to let people know what we would like them to do but rather tell them the possible consequences if they do not intervene?

 

 

 

 

Saul and Eve

Bex Stern Rosenblatt

 

It is hard to read the story of Saul. The nation meets him first as a shy giant, a massive boy who buries his head to hide among the baggage when he is introduced as king. This is the child who, keeping good company with all the leaders of Israel, tried to turn down his call to lead, protesting that he did not deserve it. But the spirit of God descends upon him and he takes his place as first king of Israel, changing into a man possessed, angry and willing to fight for his nation. However, along the way tragedy strikes. Saul loses the favor of God when he fails to completely eliminate the Ameliketes in precisely

the right way. Without the spirit of God resting on him, Saul spends the rest of his days haunted. Consumed with the fear of losing power, Saul becomes his own enemy. In the end, he is one of the few biblical characters to commit suicide.

Saul occupies the unfavorable position of first king of Israel. As we are reminded in this week s haftarah, it was a mistake for the Israelites to request a king. God is our king – to ask for a human one is to be just like all the other nations and reject the rulership of God. And yet, Saul did not ask to be king. He tried to run from it. Why was he made our king? And was he set up to fail? Was he made to lose his sanity in order to teach Israel a point? Why must we suffer through reading the long story of his decline into paranoia?


There is another biblical story often referenced when considering whether God sets us up to fail. A common reading of the prohibitions of the garden of Eden is that God put them there for us to transgress. God intended for us to gain knowledge and be exiled. Eve and Adam also did not ask to be firsts, to take on the role of the beginning of all humanity. When God calls for them, they hide just as Saul hides when the nation calls him.

The similarities continue – both Eve and Saul encounter a wily nahash. In the garden of Eden story, it is the snake, nahash, in Hebrew, who convinced Eve to eat from the fruit which is forbidden to her. In Saul s story, it is Nahash, leader of the Ammonites. This Nahash offers a horrible choice to an Israelite city – surrender and I will gouge the right eye of each one of you in order to make you a disgrace, or fight and die. Saul helps the people of this city reject the terms of the deal, coming in and scattering the army of Nahash. But Saul does not totally destroy the army and later it is for Saul s failure to totally destroy another army that the nation will be ripped from him.

Eve and Saul both are called, both hide from their callings and engage with a nahash. Both fail in the tasks that God gives to them. But while they do fail in the end, and maybe are even destined to fail, they do also do well for a time. Eve and Saul represent the first stages of something, Eve the first human and Saul the first king. Perhaps God never intended for humanity to happen just as God seems to regard human kingship as a mistake. Nonetheless, through the stories of Eve and Saul, we get better. David is a better king than Saul. Rebecca is better at attending to God s words than Eve is and from Rebecca, Israel is born. While it is hard to read our failures, we do get better. If God sets us up to fail, God also makes growth and change possible.