Korach 5784
By Neil Cohen
This week’s parasha of Korach is also known in some places as the parasha of machloket – strife.
It tells the story we know of Korach and 250 respected chieftains questioning Moses’s authority which ends with them all being swallowed by the ground.
A study of the biblical account of Korach’s rebellion against Moses, and of the numerous Midrashim and Commentaries describing Korach’s personality and actions, yields a complex, even contradictory picture. Korach was no ordinary rabble-rouser. He was a leading member of Kehatites, the most prestigious of the Levite families. Joining him in his mutiny against Moses and Aaron were “two hundred and fifty men of Israel, leaders of the community, of those regularly called to assembly, men of renown.” Korach’s difference with Moses was an ideological one, driven by the way in which he understood Israel’s relationship with G‑d and by the manner in which he felt the nation ought to be structured.
Yet Korach is regarded as the father of all quarrelers: his very name is synonymous with disharmony and conflict. The Talmud goes so far as to proclaim: “Anyone who engages in divisiveness transgresses a divine prohibition, as it is written: ‘And he shall not be as Korach and his company.'” But if there is more to Korach — the person and the idea — than a jealousy-drive power struggle, why does every petty squabbler fall under the umbrella of “Don’t be like Korach”?
Obviously, there is something at the heart of Korach’s contentions that is the essence of all disunity.
The particulars of Korach’s campaign also require explanation. What exactly did Korach want? His arguments against Moses and Aaron seem fraught with contradiction. On the one hand, he seems to challenge the very institution of the kehunah (“priesthood”), declaiming to Moses and Aaron: “The entire community is holy, and G‑d is within them; why do you raise yourselves over the congregation of G‑d?”
But from Moses’ response (“Is it not enough for you that the G‑d of Israel has distinguished you from the community of Israel… that you also desire the priesthood?”) we see that Korach actually desired the office of the Kohen Gadol for himself!
This paradox appears time and again in various accounts of Korach’s mutiny in the Midrashim and the commentaries. Korach comes across as a champion of equality, railing against a “class system” that categorizes levels of holiness within the community. Yet, in the same breath, he contends that he is the more worthy candidate for the High Priesthood.
If Korach is seen as such a divisive character and his name is one of the few names given to a parasha of a “wrong un” is it to be used as a warning when most of the other “named” parshiot are after the “good guys” such as Noach, Chayei Sarah, Yitro etc ?
Is there a link between these actions in Torah and the world today? Is it controversial to say that certain people leading the world are Korach in behaviour or is that too simple?
God hates strife, discord, and division between brothers, calling the one who sows them an abomination – so maybe we just need to try to get along and be less Korach and more ????