Korach
Can we imagine an open future full of possibilities?
Reflection by Zac Newman, Or HaLev Program Director & Teacher:
"This week’s portion is a lesson in subtlety. Korach, at the head of 250 leaders of the community, challenges Moshe and Aharon’s leadership:
`The entire community is holy, all of them, and the Divine is within them; why do you raise yourselves over the divine congregation?` (Numbers 16:3)
It’s a reasonable question. Equality is beautiful and just. So in what way is Korach mistaken?
The Chasidic masters explain that the Torah is associated with the number three, the third day of creation, and the third millennium in our calendar, during which the revelation at Sinai occurred. In the symbolism of this mystical framework, the number one is one-pointed, with no room for diversity. The number two is adversarial: one against another.
The number three does not seek to blur all distinctions. It does not seek to squash difference and reduce two to one. But it does not get caught in difference either. It goes beyond either/or, introducing a third element which, as the Lubavitcher Rebbe explains in a teaching for this week, `expresses the concept of peace: the existence of two different or even polar entities, but with the addition of a third, unifying element that embraces and pervades them both, bringing them in harmony with each other by defining their common essence and goal, but also their respective roles in the actualization of this essence and the attainment of this goal — and thus their relationship with each other.`
Korach’s is a violent response to the reality of difference. He makes it a problem and looks to eradicate it altogether. The Torah’s teaching is subtler: difference is important, enriching and relational, and we shouldn’t stop there. We shouldn’t forget that beyond all differences there is something shared. Beyond two there is three, which is peace.
Korach is honoured by having this week’s portion named after him. This is a recognition of the intelligence and goodness in his yearning for equality and his efforts to improve his society.
And ultimately, in one of the most striking and fearsome images in the Torah, the ground opens up and swallows him. He becomes part of the earth. The earth, the common ground beneath our feet, has the last word here. Underneath all distinction lies a fundamental commonality.
It is sometimes in moments of greatest difficulty that we most appreciate this. When it gets really tough, we can let go of the everyday divisions. We just want to be together, in mutual support and care.
Korach teaches us the pitfalls of simplification. In vibrancy and fullness let us honour our differences, our different roles in different situations over the course of each day and over the course of our lives. And may the power of this story sustain a lasting recognition of the wider wholeness which holds the differences, spaciously and respectfully, with courage and with love."