Power versus Influence (Korach, Covenant & Conversation) |
The Korach rebellion was an unholy alliance of individuals and groups united by their grievances with Moses’ leadership. There was Korach himself, a member of the tribe of Levi, angry (according to Rashi) that he had not been given a more prominent role. There were the Reubenites, Datan and Aviram, who resented the fact that the key leadership positions were taken by Levites rather than members of their own tribe. Reuben had been Jacob’s firstborn, so some of his descendants felt that they should have been accorded seniority. Then there were the two hundred and fifty “leaders of the community, chosen from the assembly, men of repute” who felt aggrieved (according to Ibn Ezra) that after the sin of the Golden Calf, leadership had passed from the firstborn to a single tribe, the Levites. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. The Korach story is an all too familiar tale of frustrated ambition and petty jealousy – what the Sages called “an argument not for the sake of heaven.”
What is most extraordinary about the episode, however, is Moses’ reaction. For the first and only time, he invokes a miracle to prove the authenticity of his mission:
“By this you will know that the Lord sent me to do these deeds; it was not my idea. If all these men die as others do, and share the common fate of all humanity, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates something entirely new, so that the ground opens its mouth and swallows them and all they have, and they go down alive to Sheol, then you will know that these men have provoked the Lord. (Num. 16:28-30)
“By this you will know that the Lord sent me to do these deeds; it was not my idea. If all these men die as others do, and share the common fate of all humanity, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates something entirely new, so that the ground opens its mouth and swallows them and all they have, and they go down alive to Sheol, then you will know that these men have provoked the Lord. (Num. 16:28-30)
In effect, Moses uses his power to eliminate the opposition. What a contrast this is to the generosity of spirit he showed just a few chapters earlier, when Joshua came to tell him that Eldad and Medad were prophesying in the camp, away from Moses and the seventy elders. Joshua regarded this as a potentially dangerous threat to Moses’ leadership and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!” Moses’ reply is one of the most majestic in the whole of Tanach:
“Are you jealous for me? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put His spirit upon them all! (Num. 11:29)
“Are you jealous for me? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put His spirit upon them all! (Num. 11:29)
What was the difference between Eldad and Medad on the one hand, and Korach and his co-conspirators on the other? What is the difference between Moses saying, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets,” and Korach’s claim that “All the community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s people”[1]? Why was the first, but not the second, a legitimate sentiment?
Is Moses simply being inconsistent? Hardly. There never was a religious leader more clear-sighted. There is a distinction here which goes to the very core of the two narratives. The Sages, in one of their most profound methodological observations, said that “the words of the Torah may be poor in one place but rich in another.” By this they meant that, if we seek to understand a perplexing passage, we may need to look elsewhere in the Torah for the clue. A similar idea is expressed in the last of Rabbi Ishmael’s thirteen rules of biblical interpretation:
“Where there are two passages........