In this week’s Torah portion, we read of the rebellion led by Korach against Moses and Aaron. Korach’s accusation was a classic populist play: he argued that Moses and Aaron had staged a power grab, appointing themselves to leadership without G-d’s mandate. His “glib” proof? Because the entire Jewish nation is holy, they didn’t need leaders at all. G-d did not appoint Moses and Aaron; they appointed themselves.

This rebellion occurred shortly after the disaster of the Spies. When the Spies returned with a negative report, Caleb (one of the two who remained loyal) argued that if Moses commanded them to go, they would surely succeed. He famously declared that even if Moses told them to build ladders to the sky, they would do it, because Moses’ word was G-d’s word. In contrast, the other ten spies argued that neither Moses nor G-d could make them win this war. G-d’s miracles were reserved for the desert, they argued, but in the “natural” world of civilization, the natural patterns rule. G-d doesn’t intervene.

The nation saw the gruesome death of those ten spies, and they saw their own sentence for turning against Moses: they were sentenced to forty years of wandering in the desert for their lack of faith. They would not be permitted to........

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