Korah

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A D’var Torah for Parashat Korah
By Rabbi Bruce Alpert (’11)

“The Torah of Adonai is perfect, reviving the soul,” reads the psalm (19:8). The word used here for perfection, temimah, implies completeness, but also simplicity, like a platonic ideal – something that exists in our minds but which can only be rendered in flawed representation here on earth. To change something that is perfect is to diminish it. Thus, the idea of perfection in revelation can lead one to a kind of fundamentalism that summarily rejects changes as thwarting, or at least diminishing, God’s will.

Yet, the Torah that is the Book of Numbers challenges this conception of perfection. In last week’s parashah, we learned that the Israelites did not know what to do with one who violated the Sabbath and needed Moses’s intervention to find out (Numbers 15:32-36). In the previous parashah, the Israelites challenged Moses over who was disqualified from offering the Pesach Read More >

A D’var Torah for Korah
by Rabbi Isaac Mann

The conflict between Moses and Korah, which occupies much of this week’s parashah, is usually seen as a struggle between right and wrong. Indeed the Torah itself warns us (Numb. 17:5) that we should not be like Korah and his followers (ve’lo yiyeh khe’Korah ve’kha’a’doto). In a similar vein the Rabbis in Pirkei Avot (Chapters of the Fathers 5:20) depict Korah and his followers as engaging in a mahloket she’lo le’shem Shamayim (“a conflict that is antithetical to Heaven”) and thus one that we should stay away from. In the Talmud (Sanhedrin 109b) it is stated, according to R. Akiva, that Korah and his followers have no portion in the World to Come.

However, a more nuanced reading of the Korah story leaves one wondering whether there was some merit in the arguments that he advanced against Moses’ and Aaron’s leadership – and to Read More >

by Rabbi Isaac Mann

Much ink has been spilled on trying to explain what motivated Korach and his followers to rebel against Moses and Aaron, which is the main story in this week’s Torah portion. Was it jealousy, envy, desire for honor or power, dissatisfaction with Moses’ leadership, or maybe all of the above?

Interestingly, as if the above are not enough, we also find other explanations of a more halakhic nature playing a role in the dispute between Korach and Moses. The Midrash (Midrash Tanhuma, beginning of the parashah), part of which is quoted by Rashi (ad loc.), suggests that Korach began his dispute with Moses by summoning the Sanhedrin (i.e. the religious leadership at the time) and asking them to rule on whether a tallit that is entirely dyed with tekheilet (a kind of bluish-purple dye) still needs tzitzit consisting of only one tekheilet fringe on each corner. When the issue was Read More >