Come Rosh Hashanah who will be the Prime Minister of this country or Israel?
How often does the main theme of the Torah portion seem to be a comment on the headline news of the week. A boon for the preacher if not for the congregant who came to shul to escape the News! This week the title of the sedra is Korach, the name of the leader of one of the revolts against the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Strange to give such prominence to the actual villain of the episode.
The sedra opens (Numbers 16:1) “Now Korach, son of Izhar, son of Kohat, son of Levi….”. So it was a family dispute. Korach was a cousin of Moses and Aaron’s equally descended from their great grandfather Levi. They were relatives of the same tribe so how come Moses and Aaron took on sole leadership of the Israelites. Korach’s charge : “All the community are holy, why do you raise yourselves above God’s congregation?”
Soon other rebels joined in, Reubenites who pointed out that their ancestor Reuben, and not Levi, was the first-born son of Jacob, whose other name was Israel, and so they should have been hereditary rulers.
How often have family disputes led to great and lasting unhappiness, to legal challenges or even outright war. How often must those in leadership roles have wished that the solution in the sedra solved their problems, for we are told that after Moses tried to reason with the rebels, the ground opened and swallowed them all alive (Numbers 16:31-33)!
My mind goes to the challenges to the leadership of the United Kingdom at this very moment. Nowadays in trying to judge who is right and who is wrong we are bombarded with false news. But then so was Moses! The Reubenite rebels confront him with “Is it not enough that you brought us from a land flowing with milk and honey that you also lord it over us?” (Numbers 16:13). Egypt a land of milk and honey – false news indeed to gain support from the community living frugally in the Sinai desert.
Sadly disputes, arguments, challenges to the status quo have always occurred ever since Cain killed his brother. It seems part of human nature. In the so called “Holiness Code” immediately before the key “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) we are commanded : “You shall not hate your neighbor in your heart, reprove your kin, do not take vengeance, do not bear a grudge..” It seems to lay down the rules for a difference of opinion: say when you think someone or something is wrong, but do so without trying to harm your opponent. It says in Pirke Avot (5:20): “Every controversy that is in the name of Heaven will endure, but any not in the name of Heaven will not endure.”
The difficult decision is: which argument or point of view or platform “is in the name of heaven” and which is not? The judgement we might make as we face elections in this country and maybe in Israel, which argument is made for the good of the country and which for the personal promotion of those putting it forth.
- Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein is Emeritus Rabbi of The Ark Synagogue