Numbers 16:1-18:32

 

Altogether Holy

 

Korah is the villain of this week’s Torah reading, the leader of a foiled rebellion against Moses and Aaron. “Look, all of us are holy,” Korah said to them. By this he meant that he and his family were, like Moses and Aaron, all members of the sacred tribe of Levi. As such, Korah argued, they all ought to have an equal claim on the priesthood—so there was no reason for Aaron and his descendants to be the only kohanim (priests) serving in Israel’s sanctuary.

 

An ancient midrash connected Korah’s attempted rebellion to what immediately preceded the Torah’s account of it. Last week’s Torah reading ended with the law of tassels (tzitziyot), according to which a four-cornered garment (like the tallit worn in synagogues today) had to have a specially colored thread at each of its four corners. The color, a shade of blue called in Hebrew tekhelet, wasn’t easily acquired; in fact it came from a dye that was ultimately declared extinct in post-biblical times.

 

According to the midrash, when Korah heard Moses’ proclamation of this law, he said, “Here’s my chance!” Turning to Moses, Korah asked: “Does a garment that has already been dyed completely tekhelet still need the tekhelet-colored tassel on its four corners?” “Yes,” replied Moses. “And a room that is full of Torah scrolls—does it still need a mezuzah on the doorway?” “Yes,” Moses again answered.

 

It’s clear that Korah was trying to impugn Moses’ authority by showing the laws he had just transmitted to be illogical. After all, if seeing only a single thread of the color tekhelet was required, then certainly a whole garment of that color, even without the colored corner thread, would serve the same purpose. Similarly, if a single piece of inscribed parchment posted at the doorway of a room could serve as a mezuzah, then wouldn’t a whole room full of Torah scrolls be sufficient without even without a mezuzah at its entrance?

 

There was a hidden message in these two questions. What was on Korah’s mind was the special status of Aaron and his descendants. “We’re all Levites,” Korah had said, and in that sense, he claimed, they were all like equal threads in a tekhelet-dyed garment. If so, why single out one particular thread—Aaron and his descendants—from all the others? Similarly, if all Levites were comparable to room full of Torah scrolls, all of them containing the words of God, why should a special little parchment be singled out and put at the room’s entrance?

 

In discussing the weekly Torah portion, I like to stay away from current events, but seeing the connection of Koraḥ’s rebellion with happenings in both Israel and the U.S. seems unavoidable this week. In both places, self-interested politicians seem bent on masquerading their personal gain as just what “the people” need.

 

Perhaps such political shenanigans are inevitable, and in any case, drawing comparisons to the weekly Torah reading won’t solve the problem. But perhaps it can lead us to regard with skepticism anyone who claims to speak for the interests of the people as a whole, when most of the time all they have in mind is acquiring power or holding onto it. “All of us are the same” rarely means that.

 

Shabbat shalom!