JTS Torah Commentary

Korah’s Rebellion in Blue and White

Jun 12, 2010 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Korah

From what time do they recite the morning Sh’ma [prayer]? From when [there is sufficient light] in order to distinguish between blue and white.

—Mishnah Berakhot 1:2

What was the nature of Korah’s great rebellion?

The Desire for Power

Jun 27, 2009 By Jonathan Milgram | Commentary | Korah

This week’s Torah reading, Korah, has a central theme: encroachment on the Tabernacle and its related punishments. No fewer than four separate uprisings are recorded in our reading, all associated with Korah: (1) the Levites against Aaron and Moses, (2) Dathan and Aviram against Moses, (3) the heads of the tribes against Aaron, and (4) the whole community against Moses and Aaron. The punishments for at least two of these rebellions are clearly documented: Dathan and Aviram are swallowed up by the ground and the tribal leaders are burned by a divinely sent fire. Korah’s fate, however, is not as clearly stated. It may be that he dies with the tribal heads or that he is consumed by the earth with Dathan and Aviram.

Reading Like the Rabbis

Jun 28, 2008 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Korah

Grab a thick book and a cold drink and head for a comfy chair at a lake, beach, or pool. Lose yourself in luxurious chapters of artful narrative and savor the unique culture of a well-constructed novel or the incisive analysis of a work of nonfiction. This is the great joy of summer reading: to slow down enough to indulge in what is otherwise impossible, to enter the world of literature.

What Makes Us Holy?

Jul 1, 2006 By Charles Savenor | Commentary | Korah

Remembered mainly as the power–hungry rebel swallowed by the earth for challenging Moses and Aaron’s authority, Korah is also depicted by the Midrash as a wealthy and successful former minister in Pharaoh’s court and the patriarch of his Levitical family clan.

Who is Holy?

Jul 2, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Korah

This week’s parashah opens with a prideful challenge to the authority of Moses and Aaron as leaders of the Children of Israel. Korah and his cohorts, Datan and Aviram, “rise up against Moses together with two hundred and fifty Israelites.” Their claim against Moses and Aaron: “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s congregation?” (Numbers 16:3). At first glance, Korah’s objection seems reasoned and justified. Perhaps this would-be leader is calling for democratization within the Israelite community. After all, as Rashi writes in his commentary on this verse, “for all of the congregation is holy – they all heard the words of Sinai from the mouth of God.”

Choosing Words

Jun 26, 2004 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Korah

“Use your words!” This is a refrain that I have heard parents recite over and over again to small children. As a new parent, I am prepared for my future of disciplinary tactics: “No, Jeremy, we do not bite.no, we do not hit.use your words.” Failure to use his words will surely result in a “time out” for my little son. This parenting technique comes to mind as I read this week’s Torah portion.

Korah: a Rebel with a Cause

Jun 26, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Korah

In the Jewish imagination, Korah personifies the archrebel. Rapacious envy appears to drive him to assemble a force of 250 “men of repute” to repudiate the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Stunned by the confrontation, Moses is unable to muster any sympathy for Korah. Moses often intercedes with God on behalf of his adversaries. Not this time. 

The Book of Quarrels

Jul 5, 2003 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Korah

The fourth book of the Torah, which we know by the title Book of Numbers or, in Hebrew, Bemidbar (“in the wilderness”) might also be called the book of quarrels. It tells of recurring arguments and rebellions by the Israelites against Moses and God. The most serious of these is the rebellion of Korah, a cousin of Moses and Aaron who questioned their leadership of the nation.

Ritual Obligations and Moral Lessons

Jun 5, 2003 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Korah

A colleague and friend who shares my fascination with golf as well as my plague of performing poorly, recently gifted me with a book entitled, Golf is Not a Game of Perfect.

Signs

Jul 5, 2002 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Korah

Greed and Power

Jun 5, 2002 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Korah

As Tyco International follows Enron and WorldCom into economic oblivion, the media increasingly focus on the bloated compensation packages that reward aggressive C.E.O.s. It is not easy to identify a moral culprit behind opaque accounting procedures. But unmitigated greed is an ancient and outrageous vice.

Jewish Authority

Jun 23, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Korah

During the past few months, there has been a changing of the guard at the helm of key national organizations of the American Jewish community. The personalities interest me less than the process. From a historical perspective what is most striking is the total non–involvement of the state. No Jewish leader in the United States ever needs to secure confirmation of his or her selection from the state. Authority to exercise leadership in the Jewish community derives solely from within. The state makes no pretense of influence or power over the process.

Listening to Our Enemies

Jul 8, 2000 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Korah

On Motzei Shabbat, June 24, 2000, the Conservative synagogue of the Ramot neighborhood in Jerusalem, Kehillat Ya’ar Ramot, was set ablaze. According to the New York Times (Monday, June 26, 2000) this hateful act also involved the defacement of the synagogue “with grafitti that labeled it a place unworthy of worship, and said that a yeshiva–trained Jew should not be there.” Numerous eyewitnesses saw “apparently religious men, wearing black velvet skullcaps and white shirts, fleeing as the flames raged.” Prime Minister Ehud Barak rightly called this tragic incident “an awful act that causes every Jew to shudder.” Indeed, the flames which marred this synagogue were ignited by sinat hinam, baseless hatred a painful, incomprehensible hatred all too familiar to the Jewish people. 

Moses the Man

Jun 19, 1999 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Korah

Nowhere does the Torah provide us with a single, well-rounded profile of the figure who dominates most of its narrative. We, its readers, need to gather for ourselves the traits of Moses, alluded to in piecemeal fashion, into an integrated profile. Plot mediates the contours of character. Last week, for example, the Torah depicted Moses as the most humble of men in recounting the recriminations brought against him publicly by his own brother and sister (Numbers 12). In the stories from the time before he ascended to the leadership of his nation, he exhibits a deep-seated inability to countenance acts of injustice (Exodus 2:11-13, 16-17; 3:7-9). Given to outbursts of anger against the inconstancy of the Israelites (Exodus 32:19-28), he also is moved repeatedly by compassion to intercede with God on behalf of those who have transgressed (Exodus 32:30-32; Numbers 12:13; 14:11-20).

Being Jewish at Yale

Jun 27, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Korah

The Talmud condemns the rebellion by Korah and company against Moses as the prime example of “a controversy not for Heaven’s sake.” Tarnished by impure motives, his challenge brings no lasting benefit. And the Torah confirms that reading. Korah is a Levite bent on leveling the religious hierarchy set up by God to govern the Tabernacle. He rejects the special status accorded his clan to service the cult “You have gone too far,” he declaims to Moses. “For all the community are holy… Why then do you raise yourself above the Lord’s congregation (Numbers 163)?” Behind the facade of democratic rhetoric lurks a grab for power.

Wealth and Ego

Jun 22, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Korah

Our parasha this week bears and perpetuates the name of Korah, the arch rebel against Moses’s leadership.

On Korah and Spinoza

Jul 1, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Korah

When I was a rambunctious kid growing up in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, the name of Benedict de Spinoza came to me as easily as that of Ted Williams or Stan Musial or Sid Luckman. If the latter three were among my childhood heroes, the former meant a great deal to my father. He spoke often of Spinoza’s grand conception of God as the sum total of all that exists. Indeed, body and mind were but two attributes of God’s infinite nature. There were countless others which we would never know. For my father, Spinoza represented the fullest and finest expression of Judaism’s historic quest to understand the endless diversity of existence in monotheistic terms. On many a Shabbat I was treated to a discourse that eluded the grasp of my inattentive mind. I remember only the stirring intensity of his fascination. Spinoza provided a haven in which the rational bent of my father’s mind and the religious hunger of his heart could both find comfort.

Korah

Jan 1, 1980

1 Now Korah, son of Izhar son of Kohath son of Levi, betook himself, along with Dathan and Abiram sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth — descendants of Reuben — 2 to rise up against Moses, together with two hundred and fifty Israelites, chieftains of the community, chosen in the assembly, men of repute.

Korah

Jan 1, 1980

¹⁴ Samuel said to the people, “Come, let us go to Gilgal and there inaugurate the monarchy.”