Korach. The name is synonymous in our tradition for unhealthy rebellion.
He has been called the arch-demagogue of the Jewish people, activism to undermine, rather than support; rabble rousing to exploit weakness, rather than strengthen.
Korach is the example par-excellence that the Mishna uses to define a dispute that will not show results, a dispute that is undertaken not for the sense of heaven:
"Any dispute which is for the sake of Heaven will in the end yield results, and any which is not for the sake of Heaven will in the end not yield results.
"What is a dispute for the sake of Heaven? This is the sort of dispute between Hillel and Shammai.
"And what is one which is not for the sake of Heaven? It is the dispute between Korach and his party."
No, Korach's dispute is not for the sake of heaven--it is self-aggrandizement, reaching for self-serving power based on a misunderstanding of self and purpose.
Korach is not one who our tradition encourages emulation. Here is a person, a Levite, who as part of the Levites, demonstrated loyalty to Moses after the Golden Calf by engaging in what Alter calls "zealous homicide" of family and kin. Here is a person who is a relative of Moses and Aaron: their fathers were brothers. Here is someone who has lived through the recent tribulations in the desert.
The people at this point are not exactly the paradigm of joy, even though they have been freed from slavery and witness to God's miracles firsthand. Their murmuring and excessive complaining, even pining for the perceived benefits of life in Egypt, engenders God's wrath.
Moses has his hands full with crisis after crisis that requires his direct intercession to blunt God's anger, not only because of the people, but his own sister as well.
Still many, many people publicly die. And the report of the spies leads to people losing faith. This engenders the devastating punishment of this generation's being condemned by their God, to wander, never to reach the promised land of milk and honey.
And along comes Korach.
Korach makes his play for power at a time of extreme vulnerability for the people, for Moses, and judging by God's reactions, God. The stakes are too high for God's chosen leadership to be threatened.
Korach is unique in that he "took" on himself, that his, he began a rebellion through his actions but then he took on others: the 250 chieftans, and eventually his sedition spread to the community. Ostensibly, he was advocating for greater position as a Levite.
But this distinction pales next to its perception: Korach challenges the very underpinnings of the leadership, leadership appointed by God that is trying to structure a society as it transitions from slave mentality to free people under God's providence. Korach took on Moses' leadership, and in so doing, took on God. This is not an dispute taken on for the sake of heaven, but against it.
This raises an important question: Lacking a Moses, Hillel or Shammai, do we know today when a dispute is for the sake of heaven and when it is not?
This is a real-world question for us in the here and now. Because while Judaism in American certainly faces challenges with respect to continuity, we are no longer in the desert and we have long since been freed from Pharoh's chains. When we dispute, are we acting for the sake of heaven or not? Will our disputes lead to results or not?
We as a people are known for our disputes. We have disagreements among ourselves, among movements. Because Judaism lives in the here and now and because of our historic engagement with modernity, the reinvention of Judaism in modernity continues apace. It did not stop more than 150 years ago when the Reform movement emerged in the United States, nor did it stop at the time of Solomon Schechter. As American Jewish history has shown we have continued our evolution. The Reform Movement, for one, is moving toward incorporating more of what we consider traditional elements into its ritual and liturgical practices, incorporating more study to complement its traditional commitment to social action. Some say that is not Reform--others say that it is completely consistent with Reform practice.
The Conservative Movement, too, is facing disputes that we must ask: will they lead to results? Are they being done with the integrity of Hillel and Shammai or, has v'halila, are they being down with the disingenuity of Korach? Are they for the sake of heaven or not?
This week's Forward has the headline: Questions of Gays, Interfaith Couples Roil Conservatives. It begins: As leaders of Conservative Judaism face looming decisions about the future, the movement is facing new internal challenges to its restrictions on gays and lesbians and on interfaith couples.
In then proceeds to quote both movement leadership and lay leaders--those who are calling for change and those who are calling for the strict maintenance of the boundaries as they exist.
With respect to how the movement deals with spouses who are intermarried, Rabbi Charles Simon, the head of the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs says that "the strategy was to hold the line, to set boundaries. That was a mistake. Those efforts failed." He cites the figure that the number of Jews who affiliate with the Conservative Movement continues to decrease.
That is disturbing--especially since for the last one hundred years the Conservative Movement has allowed for an alternate to Orthodoxy. It still has much to offer--no surprise to anyone present in this congregation.
In speaking with a number of people in the Movement, both congregants and religious leaders, there are the tensions evident when change is happening: one side pushes harder to leave things as they are, as a kind of "last stand" for Conservative identity, usually worrying that change will make Conservative appear Reform.
The other side is cautious, but not immobilized, sensing that it has always been within the Conservative Movement to enact change within a halachic framework. Thus all major change must go through the Law Committee which operates at its own pace. Rabbi Kassel Abelson, chairman of the law committee, told the Forward that while he did not necessarily agree with all of Simon's positions, he felt that the issue of non-Jewish spouses needed to be revisited. He said he did not know when the committee would take up the issue.
On the lay level, often times people just seemed surprised at some of the formal positions of the movement, especially when they read official communiques of movement standards or discover that someone is not going to UJ or JTS because of movement standards. How religious decision-making happens through the CJLS remains a mystery.
What I would like to submit is that the Conservative Movement is strong enough to survive and even thrive because these are disputes l'sham shamiym, disputes that involve the lives of real people, many of whom have been pained by their connection to Conservative Judaism and also the reality of their lives. Much of the leadership of the movement acutely realize this.
Another point why this is a dispute l'sham shamiym: Often those who are disenfranchised in religious life usually do one of two things: they leave it, completely or they get angry. For those who stay, there is a quality of anger in the sense that a situation is unfair, that the old idea of separate but equal actually works. It's not the kind of anger that one experiences by shouting or red faces, but more of a lower-level simmering, a kind of resentment, an acknowledgment of being in while being out at the same time.
Yet still out of this pain comes the desire to dispute, not for self-aggrandizement, not for political power, not to debase the underlying structure of Jewish life, or in this movement, the CJLS. No, it is exactly the opposite.
It is dispute that is based in love.
Love of God.
Love of the Jewish People.
Love of Torah.
It is a dispute based in a desire to see a vibrant Judaism live on for generations to come.
We are a tradition and a living people that has shown is its resilience to these debates--whether Hillel or Shammai, the legions of rabbis in the Talmud, down to our day.
As it says in Kiddushin: "even a parent and child or a teacher and student should debate as vigorously as enemies; in the end, if the debate is over a matter of substance, they will emerge with great affection for one another."