Posted on June 27, 2025 by Jay Lavroff
There is an old saying: the more things change, the more they stay the same. I’ve said this more times than I can remember. It applies to all sorts of situations, including the central theme of this week’s Torah portion, Korach.
Last year I also led Erev Shabbat services for Parsha Korach, and my drash was built around a great song, Revolution by the Beatles. It was quite different from other D’vrei Torah that I’ve written, and even included singing in my best John Lennon impersonation. I thought it was pretty clever. But as I say to our brit mitzvah students when I have the opportunity to present them with the gifts on behalf of the Temple, you learn something new every time you read from the Torah, even if it’s something you’ve read before. And so it is this time around.
Many of you are familiar with the story of Korach. He leads an insurrection against God’s chosen prophet, Moses, who also happens to be Korach’s cousin. Aided by his deputies Dathan and Abiram, and backed by 250 heads of the community, Korach confront Moses in an open and intentional threat to his authority.
The timing is not a coincidence. Unrest among the Israelites has been growing. Two weeks ago we read about complaints for having only manna to eat, and grumbling that life was better as slaves in Egypt. Last week we learned that ten of the twelve spies dispatched to scout the land of Canaan gave a thoroughly negative report about the likelihood of occupying the land that God promised. For this, God imposed the extremely harsh punishment that all those who were freed from bondage, save the descendants of Joshua and Caleb, would die in the desert and never enter the land beyond the Jordan River. The people’s state of mind is not good, creating a condition ripe for an attempted coup.
Contemporary political analysts might refer to Korach as Machiavellian, although he lived long before Machiavelli. A shrewd and cunning man, Korach takes advantage of the situation to try and seize control. He must have understood that to overthrow the current leadership structure, he needed to play on the people’s discontentment and make it seem as if he was on their side, regardless of what that “side” happened to be. So he tells Moses and Aaron, “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and God is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above God’s assembly?”
Korach also knew that to stand against Moses and Aaron he would need allies. To create broad-based support among otherwise disparate groups, he drew on a phenomenon that is today known as “intersectionality;” the overlapping of divergent grievances against a common foe. And so Korach, who argued that Moses had committed a grave injustice and nepotism in the extreme when he appointed his brother Aaron as Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, turned to other disaffected groups, such as the Reubenites, descendants of Jacob’s eldest son who, despite their seniority, had no special leadership roles. He blended the various brands of outrage into a unified weapon to wield against Moses and Aaron.
That deposing Moses and Aaron could not possibly have addressed all the different grievances expressed by the mob was of no concern to Korach. Creators of unholy alliances like his never seem to be genuinely concerned with fulfilling the wishes of the rank and file who swear fealty and blindly follow their leader. Rather, people motivated by grudges are more intent on simply deposing the current leader than on any constructive plan of action of their own. In this way, bruised egos and lust for power has resulted in destruction and self-destruction throughout recorded history.
Korach also chose a moment of vulnerability for Moses and Aaron as his time to strike. The Rambam noted that Korach’s revolt took place immediately after the 12 spies returned, and God’s subsequent judgment that, with few exceptions, the people wandering in the desert would not enter the promised land. While the Israelites still had their “eyes on the prize” the likelihood of removing Moses as their leader was minimal. Once they learned that they would not enter the land God promised, they seemingly had nothing to lose.
And so the “perfect storm” for rebellion comes together. But it fails, and the rebels meet gruesome ends. God intervenes. The earth opens up and swallows Korach, Datan and Abiram. God then sends forth a fire that consumes the 250 leaders of the community who marched behind Korach to confront Moses. You’d think that such a display would have quelled the complaints, yet remarkably they continued, ending only when Aaron’s rod budded, blossomed, and brought forth almonds. God tells Moses that the blossoming of Aaron’s staff is a symbol and a lesson that the mutterings against God may cease.
Regrettably the mutterings, the opportunistic attempts to subvert legitimate authority based on grudges and self-interests, and the misleading of others to fill the ranks of the rebellious, have not ceased. We’ve seen this scenario replayed again and again. History books are full of such stories, some of which have taken place in our lifetime. Some of them are taking place today.
The fallacy of Korach’s rebellion, and of many that have taken place since, is that the “cause” is not designed to improve the situation for which its followers advocate. The actions taken are disordered and confusing, sometimes carried out by people who don’t understand what they are rebelling against or why they are rebelling at all. Fueled by lies and empty slogans, the participants are united only in their desire to overthrow what they perceive to be the existing power structure. Did Datan and Abiram actually believe that Egypt, where the Israelites were slaves and cried out to God to be saved, was “a land flowing with milk and honey?
It is the colossal untruth of such claims that should be most disturbing to anyone who is intellectually honest. Whether the claim is that things were better while we were slaves in Egypt, or, to fast forward to present day, that Israel is not the birthplace of the Jewish people, that the Temple was in Yemen, not in Israel, or that “globalize the intifada” is not an anti-Semitic dog whistle, the dispute is not legitimate. You would not have heard such a debate between Hillel and Shammai.
In a current version of the Korach rebellion, the attacks on Israel and on Jews have brought together people who have nothing else in common. Whether the attacks come from the far left or the far right; from anti-capitalists, anti-communists, anti-globalists, or just plain old-fashioned anti-Semites, what is driving it all is people who on theological and political grounds are opposed to the very existence of Israel, and are equally opposed to democracy, free speech, freedom of information, religious liberty, and human rights. This latest version of the story of Korach is not an argument grounded in truth. It is simply about power.
That is not to suggest that debate is wrong. Judaism is largely based on constructive dialogue. But an argument that is, like Korach’s, solely about power and control, is antithetical not only to the principles of Judaism but those of justice as well. Nothing is achieved by sacrificing truth to the pursuit of power.
I began this Dvar Torah telling you about last year’s Beatles-based drash. And I’m going to end it the same way I did last year, with words that, despite what we see happening today, I fervently believe: “Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright.”
Shabbat Shalom,
Jay Lavroff
