Parashat: Korach

Parshat: Korach
Torah Reading: Numbers 16:1-18:32
[Korach and his band] combined against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and יהוה is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above יהוה’s congregation?”

  -Numbers 16:3

In this week’s Torah portion, a group of Levites, led by Korach, assemble against Moses and Aaron, accusing them of hoarding access to God, keeping it for themselves and denying the rest of the community. In doing so, they call back to the experience of the Israelites at Sinai, when God speaks through Moses, telling him that the Israelites are to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6).” This dispute between Moses and Korach is later cited as the paradigmatic example of a dispute that is not for the sake of heaven. Rabbi Ovadiah Bartenura (15th century Italy) understands this to mean that the dispute’s “desired purpose is to achieve power and the love of contention, and its end will not endure.”

-Rachel Petroff Kessler