Korach Was Not the Thomas Jefferson of his Time:
Standing Up for Equality Versus Unearned Holiness

By BRENT CHAIM SPODEK

Parashat Korach (Numbers 16:1-18:32)

Despite their many flaws, the Founding Fathers are generally considered heroes by most Americans. They are justly honored for producing what remains a cornerstone of contemporary human rights:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Just as the leaders of the American Revolution imagined a political future different from the one in which they lived, so too does Korach, the leader of one of the many rebellions in Parashat Korach. Chafing under Moses’ leadership, Korach gathers 250 prominent Israelites and says that Moses and the kohanim have done too much to raise themselves above the other members of the community, all of whom are holy. Just as the American Revolutionaries denied the right of England’s King George III to rule them, so too do Korach and his followers deny the right of Moses to lead them.

But while the American Revolution as embodied in the Declaration of Independence has endured to celebrate its 230th anniversary this coming Tuesday, Korach’s rebellion was over before it began. The parashah opens with Korach and his fellows rising up against Moses, and before the parashah ends, they have been swallowed up into the bowels of the earth.

Why should two seemingly similar egalitarian revolutions meet such different ends? Why should American Jews curse one set of rebels, and then three days later celebrate the other?

Given the tremendous differences in the historical circumstances of the two rebellions, it’s remarkable that their claims are as similar as they are. But these claims are not identical. Thomas Jefferson says that all men are created equal, while Korach claims that the community is holy. Jefferson speaks of our origins relative to each other; Korach speaks of where we currently stand in an absolute sense.

Jefferson articulates humanity’s common origin and says that the role of government is to make that equality manifest. The aspirations which fueled the American Revolution continue to drive America at its finest moments, when it honestly and justly seeks more liberty for more people.

The Revolutionary War ended with the Treaty of Paris, but the Revolution kept going. It ran through the Emancipation Proclamation which freed almost all American slaves in 1863 and through 1920 when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution gave American women the right to vote. The Revolution ran through the 1965 Voting Rights Act which finally harnessed the power of federal law to enshrine the “self-evident” right of African Americans to vote.

In contrast to the aspirational character of the American Revolution, Korach simply announces that the people are, at the moment he is speaking, holy. With a voice of complacent nihilism, Korach essentially claims that there is nowhere left to go—the people are already holy. While Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries spoke hopefully of who Americans might be, Korach spoke erroneously about who the Israelites were.

But the people weren’t holy—not at that point, anyway. God told the Israelites that they had the potential to become a nation of priests and a holy people, but they weren’t there yet. The promise of holiness was conditional—if you keep my covenant, then you will be a holy people. (Exodus 19:6)

Korach’s sin was his complacency—it was as if he said, “We don’t need any leaders because we don’t have any goals toward which we can be led.” He had no vision of the Jewish people being greater than they were—only of him being their leader.*

His complacency is one of the most egregious heresies a Jew can commit. For Korach to say that Jews were holy was to say they had no higher level to reach. For a people who were born slaves and were now free, complacent acceptance of the world as it is was apostasy of the worst kind.

Although the dream of the Declaration of Independence is far from realized, the American Revolution—not only the Revolutionary War, but the ongoing revolutions which strive to make our society more egalitarian—aspires to bring us ever closer to a world in which the essential equality of all people is manifest and protected.

Korach’s mistake wasn’t in thinking that we were all equal, but that we are all holy. One who thinks she grasps holiness most certainly doesn’t. One day, God willing, we will all merit to be called holy. But until then, holiness is a beacon, not a prize.

* There is a great deal of uncertainty as to exactly why Korach rebelled. Some, like Michael Walzer, say that he was primarily a social and economic rebel. Other voices in the rabbinic tradition say he was expressing dissatisfaction with the restrictions of the mitzvot. Rashi, citing the Tanhuma, explains that Korach’s primary concern was not substantive change, but his own glory. See Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1985), pp.111-112, the comments attributed to On’s wife at Sanhedrin 109b and Rashi’s comment at Numbers 16:1.

Reprinted with permission from American Jewish World Service.