Friday, December 20, 2019

parshanut torah comment - Clarifying Korach's practical demands


Pretty strangely for me, the Korach plans and intentions are widely discussed by interpreters (see this question). In the Torah, He uttered two clear statements:



  1. all the community are holy, all of them, and the LORD is in their midst.


  2. you raise yourselves above the LORD’s congregation (and maybe 3: You have gone too far.)


But I don't see, in the text of the Parasha and the commentators, a list of clear demands Korach presented to Moses and Aharon.


But what were his demands/propositions - what he expected Moses and Aharon to DO?


Even if we say he wanted Moses and Aharon replaced, how did he propose to do that?



Answer



After some researching that didn't yield many results, I came up with my personal explanation:




  1. Matan Torah was a very special event, as many interpreters accept that the people "returned to the point of Adam before his sin". Its specialty was in the fact that all people were equal - G-d spoke/revealed Himself to men, women, children, Moses and Aharon and everybody.



    In other words, there were no classes or any hierarchy between the people (but maybe closeness to the mount). That was, by the way, the ultimate goal, as I understand.




  2. But people couldn't bear it for long and broke after only two commandments. But still it was only Moses and the rest. But after the sin of the Golden Calf, the people returned to the reality of hierarchy within the nation, creating classes and elites (Levites vs Israelites and Cohanim vs Levites).


    (As I mentioned, this is similar to Adam who was equal to Eve before the sin - כי מאיש לקחה זאת - and became superior to her after it.)




  3. The problem with this division was simple - G-d ('s providence) wasn't shared equally between all - more sacred people got "more of G-d" - As G-d dwells in the Mishkan close to Cohanim He doesn't dwell in all camp of Israel.


    (This is similar to the problem of the Temple - once G-d is concentrated there, "less of G-d" is left for others. That's why many say that the Mishkan was envisioned as the cure for the sin of the GC.)





  4. Korah noticed that Moses and Aharon actually enjoy that situation and greatly promote it, instead of trying to reverse to the point of Matan Torah:



    • "כָל־הָעֵדָה כֻּלָּם קְדֹשִׁים" - make all equal

    • "וּבְתוֹכָם ה' וּמַדּוּעַ תִּתְנַשְּׂאוּ עַל־קְהַל ה'" - G-d will be shared equally between all




  5. In other words, Korach demanded that Moses and Aharon step down in order to return to the higher state they experienced earlier and bring the final Geulah quick and easy.





  6. Seemingly the idea was inspiring, but it seems that the timing was bad (we know that many shortcuts didn't work in the Torah). Something went wrong and the gloomy finale we all know.




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