Korach
Numbers 16:1-18:32, 28:9-15
Isaiah 66:1-24
“Everything created by God contains a spark of holiness.” This laconic comment of the Ba’al Shem Tov provides a student of the Torah with an opportunity to examine levels of holiness in the Torah as well as in contemporary life. Two selections from Korach, this week’s Torah portion demonstrate the Ba’al Shem’s ideal and examine the strength of that spark of holiness in several biblical characters.
In the first text (Numbers 16:3-35), Korach questioned whether holiness was the exclusive domain of Moses and Aaron: “All the community (of Israel) are holy, and God is among them all; why do you lift yourselves above them?”
Korach criticized Moses and Aaron because he believed that they presented themselves as being holier than the rest of the people. However, the biblical author sided with Moses and Aaron because this “rebellion” against the authority of Moses and Aaron ended when the earth swallowed Korach and his horde, leading a reader to conclude that holiness is more genuine in some individuals than in others.
In the second text (Numbers 17:16-23), the biblical author chose to authenticate Aaron’s sacred leadership through the use of an elegant metaphor: Aaron collected the staffs of the tribal leaders and put them in the tent of meeting overnight. The next day, Aaron’s staff alone had undergone a miraculous transformation: “It brought forth sprouts, produced blossoms and bore almonds”
Legend holds that that rod continued to be used by the kings of Israel until the end of the monarchy when it vanished (some hold that it will only reappear with the coming of the Messiah). As in the first account, this text indicates that although everyone contains a spark of holiness, the strength of that holiness varies greatly in different individuals.
This truth was demonstrated to me some years ago when I arrived to officiate at a wedding, only to find the bride upset because the band that was to play the music at the wedding ceremony was late. We waited and waited to begin the ceremony and finally, when the hour was getting late and the band still had not arrived, the bride said, “Well, it doesn’t matter, as long as they get here for the party.” Then she turned to me and said, “OK, rabbi, let’s get it over with.”
I believed that although the bride, too, must have had a spark of holiness in her, it was difficult to see it in her at that moment. Still, I hoped that that bride and groom would not spend the rest of their lives celebrating significant moments without connecting the spark of holiness in them and in others to the signal moments of their lives, and that such sacred moments would not continue to be punctuated by the comment: “Let’s get it over with.”
Additionally, I wondered if the kind of food that some day would be served at their child’s baby naming would be more important than the meaning of the name they would give their child, or if the flowers or table settings at their child’s bar mitzvah reception would preoccupy their preparation or take precedence over the meaning of that sacred rite of passage.
Sadly, this did not seem to be a marriage made in heaven, but rather, it appeared to be a marriage created with a serious lack of the spark of holiness that the Ba’al Shem Tov taught was contained in everyone and everything. This incident made me realize that many people rush through life’s sacred moments and so quickly and focus on the outer trappings of those experiences that they are unable to pause to see the holy sparks that can be found in them.
The words of the Ba’al Shem Tov echo in Korach, just as they should in people’s signal moments in life, by teaching that each individual bears the responsibility to make holiness sprout, blossom and bear fruit, in order to “be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing it, loving your fellow creatures, and drawing them near to the Torah.” (Pirke Avot 1:12)
Stephen S. Pearce is senior rabbi at the Reform Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.