The Sidra of Korach is named after the man who organized a very serious rebellion against Moses and Aaron in the desert, in the second year after the Exodus. The name Korach is striking because it means bald. In Hebrew we have a proverb: YATZA KERE’ACH MIKAN UMIKAN. It means: “You come out bald on both sides”. It refers to a person who tries to attain something which is beyond him, only to lose everything. Korach was driven by jealousy and his punishment was that he was swallowed by the Earth.
The first sentence of the Sidra is well known for its difficult syntax with respect to the word VAYIKACH, which means, ‘took’. It does not have an object. Whom did it take? One possibility is that it means that Korach prepared for the rebellion. A second possibility is, that it means that Korach took it upon himself to challenge Moses.
Two of our greatest mediaeval commentators, Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra and Nachmanides, disagree on the timing of this rebellion. Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra accepts the principle which is already stated in the Talmud: EIN MUKDAM UME’UCHAR BATORAH-that the stories of the Torah do not necessarily follow in chronological order. Therefore, he thinks that the rebellion took place in the Sinai desert before the great sin of the 10 spies. It was caused when the command claim that the Levites should replace the firstborn to be the servants in the Tabernacle. This is described in the earlier parts of the book. This replacement created a great deal of discontent amongst the people. Many firstborn men were outraged. Korach was a Levite, Moses’ cousin, and also a firstborn. Korach was also deeply suspicious of Moses and accused him of promoting the tribe of Levi without divine consent. Thirdly, he objected that the Levites had been appointed to be subservient to Aaron and his sons. Datan and Aviram, together with On, son of Pelet, belonged to the tribe of Re’uven. They considered that they had also been deprived of their rights and privileges.
Nachmanides rejects this reconstruction of events. He disagrees fundamentally with the principal that the Torah does not record events in chronological order. Therefore, he contends that the rebellion took place in the wilderness of Paran, in Kadesh Barne’a, to which the spies returned after their visit to the land. Before that terrible sin such a rebellion was unthinkable because the nation had grown to love Moses. They were grateful to you him for having prayed on their behalf and saving them after the sin of the Golden Calf. However, after the sin of the spies, the whole atmosphere in the Israelite camp was transformed. Moses was no longer popular. He had been helpless in the face of God’s fuming fury. The nation was on the boil.
That moment was a perfect opportunity for Korach to plan and instigate the rebellion. He attracted a huge number of people to support his cause, although the Torah only mentions the main leaders. Nachmanides explains that Korach was not only angry about what happened when the spies came back. He had personal grievances against Moses.
In particular, he was angry that Moses had appointed his cousin Elizaphan, son of Uziel, to become the Prince of the families of Kehat, son of Levi and thus had taken away a position that he had expected for himself. Elizaphan had been given the ultimate jurisdiction over the most important furnishings of the Tabernacle; the Ark, the Table, the Menorah, the altars and all the other holy vessels in the Tabernacle. When Aaron’s two sons were killed, next to the altar, inside the Tabernacle, Elizaphan took out their bodies from the scene of the tragedy. It shows that he was very important.
In addition, Korach was jealous of Aaron. He didn’t think that he deserved to be promoted to the High Priesthood. He thought that Moses had no right to appoint his own brother.
Datan and Aviram were brothers, sons of Eliav. They were famous for their hatred towards Moses, although he had saved them on two occasions. They repaid him evil in return for his goodness towards them. In Egypt, it was they who reported Moses to Pharaoh for killing of the Egyptian. Now they joined Korach in the rebellion, because of the severe divine punishment which had been meted out. From the way that they spoke to Moses we can see that they were extremely arrogant people. They accused Moses of taking them out of Egypt in order to kill them in the desert. They made a mockery of Moses. They said that he had taken them out of the land which was flowing with milk and honey. They cynically used Moses’ description of the Promised Land to refer to Egypt.
At first, Moses tried, unsuccessfully, to bring Korach to his senses. Then, he sent messengers to call that Datan and Aviram for a discussion. But they refused to come and accused him of being authoritarian and autocratic. They also said that Moses had abused his position by taking bribes from the people.
We are told in chapter 16 verse 25 that this accusation made Moses exceptionally angry. He prayed to God that He should not accept with favour any of their offerings or prayers. He said to God: “They are accusing me of wrongfully imposing my authority over them, in taking bribes; but you know that I did not do anything for the sake of my own good. I did not take anything from anyone and I have not harmed anyone”.
On the text of the above-mentioned verse, Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin offers a most interesting alternative insight. He says that when the Hebrew word VAYICHAR comes on its own, without the word AF, it does not mean that the person became angry but that he was very upset. Moses was very upset and sad at the abusive way that Datan and Aviram had spoken to him. He showed exemplary conduct as a leader; he showed that when people treat a leader disrespectfully, the proper reaction is not to get angry but to be sad. A leader must consider the possibility that when he is challenged, he might have made a mistake himself. If he had got everything completely right, he would not have been treated harshly. Only when the Almighty is treated with disrespect, have we the right to feel exceedingly angry.