By Nicole Martin
This week's parasha, Korach (Numbers 16:1-18:32), continues the story of the Israelites' wanderings in the desert. In this episode, a powerful Levite named Korach recruits Moshe's inveterate enemies Dotan and Aviram, along with two hundred and fifty other tribal chieftains, in a rebellion against Moshe and Aharon's leadership. The rebels offer incense, as only high priest Aharon is otherwise allowed to, in order to prove that they, too, have what it takes to be high priest. But their offering is rejected; the earth itself opens up and swallows them, and their supporters die in a plague, which is finally stopped when God reaffirms Aharon's appointment as high priest. You can find summaries of the parsha and each aliya here and the full text with Rashi's commentary here.
Korach is a hard parasha for progressive types. Korach, after all, seems like the perfect revolutionary, trying to take power from the dictatorial Moshe and Aharon and share it with all the people equally. Korach and his followers' utter destruction, of course, is yet more evidence that the Torah serves, more than anything else, to consolidate power in the hands of those who already have plenty.
The truth is, well, that's not completely untrue. Because the idea, at least in this parasha, is that human beings owe loyalty to God, to the force that creates all of humanity and the is the source, and enforcer, of ultimate moral law. Who represents that force, who speaks for it and interprets its will, is hardly the point: in this episode it's Moshe and Aharon, the established authorities, but if you flip a few hundred pages on in your Tanach you'll see plenty of stories of half-crazy prophets crying out with God's voice against the decadence of the monarchy. The "good guys" in the narrative, apparently, aren't necessarily the glorious kings, or the rebellious underdogs: they're whoever is actually good.
But what's wrong with Korah? Why are he and his followers punished so harshly? The obvious answer is that they're looking for power because they think they deserve it, rather than because they want to use it for good. In his commentary on the parasha, the commentator Rashi (Rav Shlomo Yitzchaki, 10th century France) quotes a midrash that explains how Korach wanted to be high priest instead of Aharon because he was convinced that the position belonged to him by virtue of his lineage. And when the tribal chieftains all scramble after him and rush to offer the high priest's incense--actually, it's starting to sound like they all just want power.
But there's something beyond that, too. It seems to really bother Korach and his followers, not just that they're not in charge, but that someone else is. Early on in the parasha, they complain that Moshe and Aharon have taken too much power. According to the Rashi's interpretation, the actual complaint sounded something like this: it doesn't bother us so much that you, Moshe, have made yourself king, but you went too far in making Aharon high priest. This is a weird thing to say, of course, since Moshe was by no means king, but the complaint shows something very powerful about Korach & Co.'s priorities: they're fine with a king. They don't mind so much that there's someone telling them how to live and what to think and whom to go to war with--but a high priest, who can demand that they be good, decent people, who can insist that there's some form of right and wrong in this world beyond just whatever they each feel like--that's too much for them. That they can't accept.