Rabbi Jennifer Clayman

June 11, 2010

Swallow Our Pride: Korach 577

Sunburn, dirt and mosquitoes. I am in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and I am miserable. Surrounded by spectacular mountains, all I want to do is go inside, take a shower, and walk barefoot on a carpet. I am eighteen; it’s the summer after high school graduation and this is my first serious backpacking trip. I am privileged to be a student on a course with the National Outdoor Leadership School. I thought this would be right up my alley. I like to hike; I think mountains are amazing. I’ve always been a tomboy who doesn’t like makeup or high heels. I always thought I was a nature person, prided myself on an imagined minimalism. But nature has called my bluff.

We’ve only been out for a week. We have three weeks left to go, and (in a blow to my ego) I am not happy. I wonder how badly I would have to sprain my ankle in order to be sent home.

I am not as tough as I thought I was, and I am swallowing my pride. Wilderness has a way of doing this to us.

Patricia McCairen, the first woman to raft the Grand Canyon solo without portaging, writes in her account of the experience, “The canyon strips away the superficialities of everyday life, reducing me to the fundamentals of survival. In the wilderness, I am forced to come face to face with myself until the layers of doubt and insecurity fall away and I reach the core of my being. The canyon’s existence is pure truth. Traveling within it requires the same honesty” (Canyon Solitude: A Woman’s Solo River Journey through the Grand Canyon).

This week’s Torah portion is set in the wilderness, and this wilderness story holds a lesson about pride and humility, about superficialities and inner truth. For the last several weeks, the Jewish people has been reading from the Book of Numbers, whose Hebrew name, B’midbar, means “in the wilderness.” This week’s parashah is named for its villain, Korach, an exemplar of self-aggrandizement and misplaced pride.

The narrative of the Torah has brought us to a contentious time. The generation that witnessed the miracle of the parting of the Sea and the revelation of Torah—the generation that was redeemed from slavery—has floundered in the wilderness. They complain all the time. The miraculous manna that falls from heaven to feed them bores them. They say that they want to return to Egypt, with its fruit and melons and meat. Fear and despair rule; one rebellion follows another. Last week’s parashah was the story of the spies, whose exaggerated report of the dangers of the Promised Land throws the people into a panic of perceived helplessness: “If only we had died in the land of Egypt,” they cry, “or if only we might die in this wilderness! Why is God taking us to that land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our children will be carried off! It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!” (Numbers 14:1-4) In this wilderness, b’midbar, present hardship obliterates the memory of past suffering; fear of unknown danger glorifies a troubled, but known, history. The same people who cried out to God in the midst of Egyptian oppression now cry out with longing for a return to that dark, but known, place. In the face of such betrayal, Moses and Aaron fall on their faces; the people are punished with wandering for forty years.

This week, in parashat Korach, there is another rebellion, another betrayal. This time the tumult is instigated in part by Korach, a cousin of Moses and Aaron. He, like them, is a Levite, literally member of the tribe of Levi. The Levites have been consecrated to ritual service in the Tabernacle, giving them an elevated status in the community. They have been ordained with pomp and ceremony.

Korach, however, is not satisfied. It’s not enough for him to be a Levite; he wants to be a kohein, a priest, whose functions are more elite and whose status is even greater. Unfortunately for him, the line of the priesthood, by God’s design, goes through Aaron and Aaron’s sons. So Korach, in a tinder-box atmosphere of fear, gathers a mob and rises up against Moses and Aaron: “Rav lachem!” he says, “You take too much upon yourselves! For all of the community are k’doshim, holy—all of them, and Adonai is in their midst! Why then do you raise yourselves above Adonai’s congregation?” (Numbers 16:3)

Moses falls upon his face once more, and replies to Korach and his followers: “Rav lachem, you take too much upon yourselves, sons of Levi! Is it not enough for you that the God of Israel has given you direct access, to perform the duties of Adonai’s Tabernacle, and to minister to the community and serve them? Now that [God] has brought you near, and all your fellow Levites with you, do you seek the priesthood, too?” (Numbers 16:7-10) The next day, as Korach is gathering the whole community of Israel against Moses and Aaron, the earth bursts asunder. The ground opens its mouth and swallows Korach his followers, devouring them whole along with all of their possessions.

Tradition considers Korach the personification of pride. He is compared with Haman, whose self-importance and desire for power also led to an unfortunate end (Numbers Rabbah 22:7).

The Torah doesn’t tell us exactly why Korach did what he did, but there are some rabbinic stories, midrashim, that take us deeper into Korach’s background and shed some light on his character.

One says that, when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, Korach was Pharaoh’s house-slave. He had the keys to Pharaoh’s treasuries, and when the Israelites went out of Egypt, Korach took part of this wealth with him (Numbers Rabbah 18:15). Another legend has it that, in the wilderness, he also found treasure buried there by Joseph (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 110a). He was therefore wealthy, and back in Egypt, his status was greater than that of Aaron, whose priestly position he now covets. We can imagine that wealth and proximity to power fed his pride and his sense of entitlement.

Another midrash says that Korach—like Haman— was egged on by his wife. In the midrash, when the Levites are consecrated to their service in the Tabernacle, Moses—at God’s command—shaves their heads as an act of purification. This prompts taunting by members of the community, and Korach’s wife says to him, “See what Moses is doing! He made himself king; he made his brother high priest; his nephews, deputy high priests…he shaved your hair and rolls you around like excrement…He cast his eyes in envy upon your hair” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 110a). In the midrash, it is after this conversation that Korach goes out and gathers the people in rebellion. We can picture him, his pride pricked, his anger fanned, his ego stroked, as he sets out on his escapade of insubordination and contempt.

If tradition views Korach as a paragon of pride, it sees Abraham and Moses as exemplars of humility. When Abraham argued with God on behalf of the people of Sodom, he said, “Let me undertake to speak with my lord, though I am but dust and ashes” (Genesis 18:27). Pirkei Avot teaches: “Whosoever possesses the following three qualities is a disciple of Abraham our father: a good eye, a humble spirit, and restricted desire” (Avot 5:17). Moses is noted for his humility earlier in the book of Numbers when Aaron and Miriam speak out against him. In the face of their withering criticism, he says nothing. The text says of him, “Now that man Moses was very humble, more so than any other man on earth” (Numbers 12:3).

וְהָאִישׁ מֹשֶׁה עָנָיו מְאֹד

מִכֹּל הָאָדָם אֲשֶׁר עַל־פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה:

It’s interesting to note that anav, the word used here for humble, occurs in its current form only here in the entire Hebrew Bible. In other forms elsewhere in the Tanakh it can also mean “devout” or “trusting.” It can refer to those who are weak or exploited—but, as Jacob Milgrom points out, it never means “meek” (JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers, 94) This nuance of language can help us to understand humility as a middah, a Jewish virtue.

In Judaism, the right kind of humility is that which balances self-deprecation with self-appreciation. Extremes of arrogance and abasement are to be avoided. Korach’s problem was that he thought too much of himself. If he had swallowed his pride, he would not have been swallowed by the earth. However, too much virtue can be a vice, and it’s also possible to be too humble, so that we downplay our influence with others and abdicate our responsibility to have a positive impact on the world. As the Yiddish proverb says, “too much humility is halfway to pride.”

The medieval writer Bahya ibn Asher said, “Humility as the intermediate quality between arrogance and self effacement does not mean that we should disgrace ourselves, or allow others to tread upon us. We were created in God’s image and are therefore precious. We need to care for our honor and the high status that possessing a rational soul gives us among God’s creatures” (Kad Hakemach, in Eugene Borowitz and Frances Schwartz in The Jewish Moral Virtues, 139).

The Hasidic master, the Ba’al Shem Tov, told the following story: A king was told that a man of humility is endowed with long life. He attired himself in old garments, took up residence in a small hut, and forbad anyone to show reverence before him. But when he honestly examined himself, the king found himself to be prouder of his seeming humility than ever before. A philosopher then remarked to him: “Dress like a king, live like a king; allow the people to show due respect to you— but be humble in your innermost heart” (Louis I. Newman, The Hasidic Anthology, 190).

Jewish anavah, Jewish humility, is a middle path. The king in the Ba’al Shem Tov’s story realizes this following a time of serious introspection. Like the lone woman whose Grand Canyon journey “stripped away the superficialities of everyday life” until she faced the core of her being, we too must look inward, know ourselves, and swallow the wrong kinds of pride.