Parshat Korach: The Seven Commandments
Korach: The Seven Commandments
“With
some difficulty (for it is not easy for a pig to balance himself on a ladder) Snowball
climbed up and set to work, with Squealer a few rungs below him holding the
paint-pot. The Commandments were written on the tarred wall in great white
letters that could be read thirty yards away. They ran thus:
THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS
1.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3.
No animal shall wear clothes.
4.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
6.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
7.
All animals are equal.”
(from Animal Farm by George Orwell, 1945)
The Seven Commandments composed by Napoleon and Snowball (before he was banished) were meant to be set in stone, to usher in the new phase in the animals’ desire to create an equitable and fair society, “reducing the principle of Animalism to Seven Commandments”.
It wasn’t too long before the first two commandments were combined to form the familiar refrain of “four legs good, two legs bad”. After a short while, Commandment No.5 was amended by adding the words ‘to excess’. The chilling statement that “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” needed little explanation.
The Seven Commandments had been desecrated and reframed. Animal Farm is a classic metaphor of how a political movement built on an idealistic basis can abuse its position and result in the creation of a society that is ruled by fear. It will be ultimately doomed to failure in the long term.
(1) and he
took, Korach, son of Izhar, son of Kohath son of Levi, along with Dathan and Abiram
sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth, descendants of Reuben,
(2) to rise
up against Moses, together with two hundred and fifty Israelites, chieftains of
the community, chosen in the assembly, men of repute.
(3) They
combined against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! you (both) take too much upon you, seeing that the whole
congregation (i.e. all of us) are holy and Gd is amongst them. Why do you set
yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?”
Korach
was Moses’ first cousin, a respected and by the sound of his description,
highly influential man. However, the language in the first verse seems clumsy:
“and he took…”
What did Korach take?
Rashi tells us (the Midrash Tanhuma explains) that he set himself apart from the congregation to claim that Moshe had appointed the wrong person. Instead of Aaron HaKohen, he believed that the narrative should have referred to Korach HaKohen.
Korach, on the face of it appears to be genuinely aggrieved and feels that he has been overlooked as being the legitimate occupier of the Priestly Office. However, he soon, reveals his true colours, conveniently sidestepping the issue of priesthood and says to Moses and Aaron:
“…you (both) take too much upon you, seeing that the whole congregation are holy and Gd is amongst them. Why do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?”
It seems to have escaped Korach’s mind that Moses and Aaron have never ‘set themselves’ above anyone. Indeed, if we look at the beginning of the Book of Shemot (Exodus), Moses did everything he could to avoid leading the people:
(11) But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and free the Israelites from Egypt?”
Gd reassures Moses that He will accompany him.
He repeats his refrain later on….
(1) But Moses spoke up and said, “What if they do not believe me and do not listen to me, but say: The Lord did not appear to you?”
Gd reassures Moses again by transforming his staff into a snake and then turning his hand leprous. Despite these miracles, Moses refuses to follow Gd’s command and says:
(10) But Moses said to the Lord, “Please, O Lord, I have never been a man of words, either in times past or now that You have spoken to Your servant; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”
The dialogue continues and Gd becomes angry with Moses, telling him that his
brother Aaron will initially speak for him.
These references serve to exemplify the very nature of Moses, whom the Torah refers to numerous times as being a beacon of humility.
A fortnight ago, in Parshat Beha’alotecha, we read:
(3) Now the man, Moses was very humble, above all the men that were on the face of the earth.
Taken at face value, Korach’s words don’t make much sense until you appreciate what is really taking place in this episode. Moses’ not-so-honourable cousin is effectively attempting to wrestle power from the man who is least interested in benefitting from his position. The difference between the two is that Moses is fully aware of his responsibility to lead the people, particularly in light of the seismic repercussions of the spies’ failed venture, which itself came on the back of plague that accompanied the Children of Israel’s lust for meat and their complaints about the food that they had received ‘for free’ in Egypt.
Korach
has successfully rallied the disgruntled Dathan and Abiram, who themselves have
managed to master the art of rabble-rousing to a professional level, whilst simultaneously
shedding crocodile tears for injustices they felt have been meted-out on the
tribe of Reuben.
If you recall, he was Jacob’s eldest son and witness his father’s description of him at the end of Sefer Bershit/Genesis which was far from being flattering (Chapter 49, verses 3 and 4).
Korach’s charisma has even extended to poisoning the minds of two-hundred-and-fifty ‘men of renown’ across the range of tribes.
He is a very dangerous individual.
One could picture him adapting the “Seven Commandments” to plead his case along the lines of:
1.
Whoever works in the current priesthood
is an enemy
2.
Whoever is amongst the other Levites is a
friend
3.
No Kohen shall be allowed to dress
differently to the other Levites
4.
No Kohen or Levite shall be allowed to
marry a divorcee
5.
No Kohen or Levite shall drink alcohol
6.
No Kohen or Levite shall kill another
human being
7. All Levites are equal.
How long would it be until some of the commandments are subtly altered?
·
When No 6. adds the word “animal” to its
charter and directly contravenes Gd’s intricate laws regarding sacrifices.
· When No. 7 states that all Levites are equal except for Korach and his chosen friends, who have become more ‘equal than others.’
And if we follow his train of thought, does No 1. imply that Aaron and his two sons are to be treated as an enemy which is to be vanquished by the ‘New Order’?
One can then understand why Moses immediately ‘fell on his face’ before recovering his composure and telling Korach that Gd will decide between the two, the next morning.
Rabbi
Sacks, in this week’s ‘Covenant and Conversation’ writes:
“There was not the slightest attempt to set out the real issues: a leadership structure that left simmering discontent amongst the Levites, Reubenites and other tribal chiefs; a generation that had lost all hope of reaching the promised land; and whatever else was troubling the people. There were real problems, but the rebels were not interested in truth. They wanted power.”
Societies are shaped by the people who form them. They evolve and change, sometimes gradually and occasionally on the back of a populist movement, such as the historic dismantling of the USSR at the end of the 1980s. Could any of us fail to be moved by the site of Germans of all ages physically breaking down the Berlin Wall and thus allowing families to be reunited?
Contrast
this with the mob violently tearing down the statue in Bristol and you realise
how different these scenes are and how, in both cases, they can lead to very
diverse outcomes.
If Korach had genuinely wanted to challenge Moses, he could have employed a different approach. Moses was a man who, like all others, did not always make the correct decisions, as we are going to be reading about next week when it comes to his sin of striking the rock.
The characters and events depicted in Animal Farm, though fictional, were very much based on personages and events before, during and after the Russian Revolution. The Tsarist model that the uprising replaced and the injustices that had been previously foisted on the Russian population could have been addressed, had the Bolshevik leaders really wished this to be the case. With the death of Lenin and introduction of Stalin’s brutal regime, hope of developing the USSR into a leading world power were all but lost.
The laws that became ingrained in the makeup of the three-score-and-ten years that followed the revolution were focussed on subjugating the population and making their lives as restricted as possible. It is to Moses’ and Aaron’s credit that they were able (with Divine Intervention) to thwart Korach’s plans.
Had he succeeded; the very heart of the Jewish people would have been ripped asunder.
It is no coincidence that the separation of “Church” and “State” was enacted through the introduction by Gd of the Kohanim, Levites and Israelites. In this model, the Kohanim were able to focus on ritual and teaching whilst allowing the Levites to administer to them and provide a musical accompaniment, At the same time, they, along with the Israelites, produced the prophets and kings that would shape our future to this day. In later generations, when the Hasmoneans broke this golden rule and combined leadership and priesthood, the implosion of both the monarchy and Jewish State alongside it within the span of two hundred or so years, led to the destruction of the Second Temple along with the deaths of over a million Jews and the long, long painful diaspora that we still find ourselves in.
Thank Gd for all of us that Korach and his followers failed.
Shabbat
Shalom.
Comments
Post a Comment