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Korach

Numbers 16:1 – 18:32

 

When Korach Takes Over                                  

                

We left the Israelites at the edge of the Promised Land last week. Twelve tribal leaders, who had gone to scope out the Land, had come back. Ten against two, they advised not to enter into the Land, opting to remain in the wilderness. They argued that more time was needed to prepare. The people weren’t ready to let go of the spiritual retreat that the wilderness afforded. They wanted to stay in that wilderness state a little longer. Above all, they didn’t want to reenter the world, have to raise kids and go to work every day. They wanted spirituality divorced from everyday reality. They wanted more highs, more miracles, more ecstatic moments.

 

But these were the voices of Mitzrayim, of narrow consciousness, of addictive behavior; the voices of ego that always want more. These voices had turned the wilderness, their spiritual retreat itself, into another narrow place; because when the ego gets attached to wanting more highs, more spiritual experiences, the attachment itself becomes an insurmountable obstacle to experiencing them again, a new place of stuckness.

 

In the biblical myth, God understands that though He had taken the Hebrews out of Egypt, He didn’t succeed in taking Egypt out of the Hebrews. Therefore, He decrees that the generation of Israelites that were slaves in Egypt will have to die off in the wilderness; for only beings who had never known slavery could settle the Promised Land. You can imagine how pleased the Israelites were! As we open this week’s Torah portion a revolt erupts led by a member of the Levite tribe: Korach.

 

“The Hebrew root k-r-ch means ‘division’ or ‘split,’ and our Sages associate Korach…with these tendencies;” writes the Lubavitcher Rebbe in his Likkutei Sichos. Korach is the quintessential splitting and dividing energies of ego. But, for the ego, it is “divide and conquer.” Not surprisingly, Korach and his followers attempt to overthrow Moses and Aaron — who represent the higher levels of our awareness. The ego wants to take over; to go beyond what it is designed to do, and let its need for control spill over the many facets of our being. In Torah Moses answers Korach: “Hear me son of Levi. Is it not enough for you that the God of Israel has set you apart… and given you direct access to perform the duties of the Eternal…and to minister to the community and serve them? Now…you seek the priesthood too?” [Num. 16:8-10]

 

In Torah it is the voice of Moses that eventually wins the day. Korach ends up being swallowed by the earth at God’s command, and 250 of his followers consumed by Divine fire. But for most of us it is still the voice of ego that speaks the loudest in our lives, and which — most of the time — obscures the light of our True Self, our inner Moses. Our journey to the Promised Land takes work and takes time (though hopefully not 40 years). We, too, have to practice constantly and persistently to get Egypt out of ourselves. But if Torah is any measure of truth, spiritual practice will inevitably lead us back to that Land, the Land of our soul.