Korach
Numbers 16:1 – 18:32
In the opening verses of this week’s Torah portion, a leader of the Levites named Korach took it upon himself to challenge the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Accompanied by 250 angry followers, he confronted the two brothers and demanded to know, “Why do you raise yourself above the Eternal’s congregation?” (Num. 16:3). Moses “fell on his face”—usually an act of prayer, but in this case perhaps an act of exasperation. Then he informed Korach et al. that they should leave it to God to choose the leader of the people, and he gave instructions for a showdown to be held the following morning. Then, as God was about to unleash divine wrath upon the rebels, Moses declared: “By this you shall know that it was the Eternal who sent me to do all these things; that they are not of my own devising” (Num. 16:28).
This declaration raises a perplexing question about free will. On one hand Moses is, here, negating his role as a leader seemingly saying that anyone could have done what he did since he only obeyed God’s orders. One the other hand, he is painting a pretty deterministic picture of his life, thus abdicating all personal responsibility as a leader. In both cases he seems to be justifying Korach’s accusation. But Moses was not the first of our ancestors to disclaim his personal role in the story. Remember Joseph, back in Genesis (45:7), telling his brothers not to feel guilty for selling him into slavery because it was actually God who had sent him there to assure their survival during famine? This brings to mind a conversation I had with one of my B’nai Mitzvah students, who was arguing against this sense of inescapable destiny, claiming that it absolves us of responsibility for our actions.
This is a critical question. Do we, or do we not, believe in determinism? Our first reaction is “of course not!” We are rational beings, educated modern thinkers, and we can’t conceive of anything being predetermined. After all, that wouldn’t leave room for freedom, would it? Or for meaning. Nor, as my student pointed out, for personal responsibility or accountability—a situation that would put our entire legal system in jeopardy. Yet despite our scoffing at the very idea of determinism or predestination, how often do we catch ourselves saying something that suggests we’re not so sure? “Oh, it was meant to be,” we tell ourselves, or “Things happen for a reason.” So, which is it? Does everything happen for a reason, or is everything totally random? In truth, there are competing answers in our tradition. Even though our rabbis insist that “free will” is the very cornerstone of Judaism, God doesn’t make much room for it in Torah. Moses was right, “it was the Eternal who sent [him] to do all these things.” Moses didn’t even want to go! God performed all the miracles, sent all the plagues. Moses merely repeated God’s teachings and performed God’s commands.
Except once. Once—in next week’s Torah portion—Moses lost his composure. Once, he became so angry at the Israelites’ never-ending complaints that when God ordered him to tell a rock to yield water for the people, Moses raised his staff and hit the rock instead. That moment of apparent free will would, ultimately, cost him dearly. Displeased that Moses had not performed exactly as commanded, God punished him by refusing to let him enter the Promised Land. And yet, is Moses’ one angry disobedient moment of seeming autonomy enough to restore our belief in free will? What to do, then, with the gorgeous rabbinic Midrash that has God dictating the entire Torah to Moses atop Mount Sinai one letter at a time – so that he wouldn’t know what he was writing? Wasn’t the entire Wilderness narrative that followed, including Moses infamously hitting that rock, already written then? I can’t tell you what my answer would be, for the process of Torah study is about wrestling with the question and coming up with our own answers—or with the answer that God has already seeded in our souls. Again, which is it?
I will leave you with a story that Rabbi J. Telushkin told in his two books titled: A Code of Jewish Ethics. His friend Rabbi Lamm, then a student of the great Rabbi Soloveitchik, was once asked by his teacher to summarize a passage of a text they had just studied. Intimidated by his teacher, Rabbi Lamm repeated almost verbatim what Rabbi Soloveitchik had taught earlier. Rabbi Soloveitchik erupted like a volcano and said to Rabbi Lamm, “I know what I am saying. You do not need to tell me! What do you think?” Rabbi Soloveitchik wanted his students to use their fierceness and passion, and perhaps their rebelliousness and disobedience as well, to go deeper into the arguments. Still furious at his student, Rabbi Soloveitchik added, “The problem is that you check your evil inclination (yetzer ha-ra) outside the classroom door and come in with your good inclination. Next time, bring your evil inclination with you, and leave your good inclination outside.” (Volume 1, pp.508-509)