This Week's Drashot for Parashat Korach - Enjoy!

Beware of Drama

A Drash for Parashat Korach
Friday, 22 June 2012
Rabbi Don Levy

Last week I referred to the phenomenon of us thinking that, while all of the Torah is good, some parts are simply better than others.  I admitted to you that even I, as a rabbi, prefer certain parts.  This certainly comes into play when assigning portions for bar and bat mitzvahs.

I’ll never forget the first time I helped prepare a for bar mitzvah a boy whose date determined that he would read, and expound upon, this week’s portion:  Korach.  Not only was this his portion, his reading was from the very beginning of the portion.  It was not the third triennial reading, the one which we shall read tomorrow morning, the one about the tithe and the need for the Levites to financially contribute despite their full-time service to G-d and the nation.  No, it was about the rebellion against the authority of Moses by Korach, son of Kohat, a member of the Tribe of Levi.  Korach led a group of dissidents in trying to usurp Moses’ leadership of the people Israel.  For that, he and the other two leaders of his rebellion were killed.  G-d opened up the earth, and it swallowed Korach, Datan and Abiram, and their respective households.

               The Death Penalty has developed a bad name in recent years, especially so when applied for religious reasons.  How could it be otherwise??!  The idea of putting someone to death for religious reasons, makes the contemporary mind question the very need for religion.  Religious authorities have certainly been guilty of their excesses over the centuries.  Most of the historical incidents of killing for religion have been committed by Christians and Muslims.  Who can forget the Crusades, or the Spanish Inquisition?  Or the Sword of Islam, sweeping across the European landscape?  Not to mention the contemporary phenomenon of Worldwide Jihad.  We Jews are conspicuously absent from perpetrating most of this bloodletting; most often we are its victims.  The victim gets away feeling a certain self-righteousness.  But in the narrative of Korach’s rebellion is a documentation of the murderous wrath of the G-d of Israel toward a group of rebels and their families.

So I asked the boy’s parents at the very start of his bar mitzvah preparation:  Maybe you can change the date?  Maybe you can schedule it a week earlier, or a week later?  Of course, the following week is Parashat Chukat, containing the narrative of the Red Heifer.  That one is a bear to teach to a 12-year-old, for different reasons!

As it happened, there was no way for the boy’s parents to change the date of his bar mitzvah, so I was stuck trying to help him make sense of G-d killing Korach, Datan and Abiram…and their entire families.  I learned a lesson about the ability of 12-year-olds to grasp difficult lessons, when pushed and cajoled sufficiently…

“That was a gruesome way to die,” the boy remarked to me as we finished reading the story.

“Do you think they deserved to die that way?” I asked him.

He thought for a moment. “Maybe the Torah means to tell us that, when people behave in certain ways, they cause lots of people get hurt, even those closest to them.”

There was an immediately apparent truth in what the boy was saying.  People behave in certain ways, and as a result more people get hurt.  But what was unique about the ‘certain way’ the three rebels behaved, that they merited such a punishment for themselves and their families?  There had been many challenges to Moses’ leadership.  The challenges started long before G-d instructed him to stand up to Pharaoh and lead the people out of Egypt to the Promised Land.  Moses really personified the figure of the beleaguered leader.  He was always being challenged by members of his stubborn and individualistic people.  Because of his vision and force of character he always prevailed against the insurgencies.  So what was the unique nature of this insurgency, that it occasioned such a response?

“What was the real nature of the Korach rebellion?” I asked the boy. “What made it stand out among the different challenges to Moses’ leadership?” And I led him on a tour through the Torah, reading through the accounts of the various rebellions against Moses.

“This one really wasn’t about anything,” the boy finally proclaimed. “I mean it was senseless.  It was really only drama.”

Drama.  We all know that word.  We assign it to the actions of certain individuals, who seem to thrive on stirring up one group against another.  They do so for no apparent purpose, other than because they can.  If there’s a purpose for the stirring up of drama, it is that the manipulation of people gives the Drama Queen – or Drama King – a sense of power.  Usually the drama fills a need for power in a person who is really, otherwise powerless.

The boy really opened my eyes.  Korach’s rebellion was about nothing more than the need of three individuals to create drama.  They ached to be like Moses, who derived his authority legitimately.  Moses’ legitimacy was rooted in his calling from G-d.  But it was earned through his obedience to G-d, evidenced by his overcoming his own sense of inadequacy and standing up to Pharaoh.  Then, and again despite the sense of inadequacy he keenly felt, he rallied the people Israel time and again, to lead them through the wilderness and forge them into a strong and resolute people.

The challenge of Korach and his followers was not to assert that Moses was doing anything wrong.  It was not that he’d made any mistakes.  It was not that they, the rebels, could do anything better than Moses.  It was just asking, “Who placed him over us?”  It was pure drama, pitting a group of frightened people against a leader with whom they really couldn’t find substantive fault.

For what they did, the three leaders of the rebellion deserved to be punished severely.  But what what had their families done, to deserve being swallowed up by the earth?  Nothing.  But my bar mitzvah candidate nailed it.

“When people behave in certain ways, they cause lots of people to get hurt, even those closest to them.”

Drama pits one person or group against another, with no underlying purpose other than the need of the Drama Person to create conflict to manipulate people.  When one plays with fire, one gets burned.  But out-of-control conflagrations cause much collateral damage.  Interpersonal drama leaves in its wake a trail of wounded souls.  The Drama person, the manipulator seldom intends to hurt the ones who bear the brunt of the damage.  But that’s the way these things end up.  Korach and his two accomplices surely didn’t intend for their families to bear their punishment.  Perhaps this whole sorry episode is the Torah’s way of warning us?

In last week’s drash, I asserted that the need for drama often makes us blow up solvable problems into insurmountable ones.  Of course, the context was marriage.  Most troubled couples, who respond to their issues with drama, do not in their heart of hearts want their marriages to fail.  But their behavior accomplishes that very thing.  Likewise, Korach and his followers didn’t want their families to perish.  Likewise so many of those who create drama, and hurt those closest to them, they did not intend to hurt anybody.

What’s the solution?  As I’ve pointed out before, it begins with self-awareness.  Without recognizing that we’re engaging in drama, we’re powerless to stop it.  But once we do recognize that we are creating drama, then we can search our souls and ask ourselves why.  It’s not easy.  It takes a big person to admit when they’re wrong, even if they’re just admitting it to themselves.  But if you can come down the road far enough to recognize that you’re creating senseless drama, I challenge you to take the big step of sharing that self-awareness with someone you trust.  In confidence with that person, you can try to unveil your motivations.  Then you can work on them.

As I said, it isn’t easy.  But it is essential.  Even the biggest Drama People can probably tell a war story or two about how they were once hurt by someone else’s penchant for drama.  Maybe the earth didn’t swallow you up, but chances are that you have been hurt at least once in your life by someone who was busy manipulating individuals, creating drama, for purposes that nobody will ever know and perceive.  If so, do you have the courage to examine your own heart of hearts and ask yourself if you haven’t also been guilty of engaging in drama for some opaque purpose?  That’s the first step to controlling this strange impulse that often seems to run like an epidemic in circles of friends, in families, in workplaces, and yes, in religious congregations.  It’s too late for Korach and his cohorts.  But its not too late for those of us in this room.  We can understand this lesson of the consequences of this rebellion.  We can see it as through the eyes of one very perceptive 12-year-old boy whom I once had the pleasure to teach.  If so, then we can learn to behave differently before we cause such a result.

Everybody Shares the Burden
A Drash for Parashat Korach
Saturday, 23 June 2012
Rabbi Don Levy

Back in the 1980’s I lived in Greece for four years.  I look back fondly upon that time.  Greece was a lovely country with a mild climate, beautiful islands and beaches and mountains.  And the Greek people, despite decades of being inundated by tourists, remained open and hospitable to visitors.  They generally held an optimistic and relaxed view of life.  They always managed to find time for one another, to sit and enjoy a coffee on a sunny afternoon while catching up with a relative or friend.  Work?  I can do it, avrio, mañana, tomorrow.  The work will still need to be done then.  I’ll get around to it.

Greece has been in the news quite a bit lately.  It has not been in the news because of its lovely beaches.  But what has put the country in the worldwide spotlight does have something to do with its laid-back ethic.  Greece has such a high amount of foreign debt compared to its gross domestic product, that its economy is threatening to implode.  The country needs to raise its productivity significantly before it defaults on its massive debt.  Its creditors have demanded severe austerity measures as a condition of continued assistance.

I’m not here to single out Greece for criticism.  Greece is, as they say, the Tip of the Iceberg.  Greece simply epitomizes what is happening worldwide.  Following not so far behind are other debt-laden economies.  The fear is that, if Greece falls, other countries will not be far behind.  All of Europe, and America – really, most of the developed world – is wrestling with the issue of how to raise productivity and lessen per capita debt, to save their economies from oblivion.  What they are facing, is the end of the Welfare State as we know it.

From the ashes of the Second World War arose the concept of the modern Welfare State.  After the war’s conclusion, an incredible prosperity descended upon the Western World.  It first benefitted those countries whose infrastructure and industrial bases had not been significantly damaged in the war.  After that, thanks in no small part to the American Marshall Plan, the ruined economies of Western Europe recovered and went into high gear, bringing them prosperity.  One byproduct of all this go-go economic well-being was that the Western Democracies could afford to build social safety nets to ensure their citizens’ well-being should misfortune come upon them individually.

The Welfare State is a wonderful thing; the idea is altruistic at its core.  And, as long as the economy remains in high gear there is enough cash to sustain it.  In times of severe worldwide recession, such as we have been enduring since about 2008, it simply cannot be sustained.

Australia, as I’ve come to understand, has managed to avoid the worst of the current economic recession.  This, thanks in part to its abundant natural resources, and perhaps also thanks to its distance from Europe and America.  But there’s apparently enough suffering to go around, even here in this Lucky Country.  As I understand it even here, there is a sense that some increased austerity is necessary.  Not as much as Greece and other European countries are being forced to swallow.  But enough to make many citizens feel the pinch.

The flaw in the modern Welfare State is not in the idea that every citizen deserves a decent life.  It is not in the notion that decent housing, nutritious food, good health care and a worthwhile job are things that everybody should enjoy.  It is not in the proposition that a strong safety net should be in place to lift up the fallen.  The Welfare State’s flaw is in its role in the killing of personal initiative.  It is in the replacement of individual responsibility with the culture of entitlement.

The portion of Torah which I read this morning provides the antithesis to the culture of entitlement.  In Israel’s being constituted as a nation, it has a collective responsibility for the maintenance of the Mishkan, the sanctuary that provides the nexus between G-d and the people.  Each of the tribes of Israel is allotted a portion of the land which they are about to conquer.  That land will be further apportioned to the families of the respective tribes.  In that way, each family will have the means to earn a living.  But the members of the tribe of Levi shall not be apportioned any land.

Instead, the Levites shall be assigned the responsibility of operating the Mishkan and its infrastructure for the offering of sacrifices to G-d who has so blessed the nation.  This is an awesome responsibility.  I pointed out three weeks ago, in my drash on Parashat Naso, that they faced death should they not correctly discharge their duties.  This is the full-time occupation, the ‘family business’ of the Levites.  They are not to be farmers, dairymen, carpenters or farriers.  Their economic needs will be met by the tithe, the ma’aser.  Each Israelite family is to bring a tenth of its increase – a tithe, or ma’aser – to the Levites to sustain them in performing the vital service for which G-d has chosen them.  Each Israelite has a share in the nation’s merit.  But this is not an entitlement.  It comes from each family’s participation in the grand enterprise.  It comes from the tithe, the goods that are brought to the Levites to enable them to live while performing their unique service.

The tithe is, of course, the first historical precedent for the Flat Tax.  Everyone must ante up the same percentage.  But of course that means that the less success one enjoys, the less one is liable.  The more one succeeds, the more one is liable.  It sounds quite fair to me – this in a world where so much is un-fair.  But I digress…

So what about the Levites?  They carried a very heavy load.  The well-being of the entire nation was upon their shoulders.  As we read this morning, the Levites “shall bear their iniquity” – that is to say, that of the entire people.  All this under the threat of death, should they fail in their very exacting duties.  One would think that would be enough, but it wasn’t.  The Levites were also required to give a tenth of what they received – a tithe of a tithe – as an offering to the G-d whom they served on behalf of the Jewish people.

From this portion we learn that everybody gives to the common enterprise in accordance with their ability to give.  Those who earn little, give little.  But no-one is exempt.  Even those whose full-time occupation is the service that makes everything possible must also present a tenth of what they take in. 

Of course having said this, I realize I’m opening the door to expectations as to my participation in the next temple fund-raiser.  But that’s not a problem; I’ll step through that door…

So the ideal presented here, in the Book of Numbers, is that each of us bears responsibility for that, which benefits the entire community.  Nobody is exempt.  Each of us must participate proportionately.  To those who might choose – or be chosen for – a life of service, a financial contribution is still expected.  It seems the antithesis of the modern tax system that rewards certain behaviors by offering tax advantages.  And it is definitely the antithesis of the culture of entitlement.  Let’s lift one another up and help one another in times of misfortune.  To the extent that it doesn’t impede the economy or bankrupt the treasury, let’s provide a safety net for those in temporary misfortune, especially if their circumstances are due to no fault of their own.  But let’s work to erase the culture of entitlement, the mindset that all is owed me, by virtue of my being here.  This is a contemporary problem that seems to have been anticipated in the Torah.

The ancient Israelites knew that each person was responsible for bringing G-d’s favor upon the nation.  In the same way, let us always keep in mind that the strength of the collective is in the contributions of each of its members.  This holds true in the economy of the nation.  It holds equally true in the well-being of the congregation.