One of the risks that our faithful shepherd Moshe took when he finally accepted God’s offer to be the redeemer of Israel, was having his life displayed for all like an open book. We see him fighting for justice, with the taskmaster, with the shepherds of Midian, and even with God. He launches fiery speeches in favor of his nation, but he also gets frustrated with them, announcing that he is not the mother or father of the stubborn Israelites. He negotiates God’s wrath after the sin of the Golden Calf, but on his own administers a punishment to the sinners. Yet with all the versatility of Moshe’s character, with all of his passion, deep faith, and sensitivity, we never find him personally insulted. Even when his own siblings turn against him and Miriam contracts leprosy as a punishment, Moshe does not rebuke her and instead prays for her speedy recovery.

When confronted by Korah and his followers, however, all that seems to change. Moshe engages in a long tirade against the dissenters and requests for them a unique punishment. He asks God to create a miraculous phenomenon in order to prove Moshe’s righteousness:

בזאת תדעון כי ה’ שלחני לעשות את כל המעשים האלה כי לא מלבי. אם כמות כל האדם ימותון אלה ופקודת כל האדם יפקד עליהם, לא ה’ שלחני. ואם בריאה יברא ה’ ופצתה האדמה את פיה ובלעה אותם ואת כל אשר להם, וידעתם כי ניאצו האנשים האלה את ה’.

With this you shall know that God sent to carry out all these actions and that I did not invent them. If they die as all humans and the destiny of all men befalls them, God did not send me. But if God creates a new creation, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them and all that is theirs, you shall know that these people blasphemed God.

We read in wonder. Is it possible that Moshe was patient only when God’s word was on the line but loses his temper when it comes to his personal honor, or when his position is threatened?

To answer this question, we have to go back several verses, and look at Moshe’s response to Korah when the latter claims that the whole congregation is holy:

קחו לכם מחתות, קורח וכל עדתו… והיה האיש אשר יבחר ה’ הוא הקדוש…

Take your incense pans, you and your followers and stand in front of God tomorrow. The man chosen by God is the holy one.

This suggestion was a carefully planned test of Korah’s integrity. Had Korah genuinely meant what he said and truly believed that there is no room for hierarchy in a “holy Congregation”, he should have immediately rejected the offer. “Did you not hear what I just said? We are ALL holy. I will not be involved in another process of religious elections.” That was the response Moshe expected, and when it did not come, he knew that Korah was a hypocrite and an opportunist.

Moshe made one more attempt and reached out to the lay leaders of the rebellion, Datan and Aviram, but they have replied defiantly:

לא נעלה! המעט כי העליתנו מארץ זבת חלב ודבש להמיתנו במדבר, כי תשתרר עלינו גם השתרר? אף לא אל ארץ זבת חלב ודבש הביאותנו ותתן לנו נחלת שדה וכרם. העיני האנשים ההם תנקר? לא נעלה!

We will not come to you! Is it not enough that you brought us out of the land of milk and honey to kill us in the desert, that you now seek to control us? You also failed to bring us to the land of milk and honey and give us possession of fields and vineyards. Do you want to gouge our eyes? We shall not come [to you or to the land.]

Datan and Aviram seem to cruelly hit Moshe where it hurts him most. They mention his failure to bring them to the Promised Land, following the regrettable mission of the scouts, and they repeat the first insult leveled at him after he killed the taskmaster – all you want is to control us! [מי שמך לאיש שר – כי תשתרר עלינו]

Beneath the tough talk, however, something else is lurking – a hidden message and an invitation to negotiate. By saying that Moshe did not give them fields and vineyards, Datan and Aviram are offering a deal. They insinuate that if Moshe can guarantee them a significant portion in their future land, they will call off the rebellion. The shameless response of Datan and Aviram reaffirmed Moshe’s feeling that the demand of Korah and his followers for equality was hypocritical. The dissenters shrewdly used the frustration of the people to stage a mutiny against Moshe, but they were not concerned with the welfare of the people. Rather, they saw this as an opportunity to usurp power, and ultimately, to exploit the people.

That understanding of Moshe explains the way he addresses God, as mentioned above:

If they die as all humans and the destiny of all men befalls them, God did not send me.

The emphasis is on the word “all”. Moshe rebukes the rebels for pretending that they are like “all” others. Their gathering with incense-loaded pans, in wait for a divine sign which will appoint one of them as the supreme leader, exposes their lies and hypocrisy and shows that they are power-thirsty. Accordingly, Moshe demands a punishment which befits injustice. In the biblical world of idioms and images, the land opens its mouth to cover wrongdoing. It swallows the blood of the first murder victim (Gen. 4:11), it covers the blood of wild animals and fowl which ideally should not have been killed (Lev. 17:13), and it is addressed by Job (16:18) who asks it not to cover the injustice brought upon him by God.

The rebels of Korah committed the ultimate act of injustice towards their presumptive constituents. They were willing to unsettle a divinely mandated government, risking the welfare of the people, in order to grab power and riches. Not only that, they did so in the name of public service. The pages of mankind’s history are unfortunately filled with the names and deeds of many such despots and corrupt rulers who destroyed nations and countries for their self-aggrandizement, the likes of Mao and Hitler, Stalin and Arafat, to mention but a few from recent history.

The earth, which usually is accused of covertly participating in the concealment of the blood of innocent victims, is granted permission this time to swallow Korah and his followers publicly. This miraculous phenomenon shows that indeed justice is served, because the rebels are the perpetrators of crimes against the rest of the congregation, which naively believed in them as its saviors.

The authors of the Midrash delivered one final blow to the Korah gang by creating a fantastic story around the disappearance of the third accomplice, Ohn son of Pelet. Mr. Ben Pelet appears in the short list of Korah’s followers, but is not included in the final and fateful gathering, suggesting that he might have not been there. The rabbis say that his wife dissuaded him from joining the anti-Moshe movement by saying that he will reap no benefits and will only be punished.

Ohn ben Pelet responded that he already gave his word that he will join the others, but his wife asked him to stay in the tent while she takes care of things. She sat at the entrance, let her hair down, and started applying fragrant oil. When the people of Korah came to pick up her husband they turned back empty handed because they did not want to get near an “immodest woman”.

Over the years, this Midrash has been misinterpreted as saying that a woman must cover her hair. As a matter of fact, the rabbis identified the concept of hypocrisy in Korah’s story and added a layer of their own by leveling criticism against their own generation’s hypocrites. The Mishnah in Sotah (3:4) speaks of dangerous pious people, and the Talmud (22:2) explains that one of them is the one who shuts his eyes to not look at women. The rabbis spun this story into a tale of people who pretend that they are so religious as to not go near Ohn’s wife, while in reality they are defying not only Moshe’s prophecy but the Divine Word as well.

In conclusion, the story of Korah is relevant to all societies at all eras. It calls on us to scrutinize our motives when we launch a campaign for justice, and to study the behavior and messages of lay and religious leaders in order to determine if they are serving a noble cause or are nothing more than self-serving fraudulent actors.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Haim Ovadia