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Holy Korach!

21 Sunday Jun 2015

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Parshat Korach (Numbers 16 – 18) begins with a puzzling Hebrew expression, ויקח קרח, literally, Korach took, without ever stating what he took. Commentators have suggested that Korach took himself to one side to separate himself from the community, or that he took or gained the favor of the men of the Sanhedrin (Rashi) or that he took for himself a bad purchase by using his money to gain influence and create a dispute (R Shimon ben Lakish, BT Sanhedrin 109b).

The Torah often plays Hebrew word games and sound games (take for example the Copper Serpent in Number 21:6-10). Here, in chapter 16 the letters ק ח recur frequently. First in Korach’s own name, and then in the word take (Kach).  Then in verses 6,17,18 all in reference to taking fire pans. Is the Torah telling us that Korach is a taker? Why are his followers taking fire pans?  Moses without any instructions from God has decided to use fire pans and burning incense in them to determine who is allowed to be priests. How did Moses know to use this as a means of determination? Why not use animal sacrifices, a far more common service of the priests? Eliahu used animal sacrifices in contest with the priest of Baal on Mt. Carmel (I Kings 18:20). So why not here also? And why did Korach and his entourage so readily agree.  Why didn’t they offer their own contest?

When is the incense offering offered normally? It is offered twice a day on the golden altar each time by a different priest (Mishna Tamid 5:2).  The priest burns this offering inside the Temple building in the Holy section without any other people present.  Once a year, on Yom Kippur the High Priest would burn the incense in the Holy of Holies, also alone. Due to its exclusive nature, the incense offering was seen as the paramount of holy devotion for a priest. Furthermore, when we compare the purified incense to a bloody animal it also seems to be more spiritual in nature.

Korach’s claim is that the whole community is holy and should be able to be priests. What better way to break down the hierarchical structure of the priesthood than to take the most holy of all the sacrifices and allow everyone to perform it?  It was the obvious way to demonstrate that all the people can approach God in the most holy way – the complete democratization of religion.  We noted earlier that it is unclear what Korach took, and that we see later in the verses a lot of taking of fire pans. If we use these later verses that contain the letters ק ח to explain the first verse of the parsha we can suggest that what Korach took right from the start was a fire pan for the burning of incense. This is why Moses suggested using fire pans to run the contest.  And this is why Korach agreed so readily, it was his idea in the first place!
Korach wanted all the people to have an equal share in the religious ritual and sacrificial rite. This seems like it should be a legitimate request. Any person in the faith should be able to come close to God and express his love and fear of God. In current times the desire to open up religious ritual and practice to all the community is the predominate sentiment.  But I want to explore the other side of the argument.  Is there any value in keeping certain areas of the religion off limits, or off limits to most member of the faith?

One justification would be that familiarity if it doesn’t breed contempt, at least is breeds familiarity! And familiarity has its down side.  A goal of religion is take people out of their normal existence, to experience something far removed. This requires specialness of place and time and limitation of access. In Judaism the Temple is mostly off limits and that creates a feeling of awe. In Islam, Mecca for example is a place most members of the faith only visit once in their lifetime. In Catholicism there is a special feeling created by the Midnight Mass, a feeling which would diminished if it would take place every night of the year.  In Judaism, part of the holiness of visiting the Kotel is in its very infrequency. Our feeling of inspiration is often linked to difficulty or rareness of a certain experience.  The Hassidic movement captured this idea in the seasonal visit to the Rebbe. Keeping some things in religious practice off limits serves to enhance meaningfulness of religious practice as a whole.

In the Temple there are two parts, the Holy and the Holy of Holies. The many daily animal sacrifices take place in front of and outside of the Temple.  The incense offering takes place in the Holy section of the Temple.  This represents a higher level of exclusiveness.  As we noted, only one kohen per day may do this service and only once in his life.  The Holy of Holies has even a higher level of exclusivity and holiness, it is visited only once a year. These different levels of separateness command higher levels of respect and awe, and create a sense of holiness.

There is a more prosaic reason for limiting who can officiate in the holy service. It prevents competition and resentment. When a certain position is open to everyone but only one person is chosen, those who are not chosen may feel resentment. Why wasn’t I chosen? He is no better than I am. But when the choice is made from birth, such as the selection of the King of England there is less resentment.  I was never in the running to be King of England so I don’t feel indignant that I was not chosen. This is the primary utility in a static hierarchy. It would have not been possible for all 600,000 (or more) Israelites to act as priests.  All Korach could have accomplished would have been to make everyone eligible to be priests.  When only some would be selected there would have been a lot of resentment. Aharon and his sons are a tiny fraction of the whole population.  By selecting them, God created a greater level of preeminence for them and an ensuing greater respect and awe for them.  And He also removed a potential for a lot of future disappointments and resentment.

What avenue do the faithful have today to approach the Divine? Prayer is our replacement for Temple Service, the service of the heart.  In our prayers there is one special time when we go to a holier place than even the High Priest on Yom Kippur goes to.  In the Kedusha prayer, we do not go to the Holy of Holies, but we go to the angelic place beyond that, the third level of holiness.  And we say, “Holy Holy Holy, Lord of Hosts, the whole world is filled with Your glory.”  And in this paradoxical statement we recognize that God is indeed separate (holy) but we also recognize that we can reach closeness to Him in any place in His world, ‘the world is filled with His glory’. Prayer is open to all people at all times.

Celebrating Victory – Parshat BeShalach

05 Thursday Feb 2015

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In the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 39b the verse in Exodus 14:20, ולא קרב זה אל זה כל הלילה (“they did not approach one another the whole night”) as teaching that the administering angels wanted to sing before God but God did not let them come together for this purpose. He told them, ‘The work of my hands are drowning in the sea and you want sing praises?’

The Talmud is teaching that God cares for all his creatures. And even if the Egyptians tried to kill His beloved Israel and they therefore had to be destroyed, do not think that God is happy about this. He still loves all his creatures, even those who are wicked. And therefore our joy in victory must be mitigated by awareness of the life that was lost on both sides.

This Talmudic lesson can be contrasted with the how the Midrash understands the verse. In Shmot Rabba 23:7 we find almost the same explanation, except that God’s reason for not allowing the angels to sing is different. He tells them, ‘My legions are still in peril and you want to sing my praises?’ This is a very different reason. Here God is exclusively concerned with the welfare of his nation, Israel. It is ok to sing praises to God about the Israelite victory, but only after the danger is completely past.

We can learn that the Rabbis at different times were sensitive to each of these concerns.  On the one hand we cannot be without mercy for our enemies even if their goal is our destruction, but that mercy should not prevent us from finishing the job of our own salvation.  Sometimes Gods creatures have to be destroyed, but we need to mourn that loss or else we become that much less human.

-Nachum Danzig

 

 

 

Destiny Joseph – Parshat VaYechi

02 Friday Jan 2015

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The book of Genesis comes to a close with Joseph forgiving his brothers. In chapter 50 verses 19 – 20 Joseph tells the brother they should not fear him,  “Do not fear. Am I in place of God? You thought evil toward me, but God thought for the good in order to have what there is today, to preserve a great number of people.” It sounds like Joseph is saying that even though the brothers intended to do something bad, since God converted their actions into something positive, saving humanity from famine, they deserve no punishment.  But does this make sense ethically? Does the fact that the evil done actually brought about some good serve to lessen the guilt of the doer? If Reuben intending to kill Shimon, shoots him in the chest and then in the hospital, the surgeons in the process of saving Shimon’s life find an undetected tumor which they also remove, thus saving Shimon from cancer, is Reuven no longer guilty of attempted murder? The brothers did an evil thing, the fact that it fit into God’s plan should not mitigate their guilt.

The Sforno solves this problem by explaining that the when Joseph says ‘You thought evil towards me’ he meant that the brothers thought Joseph was evil. So Joseph considers their actions justifiable given their opinion. Though in fact God considered Joseph to be righteous. In any event, Joseph would not punish them for doing what they thought was right. Rashi gives a different but equally creative interpretation. Rashi interprets Joseph’s statement like this: You intended to do evil to me, but God prevented it. Am I in Gods place that I could do you any evil without God willing it? So while Joseph does not exactly forgive them, he merely points out that he cannot harm them even if he wanted to since God controls all that befalls man. There is no point for Joseph to actively seek out their punishment since that is for God to do.

This explanation brings up a different theological problem: Shouldn’t man act in this world and do what he can to fix the world, and bring justice?  Is Joseph a believer in absolute destiny? The argument goes like this, I am about to cross the street.   Either it is God’s will that I survive this crossing or that I die.  If I am to survive, then I will survive whether or not I look both ways before crossing.  If, heaven forbid, I am destined to die, then looking won’t save me.  Either way I can cross blindly.  Does Joseph subscribe to this view? This would fit his decision not to punish the brothers. Why bother? If it is God’s will, it will happen with or without Joseph’s interference.

The question might be asked, but we see God commands man, so He does expect us to act. But this would only require us to act when He has commanded us.  What about where there is no command?  Then seemingly we are free to be inactive.

If Joseph really subscribed to this belief we can explain another troubling question: We see almost the whole Jewish people came to Israel to bury Jacob.  Then they return to Egypt. Before his death, Joseph tells them they will be brought one day to the Land of Israel (50:24). If they were supposed to be in the Land of Israel, why didn’t they just stay there when they went up previously? Or even now, why didn’t they just go there, they obviously had the ability? Joseph is telling them that since God did not command them to go now, there is no reason to take any active hand in getting there. They were supposed to wait for the divine plan to unfold around them. All of man’s actions are futile in the face of God’s master plan. This is also the general message of the story of the sale of Joseph and his eventual rise to power. History is under God’s control.

Is there any role for man’s independent action in this world? Can man ever spoil God’s plan or is his influence limited to areas that are irrelevant to and do not impinge upon God’s plan? The Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, the Netziv, gives us an amazing insight into this question in commenting on the brothers’ plan to throw Joseph into the pit instead of killing him outright. In his Herchev Devar on verse 37:13, the Netziv explains why throwing Joseph into a pit to die is preferable to killing him with an instrument.  The Zohar explains that the pit was full of snakes and scorpions, yet Reuben was not afraid that Joseph would die because he knew Joseph was a righteous man and God would save him. But Reuben was afraid that Joseph would die if the brothers laid hands upon him, why? Wouldn’t God save him then too? The Netziv writes, No, human free will is beyond divine Providence. It can reverse God’s plan. God can choose to override human free will but only exceptional circumstances.  The very meaning of human free will is that we can act even where God would not want us to.  If human free will were limited to acting according to a divine plan (or even within certain alternate design plans), then man really would have no free will. We would be only deluding ourselves in thinking we have free will. Our freedom would be circumscribed by God’s plans.

This question broadens greatly into serious theological issues. First we can ask does providence conflict with human free will?  Then we can ask does omniscience conflict with human free will?  There are those who will answer, not like the Netziv that human free will can never conflict with the divine plan because what ever happens God will rework the plan to achieve the same results in a different way.  That really makes no sense since the plan might be the Shimon will become king.  Can Reuben then kill Shimon? So there must be a conflict at some level, albeit that God can choose the override human free will in certain cases.  So therefore we would need to say there are multiple divine plans, depending on human decisions. We would then be left with a less absolute concept of Providence.

As far as omniscience and free will, there are several approaches. Basically, if God knows what I will do tomorrow, then I may feel I have free will tomorrow to do what I want, I really cannot do anything but what God knows I will do.  We can solve this problem by either negating free will or limiting God’s knowledge in some way. Maimonides chooses the latter. First of all, since God exists outside of time, we cannot truly say he knows anything before it happens since before only makes sense when talking about a being that exists in time. So his knowledge of the future is like our knowledge of the past, neither of which affects the events.  Human future knowledge, as in a prophet’s knowledge, would present a problem, but prophets never have exact knowledge.  A second way Maimonides solves this problem is by saying the God and his knowledge are one, and just as the former is incomprehensible so is the latter. (See Hilchot Tshuva 5:5, Guide 1:57) So God’s knowledge is something we cannot comprehend, and is unlike human knowledge in any way, and so it cannot be a problem theologically. His third solution is that when we talk about omniscience, we only mean knowledge of things that are knowable. In saying God is omniscient we never intended to say that God knows things that are unknowable because they are contingent on free will choices. For example, God knows what is in my refrigerator, but he does not know what I will eat from their tomorrow morning.

In book 5:20 of the Kuzari Yehudah Halevi seems to hold like the last option given by Maimonides, i.e. that knowledge of a future potential does not cause it to occur.

In the Guide 2:48 Maimonides brings the earlier words of Joseph to his brother, “God sent me before you” (45:7) as an example of an action performed by intermediate causes, i.e. the brother, which is nevertheless ascribed to God since he is the primary cause of all.  (See also Hilchot Tshuva 5:4 where God’s will is explained to include the permission for man to act freely)  So perhaps Joseph is telling the brother what they want to hear. He is letting the brothers believe he views this as God’s works, but he really only means it is God’s will for man to act freely.