Confronting Our Inner Korach - Reflections on the Celebrate Israel Parade

The rabbi of a synagogue comes down with the flu.  He calls the president and says he can’t attend that night’s board meeting.

The next morning, the president calls the rabbi.  He tells him the meeting went well.  And in fact, the board wishes him r’fuah shleima, a complete recovery.

That’s so nice, says the rabbi.

Yes it is, says the president.  And by the way, the vote was 20 to 18. 

Now in my head, right now, I hear my college professor who taught us Aristophanes’ comedy, the Frogs, saying to me, “Kiddo – don’t try to explain a joke.  Either it flies or it fails, but don’t try to explain it!”

Well, professor, I’m going to just take a minute to talk about the joke for the sake of a higher purpose.

First, a board of 38 is too large so of course you’ll have problems. Second, I wonder if Episcopalians tell such a joke about their ministers or Muslims about their imams.  Is there something especially Jewish about the joke or is it applicable to any religious institution?

In a Jewish context, it somehow captures the sweet, yet sometimes idiosyncratic relationship between rabbis and congregations, though each rabbi likes to think that his or her numbers are more favorable than those in the joke.

It also takes as a given that there are always detractors, people who have issues with whomever or whatever is in place. 

And, one wonders, might such people be able to separate the ideological from the personal?  Leading to a prayer not unlike the prayer for the czar in Fiddler on the Roof, “May God give the rabbi a full recovery far away from here.”

This week, we read about the rebellion of a classic detractor named Korach, a Levite who gathered a bunch of people with him and challenged Moses and Aaron’s authority with a statement and a question.

The statement – כל העדה כלם קדושים kol ha’eda kulam kedoshim.  The entire congregation is holy.

And the question:  ומדוע תתנשאו על קהל ה  Umadua titnas’u al k’hal adonai?  And why do you raise yourselves up above the congregation?

What follows is a showdown that ends with Korach and his followers swallowed up by the earth. 

What was the problem with Korach?

According to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and others, the problem with Korach was that his interest was not the community at all, but himself.

He was not, according to Hirsch, a man of great vision, but a man of myopic self-preoccupation.  His statement about the holiness of the community was less a concern with community than an effort to advance his own interests.

Interestingly, a Talmudic passage speculates that Korach tried to trick Moses by posing picayune legal questions that have no legitimate answer. 

Korach, according to later understanding and in keeping with a plausible reading of the actual story, is someone for whom the larger picture is marred by the confluence of ego and myopia.

I want to take these next moments to suggest, ladies and gentlemen, that he is alive and well today.  On the right, on the left and on the center.  The myopic ego-driven legacy of Korach is alive and well.  We’re all prone to it to one degree or another and we have to be careful. 

This past Sunday, Temple Israel marched in the Celebrate Israel Parade.  We marched along with SHAI, the Sephardic Heritage Alliance Incorporated, IAJF, The Iranian American Jewish Federation and the Gahelet school.  Great banners, great float, great music.

I spent part of the parade marching with Temple Israel, and then I watched for half an hour on the side after we were done marching.

I saw groups from all the denominations marching.

I saw several Christian groups, as well as representatives from Greece and Cyprus.

I saw left wing and right wing political groups marching.

I saw an LGBT group holding flags with a Jewish star surrounded by rainbow stripes.

I saw the Chai Riders, a motorcycle club that, according to its website, stays in touch with Jewish culture and religion.

Inevitably there are groups who boycott the parade.  Sometimes there are organizations on the left who boycott in protest of the policies of the Israeli government.

This year, the big boycott discussion was generated from the right.  While many Orthodox groups were sizably represented, some boycotted to protest the presence of LGBT groups. 

I say of this what I’ve said in the past about boycotts on the left.

Are you kidding me? 

Is your protest more important than your symbolic presence at a parade that demonstrates the centrality of Israel in our lives?

Our great-great grandparents only dared to dream about the reestablishment of the State of Israel.  It’s a reality for us now.

And we’re going to stay home, or stand on the side, to register our discontent with whatever Israel is or isn’t doing and who is going to be doing what with whom after the parade is over?

It’s myopic and narrowly self-serving to do that, the legacy of Korach alive and well.

Our supporters and our detractors outside of the Jewish community want to know only one thing and that is, on the first Sunday in June, how many care enough to walk up 5^th avenue and to line the streets in support of Israel?

All year long there is ample opportunity to register protests about politics, and to argue the definition of family and the interpretation of Torah.

One day a year we’re asked to lift ourselves up beyond our disagreements and to traverse a stretch of the same avenue together. 

This is not the day to wish Israel well by a vote of 20 to 18.  This is a day when we vote with our feet and the vote needs to be unanimous.

A few years ago on Rosh Hashanah, I gave an entire sermon based on two words – היום תגדלנו Hayom t’gad’leinu. 

Today, make us larger.  Lift us up beyond our own limiting confines.

When we cannot transcend our own predilections long enough to see and embrace the larger picture, we’re embracing our inner Korach. 

I don’t know a soul who has no inner Korach, who isn’t distracted from the larger picture by a host of competing elements. 

But we can, and must, put that in proper perspective and, as needed, rise above it.

This Shabbat, we are honored to be hosting the officers and board of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.  We have heard an inspiring message from the international president, Richard Skolnik.

I want to say in their presence, and in the presence of this sacred congregation, that the Conservative movement has played, and is uniquely positioned to play, a leading role in seeing the larger picture when it comes to eretz yisra’el, the land of Israel, and klal yisra’el, the people of Israel.

Conservative Jews are the backbone of Federations and Israel Bonds functions and when I observed the synagogues marching up Fifth Avenue last Sunday, I couldn’t help but proudly note that most of them are Conservative synagogues.

In the course of our history, we never proclaimed that the land in which we lived was the New Israel, as did some leaders to our left, nor did we ever denounce the secular government of Israel as usurpers of the divine messianic plan, as did some leaders to our right.

If anything, we need to swing the pendulum a bit in the other direction, to cultivate our unique institutions and to celebrate our unique identity in adult communities and on college campuses.

But if you’re looking for the anti-Korach?  If you’re looking for the legacy of Moshe Rabbenu, our teacher Moses, who dared on multiple occasions to remind God of the bigger picture?  You’ll find it within the Conservative Jewish community.

Before I conclude, I want to say a word to all of us who are involved in the raising of children – teachers, parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts.

The inner Korach rears its head all the time when you’re raising kids.

We identify something that we claim is good for our children and, on occasion, it is a thinly-veiled articulation of our own needs and aspirations.

My children used to get suspicious when I would suggest, as they turned 6 or 7, that the perfect birthday cake for them would be a nice chocolate babka with a few walnuts baked in and sprinkled on top.

Some of that may be ok, but some of it is unhealthy and, if we realize it, or people who care about us point it out, it should be avoided. 

We need to ask ourselves – what are the details that really matter, that serve the larger purpose of raising a child with confidence and compassion, and what are the details that are more about our own mishagos than anything else?

Forgive me, but even the consequence that befell Korach and his followers has resonance for us today.

To the extent that our communal and familial engagement is beset by self-serving preoccupation, we will get swallowed up.  We will bury ourselves in a heap of irrelevance and triviality.

Who wants that when instead, we can be marching toward the Promised Land?

We don’t need to eradicate ego completely, just to harness it in service of the larger good.

We needn’t abandon our concern with detail, either, just to check periodically that the details are aligned with a significant higher purpose.

How fortunate we would be if we could transcend lama titnas’u – who lifted you up?  And embrace היום תגדלנו hayom t’gadleinu.  Help us to become greater.

In synagogues, on campuses, at parades and around the family table, it’s time.  Time to put our “inner Korach” in its proper place.

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on June 8, 2013