Congregation Beth Shalom

Torah Portion: Korach

Book of Numbers
Chaps. 16:1-18:32
June 24, 2011

For Moses, nothing is easy! He had to persuade not only Pharaoh but also the Israelite slaves that leaving Egypt was in their best interest. No sooner were they free, then Moses had to endure constant complaints-not enough food, not enough water, we were better off in Egypt than in the middle of a desert, and so on! Now, full-scale rebellion!

Korach, a member of the tribe of Levi like Moses, gathers together 250 Israelite tribal leaders and publicly assails Moses and Aaron's leadership by proclaiming, "You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord's congregation? (Num. 16:3)" Rabbi Ismar Schorsch notes, "Behind the facade of democratic rhetoric lurks a grab for power."

Korach's claim is not without merit, but the manner in which he pronounced it (in public and, literally, ganging up on Moses with 250 Israelites) made clear his intentions were not just to "level the playing field," but to usurp power. This was a rebellion doomed from the outset.

In the late 1990s, a group of Orthodox Jewish students filed a lawsuit against Yale University. Yale's housing policy required that all unmarried undergraduates live on campus for their first two years; the school has a longstanding mission to create not just dormitories but college communities. There are single-sex floors for first-year students, but anyone of any gender can visit, sleep over, or use the bathroom. In 1998, several Orthodox Jewish students, subsequently known as the "Yale Five," protested the policy, claiming that Yale's accommodations compromised their modesty, or what is referred to in Hebrew as "Tzniyut".

In keeping with their level of Jewish observance, there claim was reasonable. What most newspaper articles of the time failed to note was Yale's initial response. The university quickly offered the students a suite in the dorm that would have spared the use of any common facilities. What Yale was not willing to do was forego its requirement that all unmarried 1st and 2nd year students reside in residential dormitories. The "Yale Five" showed their true colors when they turned down the offer and filed a law suit against the university. Like Korach, their real intentions were not what they seemed to be. In fact, the real issue for these students was not "modesty/Tzniyut", but a desire to minimize social contact with anyone who was not like them. In the end, the courts sided with Yale ruling the students constitutional rights were not violated. Rabbi Schorsch, in commenting on this case, writes, "The case of the Yale plaintiffs is frivolous because it is unwarranted. Nothing is at stake except their misguided notion of God's will."

Both Korach and the Yale students hid their real agenda behind a facade of Torah and constitutional law. In doing so, they not only demeaned themselves but the moral/ethical teachings of Torah they purportedly held so sacred.

Rabbi Howard Siegel