In the process of preparing my d’var Torah last month (read here), I felt like I was grasping at straws to make meaning out of the hypertechnical nature of that portion’s limited plot. Thankfully, there is plenty of dramatic material in this week’s portion.
The Israelites are still in the desert after their exodus from Egypt, and, after receiving the Torah, are experiencing some growing pains in their nascent nationhood: when we last left our heroes, the scouts sent to survey the Holy Land bungled their expedition, and on this week’s episode of Torah, Moses faces an attempted mutiny, the undertaking of our titular character, Korach, who also happens to be Moshe’s first cousin. So we’ve got some family drama, too.
Korach gets 250 “anshei shem” together, that is, people of high stature, and they accuse Moshe and his brother, the High Priest Aharon, of unjustified superiority. After the sin of the Golden Calf, the Kohanim (descendants of Aharon) and the Levites, whom Moshe counts himself amongst, have exclusive punchcards for work in the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. Korach and his cronies make a public spectacle and call out Moshe and Aharon saying:
רַב־לָכֶם֒ כִּ֤י כׇל־הָֽעֵדָה֙ כֻּלָּ֣ם קְדֹשִׁ֔ים וּבְתוֹכָ֖ם הֹ’ וּמַדּ֥וּעַ תִּֽתְנַשְּׂא֖וּ עַל־קְהַ֥ל הֹ’׃
“You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and GOD is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above G-d’s congregation?”
Mind you—Korach is himself a Levite, so his gripe is that he is not amongst the priests; he can still count himself amongst a privileged class within his nation. But he presents himself as a populist advocate for the equality of all in B’nei Yisrael in accessing the Holy service.
At first glance, Korach’s critique of the Israelite class structure is a tempting proposition— especially to me as a queer person. Are we not all holy, equal creations in the eyes of G-d? Are we not all worthy of closeness to our creator…of equal roles in our communities?
So after Korach challenges Moshe and Aharon, Moshe is like, “okay, Korach, you wanna play? Let’s play.”
What follows is the biblical equivalent of Lip Syncing for your life. Moshe v Korach is like Sasha Velour Vs Shea Coulee – So Emotional (Season 9).
Moshe taunts Korach, “if you are so sure that you are entitled to carry out the Holy Service, then why don’t you offer the Ketoret to Hashem? (The Ketoret being pretty much the most holy offering there is out there in the grand scheme of the Temple service.) He adds, “I’ll have Aharon and his guys do it, too, and we’ll see who is left standing once all is said and done!”
And this is a live public spectacle. Hashem wants all of the Israelites to see how this battle plays out. As the pots and pans, and battle, get heated, Moshe comes in with an insane weather forecast:
וְאִם־בְּרִיאָ֞ה יִבְרָ֣א ה’ וּפָצְתָ֨ה הָאֲדָמָ֤ה אֶת־פִּ֙יהָ֙ וּבָלְעָ֤ה אֹתָם֙ וְאֶת־כׇּל־אֲשֶׁ֣ר לָהֶ֔ם וְיָרְד֥וּ חַיִּ֖ים שְׁאֹ֑לָה וִֽידַעְתֶּ֕ם כִּ֧י נִֽאֲצ֛וּ הָאֲנָשִׁ֥ים הָאֵ֖לֶּה אֶת־ה’׃
Moshe warns, [Am Yisrael] needs to step back a beat, because “if things go south for Korach and his friends, they are literally going to go south; G-d is going to make the ground open up its mouth and swallow everybody who has sinned into the depths of this sort of purgatory called sheol” (As a kid, I had a vision of the sarlacc pit from Return of the Jedi.)
Just as Moshe warns the people, indeed, the ground opens up under Korach and his entourage, and sends them “Miss Vanji-ing” all the way down into the depths of the sarlacc pit. Hashem essentially says to Moshe and Aharon, “Shantay, you stay.”
So what is the lesson here? Is it that dissent must be quashed at all costs? That those who challenge the normativity of societal roles must be silenced, and, in this case, literally buried underneath the earth?
I want to suggest a subversion of the common reading of Korach’s sin: the issue with his rebellion against Moshe and Aaron was not his populism, but rather that, in his attempt to democratize the temple service, he rejected the role he was born into. Rather than embrace the gift G-d had given him as a Levite, he attempted to foster a society where individuality would be rendered obsolete, and everybody could just blend in. The message I take from that is that whatever queerness we have, we are born with, and that it is incumbent on all of us not to try blending into the crowd.
I experience a real tension between how I experience my queer identity and the early talking point of the gay rights movement that “we are just like everybody else.” And yet, I recognize that it was the efforts to normalize LGBTQ+ people in broader society that gave way to progress and afforded me the life out of the closet that all of us enjoy here today.
But we really are not like everybody else! And I believe so strongly that it is our differences from “normative society” that make queer folk some of its greatest contributors. We have a unique approach to relationships, self-expression, and even faith. I fall on the younger end of the spectrum when it comes to out Jews from my Orthodox background, but I am still old enough to tell you that, when I was younger, the communities we belong to today simply did not exist.
December will mark a decade since I came out and had you told me back then that I would find myself, on a regular basis, practicing Judaism in rooms so bright and colorful as the ones I find myself in now, I would have laughed in your face.
Our differences are our strength; conformity is a closet.
How much worse our already broken world would be without everybody in our community exactly as they are.
After Hashem eliminates Korach’s threat, G-d has Moshe collect a staff from each of the leaders of the 12 Israelite tribes. G-d instructs him to inscribe the name of each tribe on their respective staff, but to also include the name of Aharon on the staff of Levi. Moshe is commanded to place the staffs in the Tabernacle. A blossom blooms from the staff of the Levites, as a Divine symbol and enduring endorsement of the tribe’s unique place amongst the Israelites, the gift that Korach was so fervent to reject.
May we continue to inscribe our own names, as proud LGBTQ+ Jews, into the history of the Jewish people and embrace our divine gifts such that we will continue blooming as a symbol of Pride throughout our community.
Shabbat Shalom!
-Mendel Weintraub