Korah | Leading from Wholeness

 וַיִּקַּ֣ח קֹ֔רַח בֶּן־יִצְהָ֥ר בֶּן־קְהָ֖ת בֶּן־לֵוִ֑י וַיָּקֻ֙מוּ֙ לִפְנֵ֣י מֹשֶׁ֔ה וַאֲנָשִׁ֥ים מִבְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל חֲמִשִּׁ֣ים וּמָאתָ֑יִם נְשִׂיאֵ֥י עֵדָ֛ה קְרִאֵ֥י מוֹעֵ֖ד אַנְשֵׁי־שֵֽׁם׃

Now Korah, son of Izhar son of Kohath son of Levi took/divided/separated/betook himself

Numbers 16: 1

This week's Torah portion tells the story of an open rebellion led by Moses' cousin Korah, himself a prominent Israelite priest, against the leadership of Moses and Aaron. What did Korah do? The opening verse tells us only that he  "took" (vayikach), also translated as "he divided," "he separated," or he "betook himself."

What did Korah take or divide or separate?  The wisdom text of Torah leaves that to us to figure out. It doesn't say that he took anything; just that he took. And that his taking or separating shook the earth open, swallowing people alive, followed by fire and plague.

תִּפְתַּ֤ח הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ אֶת־פִּ֔יהָ וַתִּבְלַ֥ע אֹתָ֖ם וְאֶת־בָּתֵּיהֶ֑ם וְאֵ֤ת כׇּל־הָאָדָם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר לְקֹ֔רַח וְאֵ֖ת כׇּל־הָרְכֽוּשׁ׃

...and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households, all Korach’s people and all their possessions.

Numbers 16:32

How has it all led to this? From joyfully crossing the sea and singing their way to freedom to their carcasses dropping in the wilderness? What has to be learned and transformed for the Israelites, and all earthlings, to live in harmony with each other and with the Earth?

In Jewish tradition, understanding the conflict between Moses and Korah is a pivotal stage in the journey to living as free people. Differences among people are inevitable. How we address them is crucial. The ancient sages taught:

Controversy for the sake of heaven will come to fruition, while that which is not for the sake of heaven will not. Controversy for the sake of heaven: that of Hillel and Shammai [ leaders of ancient rabbinical school].  Controversy not for the sake of heaven: that of Korah.

from the Pirke Avot, Ethics of the Fathers

Leading from Division

Korah was stuck in grasping, a quality of taking that disrupts the natural balance of giving and receiving because it is never satisfied by obtaining an object. It is so caught that only grasping itself, taking itself, becomes the object.  From his position of power and influence, Korah created the world that the rabbis called the "world of separation," one where "each creature looks out for itself.” (Svat Emet, Book of Truth.) The Lubavitcher Rebbe, teaching that the literal meaning of Korah's name is "balding" (as in a bald spot) taught that Korah "took unity"  by creating a bald spot between people.

Instead of connection, between the leaders and people, among the people, and between Eternally Present and the people, Korah created separation.

In Hebrew, the word Korah shares the same root as "ice." Korah is frozen. Perhaps, as commentators suggest, this is why he takes nothing. He is frozen off from any meaning and purpose. He takes and divides because he is locked into the cycle of taking and dividing. This is characteristic of trauma-induced responses, often described as frozen life. As trauma therapist Resmaa Menakem says, when a person, or the collective, experiences something disturbing or painful too fast, too soon, too strong, without time or support to process or digest, the pain becomes locked up. It becomes an unprocessed frozen part of the organism. It loses the capacity to receive and confidence that it has something valuable to give.

The Israelites’ trauma of slavery is still unhealed and they have not developed the capacity to process new traumas from their journey through the wilderness. Brought to the edge of the Promised Land, they were consumed with fear that the land would "devour" them. They are now doomed by the decree that all of them, hundreds of thousands of them camped in the desert wilderness except for two young leaders, would die in the wilderness.

בַּמִּדְבָּ֣ר הַ֠זֶּ֠ה יִפְּל֨וּ פִגְרֵיכֶ֜ם וְכׇל־פְּקֻדֵיכֶם֙ לְכׇל־מִסְפַּרְכֶ֔ם מִבֶּ֛ן עֶשְׂרִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה וָמָ֑עְלָה אֲשֶׁ֥ר הֲלִֽינֹתֶ֖ם עָלָֽי׃

In this very wilderness shall your carcasses drop.

Numbers 14:32

Korah and his followers entangle the whole community in a trauma-led response to the suffering they all have witnessed and experienced.

Earth swallows the rebels alive so they have the space to heal.  It seems that every generation needs individual and collective inner healing so that the next generations can enter and live in the Promised Land, not seeing enemies, delighting in a land flowing with life.

Leading from Connection: Aaron

Moses and Aaron represent a different leadership paradigm, one based on partnership, connection and relationship-building rather than Korah's way of taking and dividing. The values are peace and belonging. In the tradition, the Eternally Present flow of life affirms Aaron's leadership because he is a peacemaker who "'loved peace and pursued peace.” When the Korah rebels challenge Aaron's role as priest, Presence asks them directly, "What is he that you complain against him?"

To the Hasidic Rabbi, Svat Emet, the answer to this question is that Aaron "does not divide himself off at all; all his deeds are given to the community" and that Aaron models the core teaching of Torah, to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18).

Leadership from love, respect and service has the power to bring the community back into harmony with the flow of life.

Leading from Connection: Moses

Moses "falls on his face" when Korah confronts him, rather than submitting or rebelling. According to Rabbi Shneur Zalman, Moses understands his own need to take space to process Korah's words before reacting to them. He falls to gather energy from the earth, releasing his own trauma, reconnecting to the universal flow of life he wants to serve.

There is a Buddhist practice called Touching the Earth which is a form of a trauma-release practice. When you feel troubled in your heart, lie upon the ground or lean into a tree and let the wisdom of life reabsorb the strong emotions. Let the natural energies reconnect you to the web of all life. Breathe and receive. There is no taking, only letting go and receiving.

In the Torah story, the people's fear and trauma lead them to rebel again and again. Eternal Presence itself is affected so profoundly, Presence again readies to destroy them all. Moses and Aaron together fall onto the earth and when they rise up they conduct a ritual that stops the new plague. (Numbers 17:10-13). They rise up with the understanding that punishment will not serve the purpose of creation. The strength and survival of the people depend on including everyone, even the ones who rebelled.

This is an evolutionary step out of the cycle of submission or rebellion. Founder and teacher of Nonviolent Communication Marshall Rosenberg said: “Never give anyone the power to make you submit or rebel.”

Transcending the paradigm of submission and rebellion means asking for what we want without giving away our own power and without taking away the power of others. ...Such choice is at the heart of a radical consciousness that can see and understand without reacting; a consciousness that can stand up to authority without losing love. Radical consciousness means standing outside the authority structures, seeing them fully, understanding the effects they have on us and others, and knowing internally what matters to us.

— Miki Kashtan, Reweaving the Human Fabric

Today as in ancient times we need leaders who draw close and listen to the earth to find solutions to human violence and to the global climate catastrophe. Today, the Jewish people, like all peoples, are called to see ourselves as global citizens of the world, the survival of any of us depending upon the survival of all of us.

And so it is in the story of Korah. By dividing himself from others he and his followers are swallowed up into the earth. We will not survive on the Earth as long as people are fighting each other for power and control. This Torah portion is calling us forth to a completely new vision of global community and leadership.

An NVC Practice to connect with Korah, Moses, Aaron and Eternal Presence

• Find and write down something you read or think about Korah
• Can you step into his experience of being frozen, or jealous or separated from himself, from god or from the people?
• Inside that experience, how do you as Korah feel? And what are your Korah needs?

(You may use these word inventories if they are useful for you to connect with Korah's feelings and needs: https://www.cnvc.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/CNVC-feelings-inventory.pdf and https://www.cnvc.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/CNVC-needs-inventory.pdf)

As you sit with Korah's needs, do you feel your heart opening, compassion for his choices, for the choices we all make in that state?

Now do the same for Eternal Presence and/or Moses and Aaron.

Sit with the two baskets of needs.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry, from New Collected Poems (Counterpoint, 2012)