Korach 2021
Failure isn't the end; the cost of leadership; and the covenant of kings.
Welcome to the 1 new person who has joined us since last Thursday! If you aren’t yet subscribed, you can join our community of 890 curious and discerning folks striving to activate their highest and best by subscribing here:
Hey friends!
Here’s the link to the printable sheet.
Here’s the link if you prefer reading this and much more on the TorahRedux website.
If you have questions or comments, or just want to say hello, you can reply to this message directly - it’s a point of pride for me to hear that my work positively impacted you, and I’ll always respond.
If you like this week’s edition of TorahRedux, why not share it with friends and family who would appreciate it?
And here’s some of what I have to say about this week’s Parsha; I hope you enjoy it, and as always, I hope you have a fabulous Shabbos.
Failure is not Fatal
3 minute read
Dissatisfied with his middle management role in the tribe of Levi, Korach attempted a coup.
The story unfolds and wraps up with an epilogue that the remaining leaders conducted a public disputation by planting their walking sticks into the ground. Nothing happened to theirs; but Ahron’s instantly blossomed with almonds and flowers, showing Ahron’s divine election, that God supported Moshe and Ahron’s leadership and not Korach’s insurrection.
The Torah concludes the story by telling us how Ahron’s staff became a sacred relic stored in the Mishkan, a powerful symbol of what took place. It’s blindingly obvious why the legacy of Ahron’s miraculous staff is recorded. It was a long-dead walking stick, and yet it touched the ground and burst into life; it was an object of the highest cultural, historical, and religious significance, giving closure and finality to the story.
But the Torah also has words to say about the vanquished individuals, that they stepped forward to collect their inert walking sticks and went home.
Why does the Torah bother to tell us for posterity that each person took their walking sticks back?
R’ Shlomo Farhi notes that in the same way that Ahron’s staff was a symbol of victory, these walking sticks were a symbol of defeat – but they took them home just the same. These ordinary and inert walking sticks, with no magical properties, symbolized that these men had reached for greatness but failed. In telling us that each man stepped forward to reclaim his staff, the Torah is telling us that they took ownership of their failed attempt, and in doing so, there is a future after failure.
Their defeat was a reality check, but by owning their failure, they could once again resume their place in the hierarchy they had attempted to overthrow. The man who learns from failure has not truly failed.
It’s part of a broader theme in the Torah; failure features prominently throughout, from the very first stories of humans in the Garden of Eden, through the very last stories of Moshe not being able to finish his great mission of settling the Land of Israel.
The Torah doesn’t shy away from human failure; it leans into it, and perhaps we should reappraise failure in that light.
As Kierkegaard said, life must be lived forwards but can only be understood backward. But because of that, no matter how you look at it, our experiences always have a two-fold significance.
First, there is the initial experience of something; the excitement of meeting someone new, the strangeness of an unfamiliar event, or the pain that follows failure.
But then afterward, there’s the meaning that those experiences take on as we reshape and retell them into the story of our lives as they continue to unfold, which has the power to change how we perceive them. Most honest, successful people tell the story of how their failures became stepping stones to more meaningful victories down the road, giving the story of their failure a triumphant ending after all.
You can’t learn if you don’t try, you can’t try if you are afraid to fail, and you can’t be good at something if you have not failed multiple times. Learning to manage failure is one of the most important skills you can and must cultivate. If you are someone who never fails, you probably aren’t trying enough.
The final word in the story isn’t the magical staff; the final word affirms for posterity that these men could recover from failure, that there was a life and future beyond their mistakes.
A person who never makes a mistake has never tried anything. Mistakes can often be a better teacher than success; success only confirms the lessons you expect. But failure teaches you unexpected lessons in ways you can’t foresee.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it’s the courage to continue that counts.
Leaders Bleed
2 minute read
One of the most tragic characters in the Torah is Moshe – his entire life was defined by conflict. While conflict is part of being a statesman fighting for his people’s freedom and establishment, he repeatedly found himself at odds with his own people countless times, with his family at others; and even with God at certain moments.
It’s interesting to see how Moshe responded each time differently.
When the people complained that they were fed up with the manna and wanted to eat proper meat, Moshe didn’t fight them; he was utterly overwhelmed and told God he wished he was dead.
When God told him to appoint 70 elders, Moshe was relieved and glad to share the burden. When the two men left out of the new administration, Eldad and Medad began a prophecy predicting Moshe’s downfall; not only was Moshe not offended, he wished prophecy on all the Jewish People.
R’ Jonathan Sacks notes that the fact that Moshe was no longer alone restored his spirit and confidence entirely because a good leader is not afraid of his students.
The role of a teacher and leader is to raise and empower the influence of those around him. One of Judaism’s most remarkable ideas is that teachers are heroes too – Moshe, R’ Akiva, Hillel, and Ezra.
Leadership isn’t about titles, status, or power; it’s about taking responsibility for those we care about and putting in the work to make their lives better, helping them and challenging them to do better and be better.
R’ Samson Raphael Hirsch writes that the highest achievement for a teacher is to make himself superfluous. When the student outgrows the teacher, it’s the highest achievement, not a failure or threat.
Seventy elders and Eldad and Medad were not a threat, but Korach and his failed coup were, and on that occasion, Moshe responded forcefully.
The episode’s opening gives the game away – Korach attempted a power grab – וַיִּקַּח קֹרַח. R’ Simcha Bunim of Peshischa teaches that you cannot seize power benevolently; you can only cultivate it through public service.
R’ Tzvi Meir Silberberg charges us to be excellent wherever we are. You can make the most of it or make more of it, but excellence isn’t transferrable. A rebranding doesn’t change the fundamentals.
R’ Shai Held notes that Moshe is only miserable when people won’t accept his help and guidance; when he has his seventy elders and Eldad and Medad, he is calm and at peace once again.
After this episode, Moshe faces another conflict; his siblings start complaining about the woman he chose to marry. After fighting everyone, his own family turns on him. And immediately after that, the Torah describes Moshe as the most humble man who ever lived.
R’ Shai Held notes that this follows from the way people treated Moshe. When everyone turned on him and his family betrayed him, he wouldn’t turn on them and, in fact, prayed to help them.
R’ Jonathan Sacks teaches that pain causes humility, but humility can sanctify pain when channeled to public service. Moshe was the most humble man because he could love and care for people who let him down. After aiding the debacle of the formation of the Golden Calf, Ahron defended his failure by blaming the people’s wickedness, but not Moshe. Moshe stood up to them, but critically, stood up for them.
Because it was never about him, he only ever cared about helping them.
A Covenants of Kings
3 minute read
One of the most basic and essential rules of hermeneutics is understanding that the Torah is written in language for humans to read and understand – דיברה תורה כלשון בני אדם.
R’ Shamshon Raphael Hirsch explains that this means that the Torah writes in terms of human understanding, not objective truths known only to God.
The Rambam utilizes this theme prominently, famously suggesting that the Torah co-opted animal sacrifices only because they were culturally familiar methods of worship in the Ancient Near East. The Ralbag similarly recognized the value of understanding the ancient world of the Torah to give us enhanced context and understanding of the Torah’s teachings.
Apart from animal sacrifices, another ancient practice that would be culturally familiar was the notion of the covenant.
In the Ancient Near East, kings would formalize their diplomatic relations with treaties or covenants. These treaties were drafted between equals and sometimes between a superior and a subordinate state, or suzerain and vassal. The structure of the Torah’s covenants has striking parallels to the suzerain-vassal treaties. If we unpack the layers to the structure, we can unlock a deeper appreciation for it.
The main elements of suzerain-vassal treaties are identifying the treaty-maker, the superior; a historical introduction, such as prior beneficial acts the superior has done for the subordinate; the stipulations, typically the demand for loyalty; a list of divine witnesses; and blessings and curses. The treaty was proclaimed in public along with a ceremonial meal, and the treaty was stored at a holy site. There would be a periodic public reading to remind the subordinate citizens of their duties.
The similarity between the Torah’s use of covenants and other treaties extant in the Ancient Near East isn’t merely interesting trivia – it’s political dynamite.
For most of ancient history, the head of state was also the head of the cult – god-kings and priest-kings were standard. The king or the priestly class had a monopoly on the rituals of religion, and the common serfs were passive observers living vicariously through these holy men.
In sharp contrast with that background, the Torah’s rendition of a covenant is striking not in its similarity but also in its difference.
God does seek a covenant with Moshe, the head of state, nor Ahron, the Kohen Gadol. God does not even seek a covenant with the Jewish People; the party God treats with is every single individual, which is dynamite because it’s shocking enough that a God would care about humans in general, let alone each of us in particular. And by making a covenant with us, God goes even further and asks us to be His partners.
A covenant between God and individuals doesn’t just illustrate the dignity of every single person; it also bestows a second facet to our identity. By elevating common people into vassal-kings, we are all royalty – מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִים וְגוֹי קָדוֹשׁ / כָל-הָעֵדָה כֻּלָּם קְדֹשִׁים. This also echoes a broader ideological theme that idealized a community of educated and empowered citizens – וְשִׁנַּנְתָּם לְבָנֶיךָ / וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ.
R’ Shlomo Farhi notes that we take self-identity for granted today, but historically, self-identity was subsumed to community and culture. In a world where the individual self barely existed and mattered very little, it’s radical to say that God cares for us individually, because it’s not obvious at all – בשבילי נברא העולם. This tension between God as distant yet close is captured in our blessings, where we call Hashem “You” in the second person, indicating familiar closeness, and then “Hashem,” with titles in the third person, indicating distance.
Striking a covenant with individuals democratizes access to God and spirituality, creating a direct line for everybody. Parenthetically, this echoes the Torah’s conception of creating humans in God’s image – everyone is, not just a few “special” people.
We are all royalty in God’s eyes, and we are all God’s partners.
Quote of the Week
Dan l’kaf zachus is only b’dieved.
— Client at a meeting this week.
I thought it was dynamite. Don’t judge people at all!
Thought of the Week
Basic questions are good questions.
They matter.
We learn from them.
Yet people often apologize for — or don’t bother — asking them. What’s more, we malign basic questions as dumb or stupid. Inquiries so simple, it’s a waste of time to contemplate them. That’s prompted the popular defense of the basic question, which is the aphorism “There’s no such thing as a stupid question.”
But there are stupid questions, or at least questions that don’t matter. These are questions people ask when there is little chance that they will learn something from the answer. They include leading questions, preening questions, and statements disguised as questions. And while they can sound harmless, they prevent us from obtaining a better understanding of the world around us.
The problem with self-indulgence
If the purpose of a question is to learn something you didn’t know or extract information — sometimes reluctantly — from an interlocutor, then the more details you include in your question, the more substance you give your counter-party to repeat back to you.
How’s business?
Really?
Could you expand on that?
Why?
Be basic
We learn more when we ask basic questions. Those are the questions that matter. They’re short, simple, and meant to extract information. But whether it’ s because they’re perceived as stupid or discourteous, basic questions can be difficult to ask.
One of the things I hope I convey in my writing is to ask questions that matter.