Two Minute Torah Podcast

Korach 5770 by Rabbi Ilana C. Garber

Shalom! My name is Rabbi Ilana Garber, and I'm a rabbi at Beth El Temple in West Hartford, CT. Welcome to KOACH's Two-Minute Torah — a project of the College Department of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

In Parashat Korach we read of the rebellion of Korach and his followers, men who questioned Moses and Aaron's relationship with God and the authority that comes from that relationship. A test is conducted to prove that God favors Moses and Aaron — both Aaron and the rebels are to burn incense on firepans and God will make known God's preference. Korach and his followers are eventually destroyed — swallowed up by the earth in fact — and we are left with the question of what to do with the firepans that were used by the rebels to offer the incense.

The firepans are sacred and we do not just throw out holy objects, so God instructs Moses to have the firepans made into hammered sheets to be used for plating the altar. A note in the Etz Hayim Chumash, page 866, offers several reasons from commentators as to why the firepans are sacred: they were consecrated by use in a ceremony, they serve as momentos of the victory of truth, or they were offered by people who were not rebels but who just wanted to be closer to God and in trying to do so, lost their lives.

I like the fourth explanation in the note, that the holiness of the firepans symbolizes the necessary role played by skeptics and agnostics in keeping religion honest and healthy. In other words, there is something holy about what Korach and his followers did. Perhaps we don't like how they did it — challenging Moses and Aaron in such a public way. But by asking questions, challenging what we had all accepted as "true", they are making us think and reengage in our relationship with God. And there is something very holy about that.

The metal from the firepans was put on the altar so we would remember for all time what happened. It was certainly a warning. But I'd like to urge us to see that warning as an invitation as well. Think, ask, consider, and engage. Perhaps Korach wasn't saying to Moses, "why you?" as much as he was trying to say, "perhaps me too?" and if that's the case, then we must listen carefully to those who rebel — or just ask questions — because they may be trying to engage with God. And that, of course, is holy.