Dvar Torah on Parshat Korach

Over the past months, a number of long-simmering halachic arguments have come to a boil. Here in Israel, the issue of giyyur - conversion - pertaining especially, but not solely, to olim from the former Soviet Union, has become a cause celebre, debated  vehemently in the backs of synagogues, the Knesset, the media and the blogosphere.  This isssue is of crucial importance for Israel's Jewish identity and character, and is a festering human rights issue. A few hundred thousand people are living here as Jews, and yet many of them are either not halachically Jewish, or are, but are not recognized as such by the religious establishment, which is in charge of this mess,  and is failing miserably to deal with it in a productive, humane, and reasonable halachic way. Many who should be recognised as Jewish are not, and conversion is not made easy, even for people with clear Jewish ancestry and commitments. All of this is in clear breach of good halachic practice, and is due to the essentially anti-halachic charedi stranglehold on the Chief Rabbinate and its Rabbinic courts. Sadly, there are only a few reasonable, forthright, truly Modern Orthodox voices making themselves heard: Rabbi Chaim Amsalem, Rabbi Seth Farber of Itim, Rabbi Nachum Rabinowitz of Ma'aleh Adumim, and a few others stand out. 

The role of women in the synagogue and the community is also being hotly debated, here in Israel and, somewhat more intensely, in North America. Issues such as the advisability of women wearing tefillin, the possibility of women being Rabbis, and women's roles in the synagogue service are splitting the Modern Orthodox world into warring camps (the Charedi world has few, if any, progressive voices in it, and these issues are not really under discussion there). The status of homosexuals has emerged as another flash point in the community.

I am not able to fully discuss here any of these important questions in depth.  Rather, I would like to  focus on one aspect of the conversation: the polemical use that has been made of the story of the rebellion of Korach, as it is told to us in this week's parsha. I believe that this facet of the ongoing conversation is a window into what may be the central question in all of these debates: Who is in charge of the Orthodox community? To whom is halachic authority given, and how is that authority meant to be exercised?

Korach, a Levite, challenged the leadership roles of his cousins, Moshe and his high-priest brother Aharon, and demanded equal legislative and religious  powers for himself, his followers, and, if we are to believe him, for all of Israel. I believe that, in the ongoing arguments in the modern Orthodox world about the issues mentioned above, Korach's rebellion is being misrepresented and misused, in a way that corrupts the important conversations we need to have about these and other topics.

A well known American Rabbi and posek recently wrote a responsa on the question of women wearing tefillin. In it, he likens those who would permit women to wear a kippah, or tallit and tefillin, to the congregation of Korach - a truly horrible accusation to make, given Korach's position as the archetypal illegitimate rebel against Torah authority and, in fact,  God Himself. His accusation is that these people, in deciding on their own to permit women to engage in what were traditionally understood as basically men's religious activities, are echoing Korach's disingenuous claim that "the entire congreagtion is holy", in that they are claiming that anyone can determine halacha according to his own understanding and feelings.  The decsion made in a few New York- area day schools to allow girls to don tefillin is therefore seen as intrinsically illegitimate, the result of a rebellion against, rather than participation in, the halachic process, by people who have no right to make such a major decision on thir own.  This decison is also seen as illegitimate because only a gadol - a universally recognized master of halacha - could make this decision, given the various sensitivities involved - most especially the fact that women wearing tefillin is a practice popular in Conservative Judaism, and therefore must be guarded against, so as to not legitimise that movement.

A well-known article by Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, of blessed memory, from the 1970s, is brought in evidence in support of this charge. In it, Rabbi Soloveitchik also used Korach and his men as a model of a kind of contemporary rebellion against recognized halachic authority, a rebellion, as Rabbi Soloveitchik saw it, of "common sense", which (hopefully) everyone has, against the vast technical knowledge and understanding needed to determine true halacha. Rabbi Soloveitchik made the point that Halacha is a highly technical and demanding discipline, like science or medicine and, as such, is not always in line with what common sense, or one's emotional responses,  would seem to dictate. Only one who is an expert in halacha can be trusted to make important halachic decisions. This is what Korach was rebelling against, in his claim that the entire congregation was holy, and everyone has the right to weigh in on even the most difficult halachic issues.  

The problem with these charges,  in the context of our current debate, is that  Korach, both in a normative reading of the Torah and in the particular way Rav Soloveitchik understands the story, has nothing to do with the argument at hand. In the Torah, Korach is clearly guilty of a number of crimes, none of which are to be found in our situation. Korach is seen as being essentially about self-aggrandizement. The parsha begins with the words ויקח קרח, "And Korach took." He is all about taking, grasping, trying to grab for himself what he feels others have unjustly taken from him.  As Rav Soloveitchik puts it, "Korach was a demagogue, motivated by selfish ambitions." Korach wanted to discredit and deny the legitimacy of Moshe's and Aharon's roles, and take them for himself. He seeks to delegitimize the halachic system as presented to the Israelites by Moshe, and remake it in his image. 

 Unlike Korach, the people who have permitted women a greater role in ritual and the synagogue in their communities, schools, and shuls, are not challenging the right of others to make halachic decisons. Rather, they are making decisions which are well within the framework of halacha, and which they feel are appropriate for their own communities.  This is a time-honored practice. Heads of Jewish communities and institutions, who are trained Rabbis, are best suited to understand the needs and sensitivities of their constituents, which is a crucial element in determining halacha, and have classicly been the ones to make localized halachic decisions for them.  They have not said, as Korach did about some of Moshe's halachic decisions,  that the more traditional approach towards women's participation in the ritual is wrong. They have simply pointed out a different halachic possibility, one which they feel is more appropriate to their communites at this time.  This is precisely why it is wrong to try to  tar these people with the "Korach" charge: by doing so, a legitimate halachic discussion is turned into a civil war, where none exists. All involved are, unlike Korach, respectful of and loyal to the halachic process, and are well within their rights to make halachic decisions for their communities and talmidim.  

I would add that while Korach's positions viv a vis halacha  were wrong, I have yet to see a challenge to the basic halachic correctness of these decisions. Rather, after basically admitting the essential halachic acceptability of one position or another, appeals are often made to larger communal issues, or to an amorphous "spirit of the Torah", something which, frankly, one can not be too sure who truly has accesss to. As the Sforno says so powerfully in his commentary to chapter 4, verses 9-14 of Kohelet: someone who may not have that much experience, or has learned relatively little from his teachers, but is a good theoretical thinker, thanks to his practice of healthy, open, respectful, and collegial debate with others who may, in fact, disagree with him,  is ultimately more likely to get to the truth than someone who may have "bundles and bundles of mishna and the opinions of the sages",  but has a weaker grasp of  the kind of thinking which stems from open, respectful debate, and therefore has weaker theoretical skills, and less of a grasp on the truth. He who is unfamiliar with the ways of open and collegial debate is missing exactly those qualities which will save him from error in trying to get at the real meaning of the halacha. I am sceptical of a claim of some sort of higher, deeper understanding of the broader issues, be they halachic or communal,  especially from people who fail this basic test of the Sforno, in that they reject open, respectful debate, aimed at coming to a synthesis of halachic truths. 

If anything, the argument that the more liberal approaches to these issues in some way deviate from normative halachic discourse, because they were made by individuals whom the more conservative Rabbis refuse to recognize as authorities, is a departure from normative halachic procedure, in that these Rabbis are claiming for themselves a kind of absolute authority, usually reserved for Chassidishe Rebbeim,  while dismissing out of hand serious Torah scholars, who have made well-argued halachic decisions for their communities.   

In terms of the use of Rabbi Soloveitchik's article about Korach to bolster the more conservative position, it is clear that he was specifically polemicising against people who had left the normative halachic process behind, and not trained Orthodox Rabbis engaged in halachic decision-making. He mentions "synagogue ritual committees and popular magazine articles" as the problem, whereas the people being ostracised as Korachs for permitting some girls to wear tefillin are well-respected Rabbis and educators, who have gone to great pains to stay within the halachic system when making their decisions for their communities and students. The people arguing for women to be able to put on tefillin are not, as Rabbi Soloveitchik's antagonists were, coming from outside the halachic system, and are not trying to transform it with "common sense" or non-halachic thinking, at the expense of normative Halachic procedure; they are completely halachic in their approach.

I would add that, if we must drag Korach into this debate - and I would much rather not - then it could be argued that  one of the sins of Korach would seem to be precisely the mistake being made by the more conservative camp in this debate. Korach could have asked his halachic questions to Moshe in a respectful way, as part of an honest attempt to get at the truth. After all, at least one of Korach's questions does not feel at all out of place in a legitimate halachic conversation: why does a house full of Torah scrolls also need a mezuzah on its doorpost? His sin was in drawing a line in the sand, in damning Moshe for holding a position which Korach disagreed with. Are today's nay-sayers not guilty of a similar mistake? Calling someone they simply disagree with on a Halachic matter, a matter  about which honorable men and women can disagree, "the band of Korach" is to corrupt, as Korach did,  the ancient system of halachic discourse, a system meant to have as its hallmarks mutual respect, open debate, and a collegial search for the truth. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix