Korach

Pirke avot 5:17 says:
Any controversy in the service of God shall last, but any that is not shall not last. What is a controversy in the service of God? Such was the controversy of Hillel and Shammai. And which is not for God? Such was the controversy of Korah and all his company.
Our tradition prohibits us from engaging in mahloket, from being argumentative or divisive. Korah’s mahloket, from today’s reading, is the quintessential example of a forbidden controversy.
I want to talk today about three different characters with three very different ways of engaging in the conflict: Korach and his wife, who escalated it, On’s wife, who de-escalated it in a very creative way, and Moses, who as Rashi & the Midrash interpret it strove for peace.

1. Korach
Korah was not just any rebel, but a chief Levite who had reason to think he should have become the head of his clan. He manages to take a personal gripe, and magnify it, drawing in 250 other first-borns from different clans.

Korach: has a legitimate argument
Shouldn’t we all be holy?
Why do I need a mezuzah for a room full of torahs?
Why do I need a fringe for a blue tallis?
Can’t I have a world that’s entirely holy, where no distinction is necessary?
Isn’t the point of Judaism to make the world entirely holy?
It’s not a bad argument

But problem is: wasn’t a real argument—was self serving
His whole goal was to take down Moses’ leadership
b/c he resented Moses for appointing his younger cousin as the pricnce of his clan instead of himself.

Bamidbar Rabbah 18:2:
What moved him to start a quarrel? He was moved to it by the fact that Elizaphan, the son of his father's brother, was appointed prince over his family; as it says, And the prince of the fathers’ house of the families of the Kohathites being Elizaphan the son of Uzziel (Num. III, 30). Korah argued: My father1 was one of four brothers; as it says, And the sons of Kohath: Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel (Ex. VI, 18). As for Amram the firstborn, his son Aaron attained to greatness and Moses to royalty. Who then should rightly take the next office? Is it not the next in age? It is said, ’And the sons of Kohath: Amram, and Izhar.’ Now I, being the son of Izhar, should by right be the prince of the families. Yet Moses appointed the son of Uzziel! Shall the youngest of my father's brothers be superior to me? Behold, I shall dispute his decision and put to nought all that has been arranged by him.

Korach challenged Moses’ leadership by making all of Moses’ actions, which were decreed by God, seem self-serving. According to the midrash, he dressed his 250 leaders in garments of blue (which he argued didn’t need tzitzit), and then he had a festival.

Aaron's sons came to receive their dues, viz. the breast and the shoulder.2 [Korah's party] stood up in front of them and said to them: ‘Who commanded you to receive these gifts? Is it not Moses? We shall not give anything! God did not command us to do such a thing!’

In other words, all these priestly gifts, Moses made it up for his family’s benefit.

The midrash continues that after Korah was shaved by Moses (as part of consecrating the Levites), Korah was upset by his appearance:

Korah walked about among the Israelites and they did not recognise him. They said to him: ' Who did this to you? ' Said he to them ‘Moses did it to me. Nay, more, he laid hold of me by my hands and feet and I was waved and he told me: " Behold, you are clean! " Then he brought his brother Aaron and decked him out like a bride and made him sit in the Tent of Meeting! '
Instantly, Moses’ enemies began to incite Israel against him, saying: ' Moses is king, his brother Aaron is high priest, and his sons are deputy high priests! The priest gets terumah, the priest gets tithe, the priest gets twenty-four gifts! 3 Thereupon THEY ASSEMBLED THEMSELVES TOGETHER AGAINST MOSES, and straightway, SAID UNTO THEM: YE TAKE TOO MUCH (RAB) For yourself (XVI, 3). ..Moses said to them: ' I do not seek for kingship, nor do I desire the high priesthood for my brother Aaron;

Korah expanded the conflict by making it personal—accusing Moses of ill motives. We escalate conflict by personalizing personalize it, through blame and character assaults. He also enlisted others in the conflict, by drawing on their own potential for personal grudges. The conflict is no longer about the issues itself, but about personalities.

Talmud blames this process on Korah’s wife.
Sanhedrin 110a:

Korah's wife joined the rebels and said to Korah:
'See what Moses has done. He himself has become king; he appointed his brother High Priest; he made his brother's sons the vice High Priests.
If terumah is brought, he decrees, Let it be for the priest; if the tithe is brought, which belongs to you [as a Levite], he orders, Give a tenth of it to the priest.
Moreover, he cut off your hair,2 and makes fun of you as though you were dirt; because he was jealous3 of your hair.'
He said to her, 'But he did the same thing to himself!'
She replied, 'Since he was already great, he said, Let me die with the Philistines.4 Also, , he has commanded you, Set [fringes] of blue wool [in the corners of your garments];5 but if blue wool is so great, bring blue wool, and clothe your entire academy in it.'6

By making the issue personal, by accusing Moses personally of having ill intentions, they made the conflict much larger than it should have ever been.

I trained as a mediator, and one of the things we learned was that to resolve a conflict, you always need to depersonalize it, to focus on the issue rather than the blame game, because the blame game never has a winner. Conflicts shift easily from trying to find the best solution together, to mud-flinging.

Perhaps this is one of the decisive factors between a mahloket leshem shamayim-controversy for the sake of heaven, and mahloket lo leshem shamayim. If it had been a real argument over whether in fact there should be any separation between priests and everyone else, whether a nation of priests needs any priests, symbolized by whether a blue garment needs an extra thread of blue, maybe it actually would have been leshem shamayim, a holy controversy over a serious issue. Perhaps the issue Korah argued about is one that you actually could have a mahloket leshem shamayim over. But the mahloket here was not really about the abstract topic, it’s about personality.

By making it personal, Korach made it impossible to have a real conversation. One person accuses the other, the other defends himself, and a whole lot of time is spent mud slinging rather than really growing together through a process of conversation.

2. On (and particularly his wife)
Notice in text: On is initially one of the 3 leaders Korach enlists, but when Moses and Aaron go looking for Korach’s buddies, he is not included.

Sanhedrin 109b-110a (same page I quoted earlier)

Rab said: On, the son of Peleth, was saved by his wife. Said she to him, 'What’s it to you? Whether the Moses remains master or Korah becomes master, you are still just an underling.'
He replied, 'But what can I do? I have taken part in their counsel, and they have sworn me [to be] with them.
' She said, 'I know that they are all a holy community, as it is written, all the congregation are holy, everyone of them. Sit here, and I will save you.
She gave him wine to drink, intoxicated him and laid him down inside. Then she sat down at the tent entrance and loosened her hair. Whoever came to get him saw her and retreated.1 [apparently loose hair suggested loose morals, and nobody wanted to be associated with such a woman]

Thus it is written, Every wise woman builds her house7 — this refers to the wife of On, the son of Peleth; but the foolish plucks it down with her hands — to Korah's wife.

So On’s wife knew he should stay out of it. On was apparently too much of a wimp to break a promise to the guys, so she used feminine wiles to keep him out of it. And she was willing to look bad—to make herself look like a woman of loose morality—in order to keep her husband out of it.

3. Moshe
Moshe’s response is a very powerful one. In verse 12, Moses calls for Datan and Aviram. Rashi says
mican she’ein mahzikim bemahloket, --
from here we learn that we do not hold strong in a dispute—
shehaya moshe mechazer ahareyhem lehashlimam bedivrey shalom—
that Moses ran after them to repay them with words of peace.
The midrash actually says that he went hoping they would regret their actions and apologize. Interestingly, Rashi omits that part of the midrash, saying only that Moses sought peace. So maybe for Rashi, Moses’ goal wasn’t for them to admit they were wrong, but just somehow to create peace, to find a way to coexist.
Now it’s a bit surprising for Moses to look for anything short of a total victory, where Datam and Aviram would back down and apologize. The Torah says that “there will never be another like Korach;” (17:5) The Malbim teaches that this means that there will never be another controversy where one side is entirely right, and one side entirely wrong. In every controversy, the other side always has a legitimate point. But here, where Datam and Aviram were totally wrong, Moses sought peace. We should seek peace even when we really think that we’re right, and we should realize that in reality, there’s always something legitimate in the other position.
The Chatam Sofer points out that Moses would have known ahead of time that this wouldn’t work, given their history of antagonism towards him. Why appease them, if you already know they’re not interested in peace? There is a concept in Torah known as chazakah, which is the legal presumption that someone will act the way they have acted before. Given Datan and Aviram’s history, there was no need for Moses to try to appease them; he knew how they would respond. So the Chatam Sofer writes based on this that when it comes to disputes, we do not follow the principle of chazakah. We must try to make peace, even when we know the other person is wrong, and even if there’s no reason to think the other person will be receptive.
In domestic quarrels, especially, it’s hard to put aside hazakah, to put aside our history. My husband has apologized a hundred times, and has never really meant it; my wife is always late, and it’s always because she’s inconsiderate. She has insulted me for the past ten days in a row, how can I possibly interact in a respectful way, and assume she will treat me decently? But if I do respond to a long barrage of negativity, by being kind, it can be disarming. The challenge here is to put aside my history with this person, a very legitimate and powerful history, and act in a way that assumes that love and respect is possible. I can’t afford to wait for my spouse to make the first move toward love and respect—I have to take the risk, and make that move.
Sometimes to create peace we need to compromise, even if we are right. Because being peaceful is even more important than doing things the right way.
Lubavitcher rebbe story
Aryeh Citron tells the following story: A groom once presented his dilemma to the Lubavitcher Rebbe: “I would like my father and father-in-law to escort me to the chupah (wedding canopy), and my mother and mother-in-law to escort my bride—as per Chabad custom. My future in-laws, however, insist that they walk their daughter to the chupah, and that my parents should walk me to the chupah—as is the popular custom amongst most other Orthodox circles. How should we resolve this issue?”
The Rebbe responded: “Since a Jewish minhag (custom) is Torah, you should try to keep your minhag. This is true, however, only if you can accomplish this in a peaceful manner. If, however, it will cause discord in the family, you should back down. Since the entire Torah was given only to bring peace to the world, as the verse says,: ‘[The Torah’s] ways are pleasant, and all its paths are peace,’ it is not logical to allow a minhag to cause a dispute, thus countering the reason and purpose of the entire Torah!”
In other words, It is less important that I have my way, even if my way is right, than that I maintain peace in my home and in my community. If I stand by an opinion so firmly that I am no longer friendly with the person I disagree with, then I am not being peaceful. I am not actively fighting, but I am keeping a mahloket alive.
This is a surprising story—Schneerson was an ultraorthodox rabbi, uncompromising in his observance! He was not a man who took Jewish observance lightly! But for the sake of peace, according to him, we even relax our halachic standards.
I have heard of so many families which experience tension when more observant children visiting their less observant parents’ house, and won’t eat with them. Peace is more important than observing stringencies of kashrut. For the sake of peace, we should compromise even our personal halachic standards.
I have heard a lot about the history of this community, and the times when moves had been made either to become more egalitarian, or more traditional. From what I’ve heard, often when there is a change, somebody gets upset, somebody walks out, somebody joins another shul. Having peace in our community is more important, more of a Torah value, than how we conduct our rituals. The challenge for us is, can we put peace above anything else, can we make this a community where we respect and take care of each other?
I am so happy that eight people signed up last week to volunteer to do bikkur holim. That says a lot about this community. I don’t want people to think of FJC as Conservative or Conservadox; I would rather they think of us as joyous, inclusive, and caring. Those are the things that count.

Conclusion
The challenge for us is first of all, is not to be like Korach, not to make arguments personal. Torah calls us to assume the best intentions about people we disagree with—even if that assumption is unwarranted, and to be careful not to escalate conflicts, not to make them personal.
Like On’s wife, to sometimes just stay out of it, and not to let ourselves be drawn into other peoples’ fights, and even to let ourselves appear ridiculous for the sake of peace.
And lastly, like Moses, to strive for peace even when we think the other person doesn’t want peace, and to compromise for the sake of peace.
Oseh shalom bimromav,
May the one who makes peace between dynamically opposed angelic forces, hu yaaseh shalom aleynu
between the powers of love and of judgement in the universe, help us make peace with each other here on earth, amen.