The LORD said to Moses, “Put Aaron’s staff back before the Pact, to be kept as a lesson to rebels, so that their mutterings against Me may cease, lest they die.”
Korach challenged Moses’s leadership, and by extension G-d. Korach and his followers.
Our text picks up just after the rebellion. After G-d smote Korach and his followers. What is going on here?
When is rebellion OK and when is it not?
This is a weekend we celebrate another rebellion. The American Revolution. The idea that a band of rebels, the Sons of Liberty, would rise up and declare independence from England. That they would reject a king’s rule.
What is the difference between what the early American patriots, you know their names…People like Sam Adams, John Adams, and Abigail, Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson did. Even Dickinson who rebelled in a different way, what they did and what Korach did?
Korach did it not for the people but because he felt he would be a better leader than Moses. He was ego driven. It was about him. He did not have the best interests of the people at heart.
Now it is true that in order to be a leader you need a certain amount of ego. But ego-driven leadership is something that the business community riles against.
http://themojocompany.com/2014/01/10-traits-of-ego-driven-leaders/#sthash.paOQmJLD.dpbs
- Often measure their success by how much others notice their success. It becomes more about being the center of attention than it does about actually being successful in and of itself.
- Often feel better about themselves when others around them don’t achieve or earn as much as they do.
- Tend to undermine othersso that they can appear to themselves and others to be smarter, better, etc.
- Tend to drive others away over time. It’s incredibly taxing working for an ego-driven leader, because…
- Tend to destroy trustand attempt to control others through whatever means necessary. This is exhausting for those who work with these leaders.
- Are always looking for more praise, always looking for the next spotlight.
- Status supplants service as the true, underlying motivator.
- Tend to be easily offended, even if their own behavior toward others is far more egregious. They’re quick to call others defensive, and quick to point out what they perceive to be faulty attitudes in others.
- Tend to have a burning desire to be right. Every. Single. Time. Or so it seems to those around them.
- Very rarely admit their faults without somehow rationalizing or blaming others.
http://themojocompany.com/2014/01/10-traits-of-ego-driven-leaders/#sthash.paOQmJLD.dpbs
We’ve probably all worked for this kind of leader, sometime in our careers. It isn’t fun. And Korach was dangerous. The proof that is offered of is how many were killed as part of the rebellion.
On the other hand, Moses, was humble. We looked at that recently. “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.” (Numbers 12:1)
“And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,” Deuteronomy 34:10
We know from this that Moses was humble, very humble and had a unique ability to communicate. He wasn’t perfect. Perfection isn’t the goal. These are important qualities in a leader.
Aaron was a communicator too. He was the mouthpiece of Moses in Egypt. He was a man of peace as Pirke Avot tells us, “Hillel would say: Be of the disciples of Aaron – a lover of peace, a pursuer of peace …” (Pirkei Avot 1:12).
Why? He kept his peace when his sons were killed, seemingly zapped. He made peace by facilitating the building of the Golden Calf. He did not participate in the gossip about Moses that caused Miriam to be punished.
The commentaries explain how Aaron is a rodef shalom, a pursuer of peace:
“Two people were having a quarrel. Aaron went and sat with one of the disputants and said to him, ‘My son, look what your friend is saying; he is distraught and is tearing his clothing.’ The disputant says, ‘Woe to me! How can I look at my friend and see his shame as I am the one who has wronged him.’ …” (and Aaron is doing the same with the other disputant) “When the two met each other, they hugged and kissed in reconciliation” (Avot D’Rabbi Natan, version A, chapter 12).
To pursue is usually a verb related to waging war. The Torah is setting up a different model of leadership. One where leaders pursue justice, as it says “Justice, Justice shall you pursue.” And “Seek peace and pursue it.” It is not, as some suggested a weak form of leadership. It is the very measure of strength.
That is part of what we are celebrating this weekend. Compare Korach’s ego driven leadership with the words of the Declaration of Independence, the very document we are celebrating:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
All the people, however that is defined and that is the subject of much debate, all the people are created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of G-d and as such have rights.
George Washington understood this so very well when he was writing to the Jewish Community of Newport RI.
Gentlemen:
While I received with much satisfaction your address replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced on my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.
The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.
If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people.
The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity…G. Washington
https://www.tourosynagogue.org/history-learning/gw-letter
May there come a time when we are not so ego-driven as Korach, where we are as humble as Moses and pursuers of peace as Aaron. Then as Isaiah and G. Washington himself suggested at the conclusion of his letter,” may all the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
Later in the morning, during the usual time for the prayer for our country, we read the prayer written by the Jewish community of Richmond, VA. This prayer fascinates me because it is an acrostic spelling out G. Washington’s name. It is also fascinating because of the number of names of G-d it uses. It maybe the very prayer I use at City Council when I do the invocation on Wednesday night. I am always amazed that we Jews have garnered enough respect in this country, with the vision no less of Washington himself, that rabbis like me are called in to do such invocations.