As I was looking at the story of Korach, it struck me that the one verb I would expect to see in this narrative does not appear at all: the Hebrew verb marad (to rebel). After all, we know this narrative as the rebellion of Korach. Nor does the noun Mered (rebel) appear in the story. The troublemakers “congregate” against Moses and Aaron, using the same verb and noun that we use for our sacred communities: vayikahalu (they came together) and kahal (congregation). Korach presented an ideological challenge to Moses: “The entire congregation is holy,” but he did not initially or directly deny Moses’ mission. Korach complained that Moses and Aaron elevated themselves, titnase'u, above God's people, setting themselves up as a spiritual aristocracy. In other contexts, such as the priestly blessing, the verb titnase’u is a sacred cultic term. Dathan and Abiram accused Moses of taking Israel from Egypt, in their telling "a land flowing with milk and honey.” The rabble-rousers used the very language of the Torah to provoke Moses.

The midrash took it a step further. A large corpus of stories painted Korach as the apikoros (heretic) par excellence, arguing with Moses about the minutiae of observance. Today, the term applies to a non-observant freethinker on principle, but in the era of the Talmud, an apikoros was a challenger of the authority, validity, or sanctity of Jewish law as expressed in the Oral Law.

Korach’s revolt was directed against Moses, but in the Torah’s view, opposition to Moses and opposition to God were the same thing. For this reason, it was destined to fail. In the larger view of the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy, Moses is also not a winner. While his anger at injustice made him a leader in the first place, he allowed himself to be provoked to anger. In Moses’ case, the proverb applies: his greatest strength was also his greatest weakness. Tradition teaches that he lost the honour to fulfill his mission: bringing the people into the land of Israel.

Many of us are familiar with the rabbinic tradition regarding Korach in Pirkei Avot (The Ethics of The Fathers). Controversies like that of Korach were not for the sake of Heaven, while the controversies between the rabbinic schools of Hillel and Shammai were for the sake of Heaven. Controversies should not be for personal gain or power. We should be disputants when necessary but never enemies.