This Week’s Torah Portion: Korach – קֹרַח (Numbers 16:1−18:32)

Korach, the “evil hero” of our portion, makes a political and a spiritual claim against the “good heroes “Moses and Aaron.

The Political claim is – why did you take all the power for yourselves, and you do not share it with anyone else? The spiritual claim is the entire community is Holy so why are you pretending to be the only “holy” people worthy of getting close to the Divine and officiating all the sacred work of Adonai.

The answer is grounded in the Hebrew grammar. Adonai calls on the entire community saying to us “you shall be Holy for I Adonai am Holy.”

You shall – in the future, you are not holy yet. No person is holy. At best we are trying to achieve holiness in our lives through acts of lovingkindness towards one another. We are all on the way, trying to be there, but we all are not yet what we should and ought to be.