Korach - Rebel WITH a cause

Korach 5771/2011

“To rebel with a cause”

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

In the most recent issue of Moment Magazine, a monthly Jewish publication, there was a feature story about congressman Anthony Weiner. 

In that article, he was quoted, “We weren’t a very religious household, but we had a very strong sense of our Judaism.”  The article closes with a quote from Warren Hecht, president of the Queens Jewish community council, ““He’s passionate—people respect that and respond to that,” says Queens Jewish Community Council President Hecht. “If he was a phony, people would see right through him. There’s nothing wrong with being gung-ho.”

And now, we’ve seen what happened in the wake of the Congressman’s indiscretion.

The shock of political scandal tends to hurt more when the individual involved is Jewish.  Judaism is a way of life that challenges us to live by a code of ethics that our ancestors transmitted generation to generation, a code that we recite and reaffirm each time we chant the Shema and Veahavta, each time we open up to our faults and failings on Yom Kippur and throughout the year.  It is a spiritual system that demands accountability. 

And in that accountability is the nature of the hurt, that someone raised within our tradition whether it is the Congressman or any other Jewish leader, would violate the trust of the community and the values we live by.  Service to the community, according to the Jerusalem Talmud, is equivalent to the study of Torah – it is Torah refracted through the eyes of those who see the world and wish to repair it, it is Torah that flows through the hands of the people who step into public roles to carry out the values that we hold into the world of action.

The Congressman’s behavior is only one example of the behavior of leaders in this country, of all faiths and backgrounds, who have violated the public trust.  It includes those who do the same as leaders in the sports arenas of the US and the world, high-performing athletes in various sports who have weakened the image of their sports and the validity of their results with doping and other activities.

This week’s parasha is one of four Torah portions designated by the name of an individual.  Korach is a member of the tribe of Levi, a servant of God as all levites were, separated from the community, given over specially to God in service.  (A class of leaders in their own right.)

And Korach challenges Moses and Aaron, “You have gone too far!  All the community are holy…why do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?”

This questioning of leadership reflects the way that we question the indiscretions of our leaders of all kinds, people whom we and our kids perceive as role models in the way they take responsibility for legislative action or physical prowess on the field, can we even begin to venture into the world of the arts, music, literature?

Rabbi Yitzchak Abravanel characterizes Korach this way, as though Korach was saying, “Moses and Aaron, don’t think that you can do anything you want all day and no one will protest…we will not remain silent forever…”

I feel that I’m preaching to the choir, but I’m genuinely concerned that in a world as fractured as this world feels today, that we need more leaders in whom we can trust, leaders who will use their power to – to repair the world, to seek justice, to create community, and not use their power over and against other people or our values – not that we impose our values on others, but that we expect the level of integrity in others that flows from their own systems of values both religious and values of citizenship in our democracy.

And the same holds true for the leaders on the field and in other areas – that they can challenge us to do better on the fields of our own lives, that artists can challenges us to think differently, and we pray that they will push us in constructive directions.

The new Rabbi’s internship program for high school and college students seeks to prepare our students to assume the responsibilities that they will have as leaders in their future chosen fields.

In the Fall of 2012 we will welcome to our community a rabbinical student intern who will have the chance to develop his or her leadership skills.

And for us, and for our children, of all ages, we can have the conversations about power and responsibility, about the ways that power can be used to do good, to do justice, to empower others.

And that idea is a source of hope for us and for our children.