Korah
Numbers 16:1-18:32
I Samuel 11:14-12:22
Is controversy a positive or a negative occurrence?
Since the ideal of peace is so fundamental to the Jewish ideal — we even greet and bid farewell with the Hebrew word shalom (peace) — I would expect our classical sources would universally condemn controversy.
However, the Mishnah in Sayings of the Sages 5:20 distinguishes between two types of controversy: “A controversy which is for the sake of heaven, like that of Hillel and Shammai, will ultimately continue to exist; a controversy which is not for the sake of heaven, like that of Korah and his cohorts, will not continue to exist.”
In addition to the problematic issue of the positive description of a “controversy for the sake of heaven,” it is difficult to understand why the Mishnah refers to one type of controversy as that of Hillel and Shammai, the names of the two antagonists, and the other as that of Korah and his cohorts, rather than of Korah and Moses.
I believe the answer lies in two potentially legitimate definitions of the Hebrew word for controversy, mahloket. Does it mean to divide, (lehalek) or to distinguish (la’asot hiluk), to make a separation or a distinction?
The former suggests an unbridgeable chasm, a great divide that separates out, nullifies, the view of the other. The latter suggests analysis of each side to give a greater understanding of each view and perhaps even to arrive at a synthesis of both positions.
To the ‘other side’
With this understanding, the initial comment of the medieval French commentator Rashi on the opening words of this week’s portion, “And Korah took,” becomes indubitably clear: “He took himself to the other side to become separated from the midst of the congregation.”
Since Korah made a divide between himself and Moses, the Mishnah defines his controversy as that of Korah and his cohorts. He was interested in nullifying rather than in attempting to understand the side of Moses.
On the other hand, when the Talmud (Tractate Eruvin 13b) describes the disputes between the great rabbis Hillel and Shammai, it proclaims, “Those and those [both schools] are the words of the living G-d. If so, then why is the normative law decided in accord with the school of Hillel?
“Because they [the Hillel disciples] are pleasant and accepting, always teaching their view together with the view of the school of Shammai and even citing the position of Shammai before citing their own position.”
According to this view, the Almighty purposefully left many issues of the oral tradition open-ended to allow for different opinions, each of which may well be correct when viewed from the perspective of the Divine.
Indeed, the Mishnah in Tractate Eduyot teaches that our oral tradition records the minority as well as the majority opinion because a later Sanhedrin (great Jewish court) can overrule an earlier Sanhedrin, as long as there had been a minority view recorded on which the later Sanhedrin may rely; and most halakhic decisions rely on a minority views in cases of stress.
In the world of halakhah, minority dissenting views are never nullified. These opinions are also part of the religious-legal landscape, and can become the normative law of the majority at another period in time or for a different and difficult individual situation.
This fundamental respect for alternative opinions is rooted in another Mishnah (Tractate Sanhedrin 37a), which sees the greatness of G-d in differences among individuals and pluralism of ideas.
“Unlike an individual who mints coins from one model and every coin is exactly alike, the Holy One Blessed Be He has fashioned every human being in the likeness of Adam, and yet no human being is exactly like his fellow… And just as human forms differ, so do human ideas differ.”
It is precisely in everyone’s uniqueness that we see the greatness of the Creator.
And this was one of the great teachings of Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook: “Only through a multiplicity of ideas and views can we eventually reach the one great truth which encompasses them all.”
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone and spiritual leader of the community of Efrat.
Loading ...