Contemplating Kedusha

^{2 Tammuz 5776 | July 8, 2016}

Parshat Korach

Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

Director of Spiritual Development

Advanced Kollel: Executive Ordination Track

Class of 2018

This week’s parsha famously recounts the rebellion of Korach against Moshe and Aharon.

Overwhelmed or exasperated by Korach's confrontation, Moshe throws up his hands, and then sets up a demonstration of his family's unique status in response. Korach and his rowdy bunch will come to suffer a devastating fate for their claims of equality. God will mete out severe punishment against them and the earth will swallow them alive.

Many commentators see in this episode a power play between Korach and Moshe and Aharon. What Korach really wanted was to usurp authority for himself, they say. Yet his words belie that intention. His claim seems less political and more spiritual. It seems to be a contention about kedusha (holiness). And if that is the case, many questions arise. Just what about Korach's call for collective holiness was so wrong? Are we not a "mamlechet kohanim," a kingdom of priests and a "goy kadosh," a sacred community (Exodus 19:6)? Are we not an "am segulah," a treasured people (Ex. 19:5)?

Furthermore, regarding Moshe's own reaction, why was he so distraught? Just a few chapters ago, in Numbers 11, in the episode involving the prophecy of Eldad and Meidad, did Moshe himself not, like Korach, also advocate for a fully democratic spirituality? When Yehoshua sought to quash their seemingly rogue prophecy, did Moshe not retort:

Korach's claim seems to affirm just this sentiment, that "all of the Lord’s people [are] prophets." "Kol ha'am kulam kedoshim," he said. All are equally holy. How then can we make sense of the unambiguous condemnation of his words?

The verses that immediately precede the story of Korach, in Numbers 15, provide an elucidating contrast. The laws of tzitzit are brought there, culminating with the following words:

Through tzizit, and the visual reminder that they provide, we are charged here "v'heyitem kedoshim l'Elokeichem," you shall be holy to God.

Herein lays a very subtle, but very crucial, difference between the spiritual life envisioned by Korach and the spiritual life encouraged by the Torah. Is holiness a fact of our people's existence or is it an aspiration? Is it a passive genetic inheritance or the byproduct of active devotion and commitment? Is our guiding directive to be a present-focused awareness of our already-attained status, as in "kulam kedoshim," we are all already holy? Or ought it be a future-directed never-fully-owned striving, as in "kedoshim tehiyu," you shall be holy?

The Torah clearly favors the latter model. In the famous words of parshat Kedoshim:

God here symbolizes a holiness of status--a static, reliable, unconditional form of kedusha. Holiness is a definitional fact of God's existence. "I, the Lord your God, am holy." But the holiness of the Jewish people is an altogether different project. For it is just that: It is a project, a task of a lifetime, something that is ever on the horizon of possibility, but never fully achieved. Indeed, the moment that one takes oneself to have achieved holiness is the very moment that it disappears. For holiness is essentially about reaching for transcendence, not arriving at a place of complaisance.

This is what Korach did not understand. And this was the spiritual error that cost him so dearly. A goy kadosh cannot tolerate such a toxic understanding of kedusha. It must literally be swallowed up by the earth because it threatens so deeply the path to authentic and deeply humble spirituality.

The 20th-century thinker Yeshayahu Leibowitz said this well:

Kedusha as ontological status, as envisioned by Korach, is a dangerous supposition, both ethically and spiritually. It comes preciously close to ugly chauvinism and it stymies the possibility of real and continuous religious growth.

Leibowitz forcefully concludes,

Korach is a cautionary tale, reminding us of this terribly important distinction. It is also a clear charge toward an aspirational spirituality, one that rejects the self-satisfaction of asserting that "kulam kedoshim" (we are holy), and instead embraces the difficult striving of "kedoshim tehiyu" (we shall be holy), in the future, always, always in the future.