Tosefta: Additional Information on Parashat Korach
During this
past Shabbat’s dvar Torah on Parashat Korach, I made the point that
often it is the victors that dominate the historical narrative. On the surface, Korach’s observation that we
are all a kingdom of priests, seems much
in line with the early Rabbi’s attempts to democratize our religion, moving
Temple-based rituals to the home and synagogue.
Yet it is these very same Rabbis, perhaps concerned about their own
early contested claims to authority, who created midrashim after midrashim vilifying
Korach as a megalomaniac, keen on destroying the entire community to feed his
own insatiable ego and lust for power.
We never hear from Korach himself because he is buried in an abyss.
This past
Shabbat, I shared that I was first confronted with a non-victor’s view of
history when, at age 9, I encountered my visiting elderly British uncle’s view
of the War of Independence. “Oh yes,
your so-called ‘Revolutionary War,’ bunch of ungrateful colonists who failed to
appreciate all their mother country had done for them. Well you were more trouble than you were
worth, so we cut you off – good riddens!”
I never heard this version of the 1776 before. It was shocking!
I wonder, if
Korach had been given the chance, how might he have narrated events found in
the Torah portion named for him? When stories have clear villains and victims,
perhaps we should be skeptical, and at least imagine there might be more to the
story. Even in the most obvious story of
good and evil, villain and victims, like the Holocaust, to pin it all on
Hitler, dupes us into a false sense of security, that it could never happen
again because Hitler was an aberration.
But Hitler did not act in a vacuum.
He had many people who either helped and even more who sat back and did
nothing. Nor did Hitler act in a vacuum
(and neither did Korach for that matter).
Be it a vindictive Treaty of Versailles, the evil report of the spies
and a sentence to desert-wandering for 40 years, or needing a wheelbarrow full
of Deutschmark to buy a loaf of bread, demagogues need the right set of
circumstances to succeed.
Finally, I
referenced the words to the song, Wonderful,
from the Tony-Award-winning musical, Wicked. In the referenced scene, I described how
the Wizard got the title, Wonderful.
Within the song, Elphaba and the Wizard debate the difference between
lying and history. It seemed like a
great text to share with you in closing.
WIZARD: See - I never had a family of my own. So, I
guess I
just - wanted to give the citizens of Oz everything.
ELPHABA(spoken):
So you lied to them.
WIZARD: (spoken)
Elphaba, where I'm from, we believe all
sorts of
things
that aren't true. We call it - "history."
(sung) A
man's called a traitor - or liberator
A rich
man's a thief - or philanthropist
Is one a
crusader - or ruthless invader?
It's all
in which label
Is able
to persist
There are
precious few at ease
With
moral ambiguities
So we act
as though they don't exist.
source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/
