In the 1950s my teacher Rabbi Yehudah Amital was a faculty member at a yeshiva in Rehovot where he worked alongside his cousin-by-marriage Rabbi Elazer Menachem Schach. The two teachers argued incessantly about all the hot topics that rabbis debated in the 1950s while sharing cigarettes. Time passed and Rav Shach became the rosh yeshiva at Ponevizh and a towering figure in Israeli politics. Rav Amital established one of the first Yeshivot Hesder and became an articulate and gentle advocate for a humane and moderate form of Orthodoxy.
At one point, decades after the two colleagues had gone their separate ways they found themselves together once again. Rav Shach embraced Rav Amital and cried out, “Yehudah! Yehudah! We’ve grown so far apart that we don’t even argue anymore.”
Arguing about matters of ultimate importance signifies lives lived with a common purpose. Elie Wiesel said, ‘the opposite of love is not hate but indifference” and the greatest sign of alienation is not disagreement but indifference.
In Tractate Avot the Mishnah teaches: כָּל מַחֲלֹקֶת שֶׁהִיא לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם, סוֹפָהּ לְהִתְקַיֵּם any dispute which is for the sake of Heaven will endure. Whereas, the Mishnah goes on to say, a dispute that is not for the sake of Heaven will not endure.
Rabbi Ovadia Bartenura, in his commentary to the Mishnah, offers two explanations for why a dispute “for the sake of Heaven” endures. His first explanation is that the participants in a dispute for the sake of heaven will survive their dispute and go on to continue their principled disagreements. His second explanation is that any dispute about matters of enduring significance will itself endure. The quest for truth is a never-ending quest and there will always be new participants to pick up the baton and continue the dispute.
The first interpretation, rooted in pragmatism, describes how ethical and principled disagreements lead to stability and peace. We accept losses when we know our rights and dignity will be protected in defeat, when we trust the process by which decisions are made, and when we know that we will have a chance to continue the argument another day. When disputes are total struggles for power they become zero-sum competitions with only one winner and no second chances.
Bartenura’s second explanation is that the quest for truth will forever captivate noble people who will try to uncover new facets of an infinitely complex reality. The quest will endure, not because the participants endure, but because the quest itself can never be fully completed.
The Mishnah then goes on to offer an example for each variety of dispute. The paradigmatic dispute that is l’shem shamayim, for the sake of Heaven, and that will endure, is the dispute between Hillel and Shammai. The dispute that is not for the sake of heaven and will not endure is the dispute of Korach as found in this morning’s Torah portion.
This means that if we want to be the opposite of Korach, and we want to endure, and we want the things that we discuss and debate and care about to sustain our relationships and also captivate the attention of future generations, we need to conduct our conversations and disputes l’shem Shamayim.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we can see how democratic self-government is itself an enduring commitment to disagreement. Citizens debate, decide, and then return to debate the same questions all over again. The losers of one election can become the winning candidates in the next. That is precisely the sort of stability Bartenura envisioned when he described a dispute that endures.
I don’t need to tell you about concerns that exist for American democracy and our capacity to continue this experiment in self-government. But lately, I’ve been even more concerned about the Jewish capacity to engage in mahloket l’shem shamayim in a way that can guarantee our own enduring survival.
The Mishnah identifies Korach’s claims as the quintessential dispute that is not for the sake of heaven and that cannot endure. Our disputes and our discourse increasingly resembles the discourse of Korach’s rebellion. I’m not worried about our lack of civility, although that is concerning; the Ra’avad and the Ba’al haMe’or debated one another with a ferocity that hits you in the face even after 800 years. And the ambitions of the members of Koarach’s coalition are also not overly alarming or unprecedented. Ambition and humility are not inherently in conflict when people are inspired to use their God-given talents on behalf of a great cause.
The malignancy at the heart of Korach’s rebellion, which I see reflected in too much of our contemporary discourse, is the absence of any vision that extends beyond ourselves. Where does Korach think the Jewish people should go? Back to Egypt or onward to Eretz Yisrael? What will we do when we get there? What kind of society will we build? He never tells us.
There is a famous cartoon by New Yorker cartoonist Liana Fink which you may have seen. The image is two minimalist and simple stick figures talking to one another. The words coming out of their mouths are “Jews Jews Jews.” The cartoon is titled “Jews.” It’s a funny cartoon because it pokes gentle fun at our capacity for navel gazing and talking about ourselves. But it can be deadly serious when we only talk about ourselves and our leadership and the parameters of our community and how special we all are – without orienting ourselves around Torah, Mitzvot and a pursuit of holiness.
This critique of Korach was made in a particularly sharp way by the late Israeli philosopher and public intellectual Yeshayahu Leibowitz.
The final verses of Parashat Shelach which we read last week contain the mitzvah of tzitzit. This passage should be familiar to us as the final paragraph of the Shema. This passage says quite clearly that tzitzit are meant to remind us to perform all of the mitzvot that the Torah imposes upon us, and to that by performing mitzvot we will become holy. לְמַ֣עַן תִזְכְר֔ו וַעֲשִיתֶ֖ם אֶת־כָל־מִצְוֺתָ֑י וִהְיִיתֶ֥ם קדשִ֖ים
The very next section of the Torah, with which our parsha begins, introduces us to the figure of Korach whose main idea is one with great simplicity and great power. “All the people are holy.” כָלָֽ־העֵד֙ה כֻלָ֣ם קִ֔דשים
Leibowitz draws our attention to this juxtaposition and says quite simply, that there are two theories of holiness. Holiness can be understood as the outcome of people choosing to serve God. It is our dedication and our devotion and our commitments that create holiness. This is the theory of holiness that the mitzvah of tzitzit endorses. This is the theory of holiness that is endorsed by the Shema.
Korach’s theory is that holiness is something inherent in the Jewish people. God’s people are innately holy. Holiness, according to Korach, is the product of who one is and not what one does.
Leibowitz argues that the Torah juxtaposes the section on tzitzit to the story of Korach to teach us that Korach represented and advocated on behalf of an idea with real seductive power: the notion that every Jew is already holy. The notion that there is something positive and pure in every Jew, and that a Jewish soul is created differently and is naturally drawn towards God, is a powerful idea. It is a captivating idea, an enticing idea, and a dangerous idea.
The weight of the halakhic tradition has been opposed to Korach.. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik taught, time and again, “ein kedushah bli hakhanah” there is no holiness without preparation. This is not a fluffy line about spirituality, this is an expression of basic halakhic principles. There is no such thing as innate holiness. Holiness is the product of human choices and human actions. In Rav Soloveitchik’s own words, “objective kedushah smacks of fetishism.”
Korach represents the Mishnah’s paradigm of a dispute not for the sake of Heaven because his central claim displaces Heaven itself. The subject of Korach’s argument is not Torah or mitzvot or the quest for holiness. The subject is the Jewish people. We become the center of our own attention. This is a dead end. It’s a dead end because debates devolve into gatekeeping and assertions of power and authority. It’s a dead end because no future generation will be inspired to continue the debate into the future.
I first encountered Leibowitz’s commentary as a teenager and have struggled with it for my entire adult life because I see how an ideology of inherent holiness so easily becomes chauvinist, and I also recognize that the modern Jewish people is not defined by a shared commitment to Torah, mitzvot, the pursuit of holiness or a common way of life. Can the Jewish people be loved and cherished without displacing Torah and mitzvot and the quest for holiness?
I believe that the answer is yes, but with a caveat. The Jewish people can and should be loved and every Jew should be respected as a fellow-citizen of Klal Yisrael. But the purpose of Jewish peoplehood must extend beyond ourselves. When we argue about how to faithfully uphold the covenant of Sinai and transmit it to the next generation, we are engaged in an enduring dispute for the sake of heaven. When we engage in discourse about who is right and who is authentic and who deserves a seat at the table, we risk becoming absorbed in Korach’s world and a self-absorbed culdesac of self-referential nihilism.
A century ago, the essayist and public intellectual Ahad Ha’am formulated a distinction between what he called the “Western Zionists” like Herzl and the “Eastern Zionists” such as himself- a distinction that later became known as Political Zionism and Cultural Zionism. The former, Ahad Ha’am, wrote, were trying to improve the future of the Jews. The latter were trying to improve the future of Judaism.
This dialectic is unresolvable but the tension can be reconciled: There is no Judaism without living and breathing Jews. But living and breathing Jews will have nothing to share with the world or with future generations if we don’t invest most of our energy and passion in the future of Judaism.
I’m leaving town tomorrow and will spend several weeks in Jerusalem before returning to DC. (If you take the average amount of time that I will spend speaking over the coming month it’s actually very short). In Yerushalayim there is a street named after Rav Shach and there is a street named after Rav Amital. There is a street named after Herzl and there is a street named after Ahad Ha’am.
I wish those streets all intersected one another so the debates of their namesakes could have a physical manifestation in the world.
In Jerusalem I am surrounded by constant reminders of the responsibility to protect Jewish lives and bodies. And in Jerusalem I am surrounded by constant reminders that Jewish bodies are not enough. We need to dedicate our Jewish bodies to Judaism. I am excited to bring that conviction back to DC with me when I return home.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 