Korach: "People-oriented" Powerplay

Embarrassingly, I do still occasionally open X “the everything app” and scroll for about a minute before I remember how garbage and increasingly full of bots it is. This week, in one such moment, amid the ads, promoted posts, and blue check nonsense, one post stuck out to me. I don’t follow @TweetATherapist but the algorithm was correct to show me this: “People on TikTok are like ‘If someone you don’t know says hi to you as you pass them on a sidewalk, they’re engaging in manipulation tactic called “boundary-bombing” - here’s 5 signs to look out for’ and then their next post is ‘The Village Theory’ about how people need community.” 

I struggle to find Korach’s power-hungry motives that the traditional commentaries ascribe to his rebellion in the text of this week’s Torah portion itself. Korach tells Moses and Aaron, “You have gone too far! For all the community is holy and God is in their midst. Why then do you lift yourselves above God’s congregation?” To me, this has always read like a call for democracy, but based on God’s (and mostly Moses’s) reactions, something more nefarious must be going on. The above tweet clicked for me what others have said for generations: Korach is using people-oriented speech to reach power-oriented goals. Today, many co-opt the language of activist movements to stifle actual change, and similarly many have learned to use therapy-speak to keep from ever having to be held accountable for their actions. The parasha opens with “Korach took” and the commentaries offer suggestions about what Korach took, or what took Korach. I see this verbiage and the various explanations from the rabbis as an admission of his underlying goal. He wasn’t simply a mouthpiece for the people. He took it upon himself to undermine the Divine order, and he took his gathered followers, rather than being called to lead by them. He sought to take power for himself, rather than ask for more transparency and shared responsibility for all.

In future years I may return to my standby drash that Korach did nothing wrong, but this year I am making an active effort in my personal life as well as in my Torah reading to look beneath the surface of stated words. I would not say I am a terribly gullible person, but I do tend to take people at face value, and constantly give others the benefit of the doubt, even when it is retroactively obvious that I should have seen through a façade. When it comes to public speakers, I think people are inclined to believe what they hear over what they see, even more than in their interpersonal relationships or day-to-day lives. How does a person such as Korach achieve a platform to speak from if they are not reliable narrators, or honest justice-seekers? What methods did they use to gain that prominence, and are they consistent with their spoken values? May we have the wisdom to see through a powerplay cloaked in progressivism. May we find the courage to call it out and stop its spread. May we keep our heads up and our movements strong, as we continue the journey toward a Promised Land of equity, justice, and peace for all humanity.