The Korach rebellion was not just the worst of the revolts from the wilderness years. It was also different in kind because it was a direct assault on Moshe and Aharon. Korach and his fellow rebels in essence accused Moses of nepotism, of failure, and above all of being a fraud – of attributing to G-d decisions and laws that Moshe had devised himself for his own ends.
So grave was the attack that it became, for the Sages, a paradigm of the worst kind of disagreement:
Which is an argument for the sake of Heaven? The argument between Hillel and Shammai. Which is an argument not for the sake of Heaven? The argument of Korach and his company. (Avot 5:17)
Rabbi Menachem Meiri (Catalonia, 1249–1306) explains this teaching in the following terms:
The argument between Hillel and Shammai: In their debates, one of them would render a decision and the other would argue against it, out of a desire to discover the truth, not out of cantankerousness or a wish to prevail over his fellow man. An argument not for the sake of Heaven was that of Korach and his company, for they came to undermine Moshe, our master, may he rest in peace, and his position, out of envy and contentiousness and ambition for victory.
The Sages were drawing a fundamental distinction between two kinds of conflict: argument for the sake of truth and argument for the sake of victory.
The passage must be read this way, because of the glaring discrepancy between what the rebels said and what they sought. What they said was that the people did not need leaders. They were all holy. They had all heard the word of G-d. There should be no distinction of rank, no hierarchy of holiness, within Israel. “Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?” (Bamidbar 16:3). Yet from Moshe’s reply, it is clear that he had heard something altogether different behind their words:
Moshe also said to Korach, “Now listen, you Levites! Is it not enough for you that the G-d of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near Himself to do the work at the L-rd’s Tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to them? He has brought you and all your fellow Levites near Himself, but now you are trying to get the Priesthood too.” (Bamidbar 16:8-10)
It was not that they wanted a community without leaders. It is, rather, that they wanted to be the leaders. The rebels’ rhetoric had nothing to do with the pursuit of truth and everything to do with the pursuit of honor, status, and (as they saw it) power. They wanted not to learn but to win. They sought not verity but victory.
We can trace the impact of this in terms of the sequence of events that followed. First, Moshe proposed a simple test. Let the rebels bring an offering of incense the next day and G-d would show whether He accepted or rejected their offering. This is a rational response. Since what was at issue was what G-d wanted, let G-d decide. It was a controlled experiment, an empirical test. G-d would let the people know, in an unambiguous way, who was right. It would establish, once and for all, the truth.
But Moshe did not stop there, as he would have done if truth were the only issue involved. As we saw in the quote above, Moshe tried to argue Korach out of his dissent, not by addressing his argument but by speaking to the resentment that lay behind it. He told him that he had been given a position of honor. He may not have been a kohen but he was a Levite, and the Levites had special sacred status not shared by the other tribes. He was telling him to be satisfied with the honor he had and not let his ambition overreach itself.
He then turned to Datan and Aviram, the Reubenites. Given the chance, he would have said something different to them since the source of their discontent was different from that of Korach. But they refused to meet with him altogether – another sign that they were not interested in the truth. They had rebelled out of a profound sense of slight that the tribe of Reuben, Yaakov’s firstborn son, seemed to have been left out altogether from the allocation of honors.
At this point, the confrontation became yet more intense. For the one and only time in his life, Moshe staked his leadership on the occurrence of a miracle:
Then Moshe said, “By this you shall know that it was the L-rd who sent me to do all these things, that they were not of my own devising: If these men die a natural death and suffer the fate of all mankind, then the L-rd has not sent me. But if the L-rd brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know that these men have treated the L-rd with contempt.” (Bamidbar 16:28-30)
No sooner had he finished speaking than “the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them” (Bamidbar 16:32). The rebels “went down alive into the grave” (16:33). One cannot imagine a more dramatic vindication. G-d had shown, beyond possibility of doubt, that Moshe was right and the rebels wrong. Yet this did not end the argument. That is what is extraordinary. Far from being apologetic and repentant, the people returned the next morning still complaining – this time, not about who should lead whom but about the way Moshe had chosen to end the dispute: “The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moshe and Aharon. ‘You have killed the L-rd’s people,’ they said” (17:6).
You may be right, they implied, and Korach may have been wrong. But is this a way to win an argument? To cause your opponents to be swallowed up alive? This time, G-d suggested an entirely different way of resolving the dispute. He told Moshe to have each of the tribes take a staff and write their name on it, and place them in the Tent of Meeting. On the staff of the tribe of Levi, he should write the name of Aharon. One of the staffs would sprout, and that would signal whom G-d had chosen. The tribes did so, and the next morning they returned to find that Aharon’s staff had budded, blossomed, and produced almonds. That, finally, ended the argument (Bamidbar 17:16-24).
What resolved the dispute, in other words, was not a show of power but something altogether different. We cannot be sure, because the text does not spell this out, but the fact that Aharon’s rod produced almond blossoms seems to have had rich symbolism. In the Near East, the almond is the first tree to blossom, its white flowers signaling the end of winter and the emergence of new life.
In his first prophetic vision, Yirmiyahu saw a branch of an almond tree (shaked) and was told by G-d that this was a sign that He, G-d, was “watching” (shoked) to see that His word was fulfilled (Yirmiyahu 1:11-12). The almond flowers recalled the gold flowers on the Menorah (Shemos 25:31 and 37:17), lit daily by Aharon in the Sanctuary. The Hebrew word tzitz, used here to mean “blossom,” recalls the tzitz, the “frontlet” of pure gold worn as part of Aharon’s headdress, on which were inscribed the words “Holy to the L-rd” (Shemos 28:36). The sprouting almond branch was therefore more than a sign. It was a multifaceted symbol of life, light, holiness, and the watchful presence of G-d.
One could almost say that the almond branch symbolized the priestly will to life as against the rebels’ will to power. The kohen does not rule the people; he blesses them. He is the conduit through which G-d’s life-giving energies flow. He connects the nation to the Divine Presence. Moshe answered Korach in Korach’s terms, by a show of force. G-d answered in a quite different way, showing that leadership is not self-assertion but self-effacement.
What the entire episode shows is the destructive nature of argument not for the sake of Heaven – that is, argument for the sake of victory. In such a conflict, what is at stake is not truth but power, and the result is that both sides suffer. If you win, I lose. But if I win, I also lose, because in diminishing you, I diminish myself. Even Moshe is brought low, laying himself open to the charge that “you have killed the L-rd’s people.” Argument for the sake of power is a lose-lose scenario.
The opposite is the case when the argument is for the sake of truth. If I win, I win. But if I lose I also win – because being defeated by the truth is the only form of defeat that is also a victory.
In a famous passage, the Talmud explains why Jewish law tends to follow the view of the School of Hillel rather than their opponents, the School of Shammai:
[The law is in accord with the School of Hillel] because they were kindly and modest, because they studied not only their own rulings but also those of the School of Shammai, and because they taught the words of the School of Shammai before their own. (Eruvin 13b)
They sought truth, not victory. That is why they listened to the views of their opponents, and indeed taught them before they taught their own traditions. In the eloquent words of a contemporary scientist, Timothy Ferris:
All who genuinely seek to learn, whether atheist or believer, scientist or mystic, are united in having not a faith, but faith itself. Its token is reverence, its habit to respect the eloquence of silence. For G-d’s hand may be a human hand, if you reach out in loving kindness, and G-d’s voice your voice, if you but speak the truth.
Judaism has sometimes been called a “culture of argument.” It is the only religious literature known to me whose key texts – the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Mishnah, Talmud, the codes of Jewish law, and the compendia of biblical interpretation – are anthologies of arguments. That is the glory of Judaism. The Divine Presence is to be found not in this voice as against that, but in the totality of the conversation.
In an argument for the sake of truth, both sides win, for each is willing to listen to the views of its opponents, and is thereby enlarged. In argument as the collaborative pursuit of truth, the participants use reason, logic, shared texts, and shared reverence for texts. They do not use ad hominem arguments, abuse, contempt, or disingenuous appeals to emotion. Each is willing, if refuted, to say, “I was wrong.” There is no triumphalism in victory, no anger or anguish in defeat.
The story of Korach remains the classic example of how argument can be dishonored. The Schools of Hillel and Shammai remind us that there is another way. “Argument for the sake of Heaven” is one of Judaism’s noblest ideals – conflict resolution by honoring both sides and employing humility in the pursuit of truth.