Walking by the Light of Dreams and Visions--Korach

Walking by the Light of Dreams and Visions

D’var Torah for Parashat Korach

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

While shopping for gifts for my family in Israel, I stopped the other day at Toys-R-Us.  The children’s fantasy fulfillment store wasn’t particularly busy that day, and I took my time strolling down the aisles.

The shelves were stocked as far and high as the eye could see with toys and games of all varieties, colors and sizes.  A true paradise for the child inside each of us.

Yet before too long, the all-too-familiar pitch of a child crying came from several aisles away.  The wail soon became a storm, evolving into a full-fledged tantrum.  In the midst of it all, I could also hear the voice of the mother trying to calm her child down.  But reasoning didn’t help, and the enterprise ended abruptly as the mother simply picked up the child and left the store.

The other customers and store staff seemed unfazed by the episode.  It was a private matter, just between parent and child, best left to those individuals whose business it was.  Still, I couldn’t help feeling that this wasn’t an isolated incident.

In fact, such tantrums aren’t rare at all.  This is actually one of the main reasons why I almost never go to Toys-R-Us.  I—an adult—find it difficult not to get overwhelmed by all the possibilities, by all those wonderful toys, so many of them all in one place, under one roof.  How much more so for children.  Parents think they are doing their kids a great favor when they take them there, but all too often, the visit turns disastrous.  Overwhelmed by the choices, unable to make decisions and frustrated that they can’t have it all, the children simply lose it.

The vision of all-you-can-wish-for, all within reach, is just too much.  Children, with their expectations of immediate gratification, simply cannot handle that it just isn’t so.  They are incapable of the rational thinking that their adults expect from them:  You already have that toy; this one is too expensive; or—the ultimate disaster—it’s out of stock and needs to be ordered from another store and state.

And so the kids react in the expected manner, crying and throwing a tantrum.

A similar incident occurs in this week’s Torah portion, Korach (Numbers 16:1-18:32).  The Israelites have just come to realize that the trip to the Promised Land isn’t going to last only a few days.  In fact, it will take them forty years of wandering, lost in an inhospitable and dangerous desert, before they earn the right to reach their goal.  And so they throw a tantrum.  Led by a man named Korach and 250 powerful warriors, they rise up against Moses and Aaron.

The rebels point to the obvious—the desert is no Promised Land.  Any talk of a rosy future is merely political demagoguery, empty promises meant to keep Moses and Aaron in power.  In fact, they continue, Moses is lying to the community, misguiding the Israelites with futile visions and dreams born of ineptitude.  Why did you take us out of Egypt—a land really flowing with milk and honey?  Look where you’ve led us to:  A place where we can’t have our basic needs, let alone what we really want!

With extreme guile, Korach further accuses Moses: “The entire congregation is holy, and God is in their midst; why do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s community?”

Korach’s question is based on a remark made earlier by Moses (“If only all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would bestow His spirit upon them,” Num. 11:29).  The difference between the two is that Moses wished that all the people would be holy; Korach insisted that they already were.  It’s the difference between the potential and the actual.

Potential is about possibilities and intent.  Actualization of the potential, on the other hand, requires effort and hard work.  The real cause of the child’s tantrum is that every toy he or she could ever possibly want or even imagine was all there on the shelves, in all its overwhelming actuality.  It isn’t merely that the child can’t have this one toy or another—it’s that he can’t have it all, now!  The child wants a shortcut from his wants to their fulfillment, from potential to actualization.  The problem is that such a shortcut simply does not exist.

Korach and the other rebels talk of the false vision with which Moses and Aaron blind the Israelites.  The actual reality, say the rebels, is the harsh and stark desert; Moses’s empty dreams only obscure this reality.  Yet Moses knows that this very vision, this dream of the Promised Land, a dream that has yet to be actualized, is what will keep the People marching on despite the harsh but passing reality.  They will reach their goal—but not by some short and all-too-easy way.  Moses’s is true leadership; Korach’s isn’t.  By claiming that the Israelites are actually all holy already—a potential state of being that Moses can only hope and pray for—Korach proves himself a demagogue, a rabble rouser and a cynic.

At times in our lives, our dreams can indeed seem futile.  It takes maturity and wisdom to know how far to push in trying to reach those dreams, and when it is actually wiser to pursue another course.  But either way, whatever the course, it should always be guided by a vision, by an as-yet-unfulfilled potential imbedded within each of us, one that is forever waiting to be realized.

How wonderful to have our dreams come true, if and when they do!  But part of wisdom is also the mature understanding that enough is never enough; that satisfaction is always yet a moment away; that a worthy goal is deserving of yet one more try and still another attempt.

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman

Raising the Lights Eternal

D’var Torah for Parashat Behaalotekha

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

June 8, 2012

This week’s Torah portion, B’ha-a-lot’kha (Numbers 8:1-12:16) contains one of the most beautiful metaphors in the entire Torah.  The portion begins with instructions regarding the lighting of the Menorah—the gold candelabra that stood at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.  Aaron, the first High Priest, is commanded to kindle the Menorah’s lights in such a way that its radiance is directed forward, toward the People of Israel. Standing where it does, between the Israelites and the Holy of Holies with the Ark and God’s holy Presence inside it, the Menorah’s light symbolizes God’s holiness extending toward the People, toward the future.

B’ha-a-lot’kha literally means “when you kindle;” however, its implication is more along the line of “when you raise or elevate the lights.”

Immediately following this short paragraph, the portion continues with a passage describing the ordination of the Levites, a ritual meant to separate them from their brethren Israelites while giving them special chores and responsibilities in the upkeep of the Tent of Meeting and in attending the needs of Aaron and his fellow priests.

Next come rules regarding the rituals connected with celebrating Passover, the first holiday the Israelites are commanded to observe.  Shabbat, another holiday and one for which we were given explicit instruction prior to this passage, celebrates our entrance into a Covenant with God.  Passover represents our people’s emergence onto the stage of world history, an event that we celebrate every year at the Seder, as we retell the story of our Exodus from Egypt.  

What do these three passages have in common?

In each case, something is “elevated.”  In the first, it is light.  No simple matter, light.  It was, after all, the first gift of God to all existence, and it represents the highest values of all—life, warmth, acceptance, education and much more.  Understanding how “valuable” these values are to humanity is the meaning of “raising” them.  We elevate “light” when we infuse it with God’s presence and God’s purpose.

In the second case, it is the Levites who are “elevated.”  Here, however, the Torah does not propose a caste system.  Along with their social status come responsibilities—maintaining the Tabernacle and assisting the priests.  Yes, they get proper remuneration for their work, but the Levites are not exempt from giving their own dues to God or excused from offering their own sacrifices as prescribed for the entire nation.  The Levites’ true purpose, their reason for existence, is to serve God and the People.  Their distinction comes as the reward for their dedication and hard work toward a common and sacred goal.

In the third case, it is Time that is elevated.  We raise time to a higher standard when we make it important in our lives; when we mark it off and make its span—be it short or long—special.  We can elevate our whole lifetime if we dedicate it to Tikkun Olam, participating in God’s ongoing work of Creation.  When we understand that the time we are granted by God and Nature is not unlimited and that we must therefore make it special, we “elevate” it.  When we take time to remember our past, we dedicate ourselves to seeing beyond the past, into the present and future, too.  When we ritualize time by lighting candles and by saying prayers and blessings, we elevate Time and make it sacred.  God may be timeless and eternal, but we are not.  We celebrate our humanity not when we account ourselves unworthy due to our limitations, but rather when we understand the unique gift that—for all its limitations—Time is.  For Time is our portion of God, our share of God’s eternity.  It is, therefore, holy.

From its first humble appearance in this Torah portion, the metaphor of B’ha-a-lot’kha continues onward into our own lives, like the very light of the Menorah.  Emanating from the source of all life, it is like an energy flow that elevates each one of us, that flows through each of us to the children that we raise and teach, to the roof beams that we raise, to the standards and values that we hold up high.

May we all live in such a way that, after our time is up, it will be said of us, as the Torah says of Aaron when he first lit the Menorah:  “And Aaron did just so” (Num. 8:3).

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman