Tomorrow three American colonels will enter the South Korean town of Kaesong, three miles below the 38th parallel. On the lips of these men will be the greetings of שלום, peace. And a tired, weary world, whose spirit has been frozen by a Cold War and whose energy has been burned up in sporadic hot wars, will wait in breathless expectancy for the results of these truce talks. There is a beautiful modern Hebrew song called שיר האתת, The Song of the Signalman, which tells of solitary Jewish guards in the lonely desert outposts of the Negev guarding the outlying districts of the Yishuv. The refrain of the song tells of one sentinel signaling the other: השלום?, “Is there peace?”, and the answer comes, הן, שלום, “Yes, there is peace.” All free men the world over hope and pray that when the three American emissaries cry out to the enemy commander השלום? “Is there peace?”, that the answer will come clearly and boldly הן, שלום, "Yes, there is peace."However, I must confess that I look upon peace with some misgivings. I feel that there is some conflict between שלום and אמת. Does not peace imply some surrender of truth? If you and I are at odds about some very important matter of principle, and we make peace, we compromise, doesn’t that mean that we have each yielded a bit of that which we hold to be the truth? If the family doctor prescribes a tablespoon of castor oil for Junior, and Junior bitterly objects to it, Mother can make peace between doctor and child by compromising and giving Junior a dose of half a tablespoon of castor oil. Peace has indeed been established. But not enough medicine has been given to cure the child – which the doctor feels is a true necessity, while enough has been given to Junior to make him cry and grumble and groan, a reaction which he feels is, in truth, both unnecessary and undesirable. A settlement has been made – but you have compromised the principles of both antagonists. No good has come of it for anyone. When the State of Israel was offi…

This morning I wish to take exception to the tenor of sermons customarily delivered on the Sabbath when we read of Korah and his insurrection. The pulpit on this day usually abounds in talk on the vice of rebelliousness and regards the rebel as an absolutely evil person. I do not want to plead in his defense. But I do believe the accusation should be modified. The rebel is sometimes—but not always—a rogue. Rebelliousness is not necessarily at all times an unmitigated evil.Actually, there are two strains of personality that are opposed to each other and that characterize most human behavior. They are: conformity and rebelliousness. Every human being has both tendencies within him. Some of us express more of one quality than the other. There are some people who are almost completely the conformist, others completely the rebel.The conformist is the dedicated bourgeois. He submits to the majority, the popular, and finds security in being part of the nameless mass and the faceless crowd. He has suppressed whatever independence of judgment he might have possessed. He is a self-righteous person who has largely ceased to think for himself.The rebel is the bohemian, the anarchist, the outsider. He worships at the shrine of protest. He proclaims the holiness of defiance. School, family, religion, society—all forms of authority—are considered by him the enemy, and he is dedicated to overthrow them.Which of these two is the better man? Which is the *midah*, the attribute of character or personality that Judaism prefers and recommends to us? Shall we be the conformist or the rebel?The answer is that the spiritually and psychologically mature personality must have elements of both, never only one. The authentic Jew must be neither “square” nor “beat,” neither reactionary nor radical. He is, however, to have the capacity and the experience of both. For either one, by itself, is odious. When combined in one person, each has much to contribute to the growth of his character, to the…

The rebellion of Korach and his co-conspirators against Moses and Aaron, of which we read this morning, is the first great, direct test of the leadership of Moses. The quelling of the rebellion of this band of malcontents re-establishes and re-affirms the leadership of Moses of his people in the desert. And yet, according to “Yalkut Reuveni” the hahkhmei ha-emet – that is, the Sages of the Kabbalah – have taught that this great battle between Moses and Korach had ancient roots. The struggle between these two, they say, was merely the re-enactment of the old drama of the strife between Cain and Abel. They identify Moses with Abel and Korach with Cain.The detailed kabbalistic analogy is beyond our limited comprehension. Nevertheless, it is obvious to all of us that the Sages of the Kabbalah have here enunciated a great truth. For indeed, as we analyze the two dramas, we find confirmed the similarities between these two sets of biblical characters.Thus, for instance, we can detect at least three elements which unite Moses with Abel and Korach with Cain. The first of these is: kinah, jealousy or envy. The fratricide committed by Cain against Abel had its roots in Cain’s envy of Abel: the Lord accepted the offering of Abel, but v’el Kayin v’el minhato lo sha’ah – God did not accept the offering of Cain. The same feelings provoked Korach to his abortive insurrection. Both Moses and Korach were brothers in the sense of being members of the same tribe of Levi. Yet Moses was the undisputed leader of the people, while Korach was not. He was consumed by the fieriest of jealousy even as later he was consumed by the fires of the Lord when he met his end.The second observable element that unites these two pairs is: ta’avah, concupiscence, desire, a ravenous appetite for more and more. In the story of the sons of Adam, the Sages tell us that they divided the world between the two of them. Cain owned a full half of the world – yet he begrudged his brother the other half and desire…

The name "higher learning" is rather ambiguous. There have been many definitions. One of them was given by an eminent president of one of our great colleges when he said that our universities are treasuries of higher learning because when the freshmen come in they are full of enthusiasm and preparation for a career of learning; but by the time they had finished four years of distraction with extra curricula activities, athletics, socials, etc., they have left all their "higher learning" behind in the college so that as time goes on more and more higher learning is deposited in the schools... In the case of Yeshiva University, however, "higher learning" has a much broader and deeper and more Jewish definition. Let me explain it by referring to the reading of this Shabbat Korah. We read that after Korah had unsuccessfully challenged the leadership of Moses and Aaron, the Lord told Moses that he would give a sign to the children of Israel confirming the leadership of Aaron. He had the head of each tribe, and among them Aaron as the head of the tribe of ,evi, place their rods, or staff of leadership, into one circle, and he said, ve’ha-ish asher ev^ar bo matehu yi frah - the man whom I will choose, his staff will blossom. It will begin to grow and bear flowers. When the leaders did put their staff into the circle the next day something a bit different was noted: ve'hinei parab mateh Aharon... tzitz. va-yigmol shekedim - not only did the staff of Aaron bear blossoms and did buds but also it bore fruit, ripened almonds. Why this change,this addition? One answer that has been suggested that the Torah wanted to fi-nd ^oifti out an unusual occurrence here. Usually a fruit tree will blossom, but before the fruit appears the blossoms will wither ar and die and fall off. It never happens, ar very rarely, that the flowers and the fruit co-exist on the branch at the same time, 1he miracle of Aaron’s rod was enhanced by the fact that when it bore fruit, almonds, the blossoms woul…

The rebellion against the leadership of Moses and Aaron (Numbers, ch. XVI) is one which had tragic consequences and which left an indelible impression upon the collective Jewish memory. The Torah lists the names of those involved in the conspiracy in the desert. But who indeed were the members of this conglomeration of the displaced, the dissatisfied, and the disaffected? What motivated them, and what was their relation to each other?Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin, known as the Netziv, finds three distinct groups in this mutiny of malcontents, and he describes them to us in his commentary Haamek Davar. The first consists of the two hundred and fifty princes of the congregation. These community leaders were not at all malicious people. They were well-intentioned, but misguided. They were great Jews, great even in their piety. That is why the Torah refers to them as “princes of the congregation, the elect men of the assembly, men of renown.” They were Levites who desired to be Kohanim not because the priesthood offered them positions of influence and status, but because it represented an opportunity to come closer to God in the course of serving Him in the Sanctuary.The second group consisted of two brothers from the tribe of Reuben: Dathan and Abiram. These two were known as trouble-makers even before the exodus from Egypt. They were not at all people of ideals or convictions. They were merely power-hungry schemers – nothing more, nothing less.The third element in this mutiny was Korach himself. He was a man of great fame in Israel and yet was, in a way, the worst of all. For he tried to appear to the people a man of sincerity and genuineness, who had legitimate and selfless complaints, like the two hundred and fifty princes; but in fact he had the same base ends as Dathan and Abiram: the usurpation of the authority of Moses and Aaron.This analysis – of which we have mentioned but the bare outline – is not only brilliant exegesis, but also a valid insight into cha…

Of the critical views of Judaism propounded throughout the ages, two are particularly relevant to our Torah reading of this morning and the perek we shall read later today. The first criticism accuses Judaism of a dry legalism, too concerned with the picayune and prosaic particulars of everyday life, and not sufficiently attentive to the larger dimensions of spirituality, esthetics, and morality. Thus Christianity accused us of the love of law, and sought to replace it with the law of love. It concentrated on the Church rather than the marketplace, and emphasized grace rather than Torah with its manifold rules and regulations. So, too, Reform maintains that Halakhah is not truly “religious.” In historic Judaism, it averred, there is too much Gemara, and not enough God. It proclaimed, therefore, that it would emphasize prophecy over priesthood, spiritual mission over study of Talmud. In a complete and utter failure to understand the nature of Judaism, it asked: what spiritual value can possibly inhere in such a Mishna as shor shenagah et ha-parah, the laws that pertain to an ox which gored a cow? The Halakhah, in other words, was seen as reducing lofty religious concepts to trivial details that did not serve to elevate man. The second criticism was diametrically opposite. Nowadays especially one usually hears the protests of practical men deeply immersed in the complexities and perplexities of daily existence. For them, the demands of Halakhah are far in excess of what their diminutive capacities permit them. Judaism, they complain, demands a level of integrity that they do not and cannot, they feel, attain in their business life. It sets up a morality that taxes their ability for the constraint of impulses, a self-discipline in food and work and talk (Shabbat, Kashrut, and lashon hara) that overstrains their self-restraint in the name of some abstract principle of sanctity that is far removed from their everyday reality. These two criticisms can be represented typo…

Peace – personal, domestic, and communal peace – is considered in the Jewish tradition as the greatest of all blessings. It is regarded as חתימת כל הברכות, the seal or the climax of the priestly blessings: וישם לך שלום, the blessing of peace.  However, peace should not be understood as unanimity of ideas and uniformity of opinion. It would be exceedingly difficult to establish peace in society if unanimity were a prerequisite. It would be utterly impossible in Jewish society, for Jews are especially not predisposed to uniformity of opinion. From the very beginning of time, our people have been characterized by an independence of thought. The Talmud itself is monumental testimony to the divergence of views and opinions. The Rabbis put it this way: just as the faces of people are dissimilar to each other, so do their opinions differ. And one might add, that just as the variety in physiognomy adds to the aesthetics of living, so does the variety of opinions add to its intellectual stimulation and excitement. Furthermore, controversy should not always disturb us. The great Maggid of Mezeritch, the leading theoretician of Hasidism and one who knew only too well the life of controversy, told us never to be discouraged when we face violent opposition. Sometimes we should accept it as a compliment: the highway robber attacks the man who bears jewels; he never bothers with a man who drives a wagon of straw or refuse. It is in this sense that the Rabbis knew that controversy can be both bad and good. Sometimes it is constructive, sometimes destructive. In the fifth chapter of Avot, they said the following: כל מחלוקת שהיא לשם שמים, סופה להתקיים, ושאינה לשם שמים אין סופה להתקיים. איזוהי מחלוקת לשם שמים? זו מחלוקת הלל ושמאי, ושאינה לשם שמים? זו מחלוקת קורח וכל עדתו. “Every controversy which is for the sake of heaven, in the end it will endure. And a controversy which is not motivated by the demands of heaven, in the end it will not endure. Which is a controversy for the sake of…

​This morning, I wish to take exception to the tenor of sermons customarily delivered on the Sabbath we read of Korah and his insurrection. The pulpit, on this day, usually expounds on the vice of rebelliousness, and regards the rebel as an absolutely evil person. I do not want to plead in his defense. But I do believe the accusation should be modified. The rebel is sometimes but not always a rogue. Rebelliousness is not necessarily at all times an unmitigated evil. ​Actually, there are two strains of personality that are opposed to each other, and that characterize most human behavior. They are: conformity and rebelliousness. Every human being has both tendencies within him. Some of us express more one quality than the other. There are some people who are almost completely the conformist, others completely the rebel. ​The conformist is the dedicated bourgeois. He submits to the majority, the popular, and finds security in being part of the nameless mass and the faceless crowd. He has suppressed whatever independence of judgment he might have possessed. He is a self-righteous person who has largely ceased to think for himself. ​The rebel is the bohemian, the anarchist, the outsider. He worships at the shrine of protest. He proclaims the holiness of defiance. School, family, religion, society – all forms of authority are considered by him the enemy and he is dedicated to overthrow them.​ Which of these two is the better man? Which is the midah, the attribute of character or personality that Judaism prefers and recommends to us? Shall we be the conformist or the rebel?​The answer is that the spiritually and psychologically mature personality must have elements of both, never only one. The authentic Jew must be neither “square” nor “beat,” neither reactionary nor radical. He is, however, to have the capacity and the experience of both. For either one, by itself, is odious. When combined in one person, each has much to contribute to the growth of his character, to the …

The rebellion of Korah constituted a trauma of major proportions in biblical history. The whole enterprise of Moses – the spiritual reconstruction of his people, their political liberation, their psychological emancipation from a slave mentality, the development of a “holy nation and kingdom of priests” – was jeopardized by the demagogic Korah and his band of malcontents. In retrospect, Korah was doomed from the outset. Moses, after all, was not a leader by his own choice, but had this mission imposed on him by Providence. So, in effect, Korah was rebelling against God. Hence, Rashi was moved to quote the Sages in exclaiming: קרח שפיקח היה מה ראה לשטות זו? “Korah, who was so clever, how did he become involved in such foolishness?” But the Kotzker Rebbe adds two or three words to that quotation from Rashi which provide us with a new insight. To Rashi’s words, he adds להיות פיקח – how did Korah, such a clever man, get involved in the foolishness of being clever! He means to say that, at the time, Korah appeared to have everything going for him. The people were afflicted with widespread discontent, with fear, with want, with jealousy of Moses, with feelings that Moses and Aaron and Miriam were nepotistic. Yet the fatal mistake of Korah was not שטות (foolishness) as such, but quite the opposite: he was too sharp, too brilliant, too capable. Is this contravened by the Yiddish proverb א חסרון די כלה איז צו שיין (the bride is too beautiful…)? Not quite. Korah, according to the Kotzker Rebbe, is teaching us that it is foolish to be too clever. Korah’s very sharpness was a sign of his dullness; his very astuteness was a symptom of his want of intelligence; his very shrewdness was the stuff of stupidity. It is an old truth (and truth does not dilute with age) that was known to the sages of all cultures and all times. Thus, Jeremiah taught us אל יתהלל חכם בחכמתו, “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom.” And his contemporary Aristotle taught that vice is virtue taken to exc…