Ambiguity of leadership
Korach
Numbers 16:1-18:32
A brief note in the introduction to this week's haftara as published in the Etz Hayim Humash set me thinking. The haftara deals with the prophet Samuel's reaction to his crowning of Saul as Israel's first king. The choice of this passage as the haftara for this week's parsha is a commentary on the theme of the parsha itself — the rebellion of Korach and his minions against the leadership of Moses.
On the face of it, this pairing of parsha and haftara is strange. Korach was a rebel whose attempt to overthrow Moses and Aaron is condemned, its perpetrators punished. On the other hand, the people's wish to have a king — though displeasing to Samuel because what other king do they need beside God? — is ultimately acceded to both by God and the prophet, who crowns Saul as Israel's first king.
What may justify the pairing is a far more subtle tone that underlies the reaction of the two leaders. It emerges in two brief verses, one in each of the texts, which are almost identical in their wording. Moses, when confronted by the rebels, complains to God: "I have not taken the ass of any one of them, nor have I wronged any one of them." Samuel sounds the identical note: "Whose ox have I taken, or whose ass have I taken? Whom have I defrauded or whom have I wronged?"
Astoundingly, both Moses and Samuel, despite all their accomplishments, emerge as vulnerable. Both feel the need to defend themselves and their leadership of the community. In fact, Samuel uses the very language of a trial: "Testify against me in the presence of the Lord," he exclaims to the people.
What intrigued me is that Michael Fishbane, who introduces the haftarot in this Humash, points out that the sages chose to end the haftara with verse 22 of the passage in the Book of Samuel, rather than verse 25, which marks the end of the episode as a whole. The contrast between the two verses is striking. The first, the one with which the haftara closes, is upbeat: "The Lord will never abandon His people…." In contrast, in Samuel, the episode ends with a doomsday warning: "[If)] you persist in your wrongdoing, you and your king will be swept away."
The decision as to where to close a biblical passage for the haftara was in the hands of the sages, and apart from a general preference to end on a positive note, that decision could be quite arbitrary. What intrigued me about Professor Fishbane's note is that the passage as a whole testifies to Samuel's deep-seated ambivalence about Israel's wish for a king. But at the end, the sages suppressed that ambivalence by choosing to close the haftara passage on an upbeat note. Whatever happens — king or no king — God will not abandon God's people. And he, Samuel, will be around to make sure that God remains the ultimate ruler of the community.
As for the Korach episode, Korach and his community of rebels are destroyed and Moses' leadership is vindicated. But from what is to follow, we know all too well that in neither case is the issue resolved. In the Torah, Korach's rebellion is followed by another rebellion following the spies' report regarding the Promised Land. Nor does King Saul ultimately emerge as the godly king that Samuel had longed for; at the end, Samuel has to wrest the crown from Saul and hand it to his successor, David. Neither Moses' nor Samuel's work is accomplished.
What underlies the pairing of these two episodes in Israelite history, then, is the theme of the ambiguity of leadership. There are no more heroic figures in the early history of our people than Moses and Samuel. Not for a moment should either have felt defensive about his qualities of leadership or about his accomplishments.
But both did. Both had to learn that failure, criticism, and even rebellion were simply part of the job description, together with the acclaim. In the end, both were vindicated, not only in the short term, not only by God and by their respective communities, but more important, by the judgment of posterity.
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