Bamidbar 16:1-5
All of Them Holy
Five verses in which a rebellion opens with an argument that is very nearly true.
For children, teens and adults
Korach’s opening line is not a lie, and it is not his own invention either. כל העדה כלם קדשים, the whole community, all of them, are holy, is built out of the Torah’s own words. But look at what he changes. The Torah says קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ, you shall be holy (Vayikra 19:2), and וִהְיִיתֶם קְדֹשִׁים לֵאלֹהֵיכֶם, you shall be holy to your God, and that second one sits in the last paragraph of the parashah read immediately before this one. Both are instructions about what to become. Korach hands them back as a report on what everybody already is. That is what makes this the hardest story in Bamidbar: the rebel has the better slogan, and the text seems to know it, because it hands his followers titles instead of insults and calls them leaders of the community and men of name. The Mishnah in Avot 5:17 names his dispute as the model of an argument that is not for the sake of Heaven, and puts Hillel and Shammai on the other side, two teachers who disagreed about nearly everything and are both still studied. So the fault cannot simply be that Korach disagreed, and it cannot be that he pulled his holiness out of nowhere. Something else is off, and locating it is the work of these five verses.
וַיִּקַּח קֹרַח בֶּן־יִצְהָר בֶּן־קְהָת בֶּן־לֵוִי וְדָתָן וַאֲבִירָם בְּנֵי אֱלִיאָב וְאוֹן בֶּן־פֶּלֶת בְּנֵי רְאוּבֵן׃
Bamidbar 16:1
Vayikach Korach ben Yitzhar ben Kehat ben Levi, veDatan vaAviram bnei Eliav, veOn ben Pelet bnei Reuven.
Korach son of Yitzhar son of Kehat son of Levi took, with Datan and Aviram sons of Eliav, and On son of Pelet, of the sons of Reuven.