blogs/rabbi-huberman

What Gossip Says About Us #457

There is a reason, say our Sages, why human beings are so skilled at spreading gossip. It is because we perceive our worst characteristics in the behavior of others.
 
The great anti-gossip rabbi, the Chofetz Chaim (1839-1933), said that our inclination to speak ill of others is often rooted in frustrations within our own lives. 

If you are like most people, part of your personal energy each day is devoted to quelling the influence of ego, arrogance, and selfishness. This makes many of us experts at identifying and often articulating these influences, as we perceive them, in others.
 
Rabbi Israel Salanter, the founder of the nineteenth-century Mussar ethical movement, wrote, "Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls, when we all ought to be worried about our own souls, and other people's bellies."
 
The idea of reassuring ourselves by projecting our worst qualities on others rests at the core of this week's Torah portion, named after Korach, one of the Bible's major rogue figures.
 
In the aftermath of last week's Torah reading, which saw the children of Israel condemned to forty years' wandering in the desert, morale among the Jewish people was at an all-time low.
 
Enter Korach, who channelled this dissension by mounting a challenge against the leadership of his cousins, Moses and Aaron.

Korach focussed on taxes. "You place heavier burdens on us than the Egyptians did," he complained. (Numbers R. 18:4) He did not mention, however, that a significant portion of these levies were distributed to the poor.
 
Korach also accused Moses personally of ambition, arrogance, and self-interest.
 
"You have gone too far," he declared. "The whole community is holy, every one of them.... why, then, do you set yourselves above God's congregation?" (Numbers 16:3)
 
Here we encounter a problem. Doesn't Jewish tradition encourage us to challenge authority? Aren't we urged to debate? To discuss and challenge the status quo?
 
Not in every case, say our Sages. In this case, Korach was not motivated by the public good. He sought, rather, to elevate his own stature. In so doing, he projected ambition, one of his own worst qualities, on Moses, to whom the Torah repeatedly refers as "God's servant."
 
There is a passage in the Talmud to which most who have served as leaders of Jewish volunteer organizations can relate: "When a leader lords it over a community, the Holy One weeps every day because of him." (Hagigah 5b)
 
In other words, leading an organization, Jewish or otherwise, can be challenging. There are always those who claim to know more. Leaders are often accused of ambition, or being fueled by self-interest or egotism.
 
We have seen, through Torah portions in previous weeks, that Moses was not without flaws. But in the face of Korach's accusations, he was innocent.
 
Not only was Moses a servant of God, but he was the voice of the people. When God is angered by the Israelites' ongoing complaints and lack of confidence, God threatens to destroy all of the Jews, and begin again with Moses.
 
But Moses begs for communal forgiveness. When this is granted, God does so by saying, "I have forgiven them as you have asked."
This is the dynamic that forms the basis of the Yom Kippur service.
 
Korach's alliance with more than two hundred and fifty disgruntled chieftains demonstrates to us why Judaism was so radical in its time.
 
The world order as it was understood three thousand years ago revolved around power. As England's former chief rabbi Jonathon Sacks noted, "The sun ruled the heavens. The lion ruled the animal kingdom. The king ruled the nation. That is how it must be."
 
Or, in the words of Aristotle, "Some are born to rule, others to be ruled."
 
Judaism proposed a different leadership model, insisting that, since within each of us there is a spark of God, no one of us, including leaders, is more entitled than another.
 
It is why Moses's leadership was so easily misinterpreted by Korach and his followers. They dealt in power and authority, while the Torah tells us that Moses was "a very humble man, more humble than anyone of the face of the earth." (Numbers 12:3)
 
Judaism encourages us to engage in public discussion, even when parties passionately disagree, but it stresses that we must do so L'Shem Shamayim: in the name of heaven.
 
Two of Judaism's primary rabbinical combatants, Shammai and Hillel, would fervently debate issues of religious practice and personal behavior. The Talmud tells that even though their students strenuously disagreed, they did so for the good of the people.
 
As we observe the evolution of the public mandate currently unfolding at all levels throughout the nation, it behooves us to consider some of the lessons from this week's Torah reading.
 
I believe that, within in the hearts of any candidate seeking office, there exists the desire to serve. The problem which disturbs so many of us revolves around the issues of tactics and projection.
 
Korach and his supporters were fueled by ambition, and therefore projected that criticism upon Moses and Aaron. In the end, God opens the earth and swallows up Korach and his band of entitled chieftains.
 
God's message is clear.
 
Public debate, discussion, and disagreement are to be encouraged. But the Torah teaches that leaders in particular must channel that force through a filter of humility and heavenly intention.
 
In the words of Rabbi Sacks, "Those who serve do not lift themselves high. They lift other people high."
 
The great eighteenth-century rabbi the Vilna Gaon taught that the purpose of life to make ourselves into something better. So the question remains: do we accomplish this by focusing on others, or by turning our attention to ourselves?
 
Let us seek to be like Moses, who modelled humility while endeavoring to quell the Korach within.
 
Indeed, there is so much each of us needs to work on. 

Let us aspire therefore to bring out the best within ourselves --  rather than projecting our worst on others.
 
Shabbat Shalom, v'kol tuv (with all goodness)
 
Rabbi Irwin Huberman