Hello and welcome to another episode of Covenant and Conversation with me, Rabbi Sachs.

In each new episode, we'll explore a Jewish idea from the Hebrew Bible based on the Torah reading of the week.

Korach, argument for the sake of heaven. The Karak rebellion wasn't just the worst of the

revolts from the wilderness years. It was also different in kind because it was a direct assault on Moses Neron.

Kerrach and his fellow rebels in essence accuse Moses of nepotism, of failure, above all of being a

fraud, of attributing to God decisions and laws that Moses had devised himself for his own ends.

So grave was the attack that it became for the sages a paradigm of the

worst kind of disagreement. Which is an argument for the sake of heaven, they asked?

Mahlokid to Shemayimayam, the argument between Haleh and Shamae. What is an argument not for the

sake of heaven? The argument of Korach and his company.

Thus, Pirkehavut, Meiri, from Catalonia in the 13th century,

explains this teaching in the following terms.

The argument between Hillel and Shammai.

In their debates, one of them would render a decision and the other

would argue against it out of a desire to discover the truth, not out of cantankerousness

or a wish to prevail over his fellow. An argument not for the sake of heaven was that of

Kerach and his company, for they came to undermine Moses, our master, may he rest in peace

and his position out of envy and contentiousness and ambition for victory.

The sages, in other words, were drawing a fundamental distinction between two kinds of conflict,

argument for the sake of truth and argument for the sake of victory.

The passage must be read this way because of the glaring

discrepancy between what the rebels said and what they sought. What they said was the people

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