June 21, 2004
Thus Spake Korach
Did anyone else notice the striking similarity between Parshas Korach, and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche? Specificly, the ideas of ressentiment and master/slave morality?
I realize that this posits the traditional power structure in Judaism as a master morality, which is contrary to Nietzsche's own conclusions, but I after reading him I felt he had a fundamental misunderstanding of what Judaism was really about anyway (assuming, of course, that I have any idea).
Incidentally, I heard another, much more cogent, explanation of Korach's motivations; it's not my Torah, but I should write it down simply because of its brilliance. It does have to do with democracy, though.
And if you think this is blasphemous, just wait till Parshas Pinchas. It's midnight in the Garden of Beyond Good and Evil, baby.
An insight I had into Korach can found in Orwell's 1984. If you
recall, OBrian give Winston a booklet that contains the philosophy of the
fake revolutionary movement.
The booklet states that there are 3 levels in society. The masses, the
bosses and the middle group that wants to be the boss. All revolutions
just have the upper two layers trading places. The masses stay where
they were.
I think of that idea when I read Moshe's speech to the "Bnai Levi" and
when I read On ben Peles's wife's speech "You'll be the same On whether
Aaron or Korach is Kohen Godol". i.e. It's only the middle class
(leviim) that can take over.
That's interseting. In some sense, there is a strong
relationship between Nietzsche and facism, although
any competent Nietzsche scholar would argue that
Nietzsche in no way encouraged facism, although
historically his philosophy was used a support for
many fascist idealogies. I have to go back to
Nietzsche to see if he explicitly supports this kind
of approach, i.e. that the leaders of a revolt in the
name of the common man usually are flexing their own
individual will to power, and just using the commoners
as leverage, rather than really having their best
interests at heart.
Your theory also points to an important fact, which I
think is important to know, which is that none of the
the other 250 people really thought they had any shot
at becoming Kohen Gadol; they were there in support of
Korach and his "movement," whatever that might have
been. But they were the democratic, popular voice of
"justice" that called for Korach to be given a shot at
the Kehuna.
Funny that you mention Orwell; I thought Parshas
Shelach fit well with the whole "he who controls the
present controls the past, he who controls the past
controls the future" bit from 1984. The Meraglim were
the perfect example of a society redefining reality as
they saw fit in order to further their own agenda. I
believe there is a Frameworks article for Shelach that
says similarly.
I don't know if none of the 250 thought they had a shot and the Kehuna
Gedola. On's wife thought differently, but perhaps Korach told the 250
they could all have their day in the Kodesh Hakodoshim. We really have
no record of Korach's full stump speech beyond what the Torah though
relevant to let us know.
That's a great quote from Orwell. I had forgotten it.
Posted by: yehupitz at June 23, 2004 10:32 PM
