Presence

A few years back, I wrote a post about Korach and Nietzsche. Therein, I mentioned that I would be writing up someone else's explanation of Korach in connection with the idea of democracy, but I seem to have never gotten round to it. It has been a while, and I don't recall what I had heard or who I had heard it from (it was likely R. Simcha Baer), but I do seem to have some latent thoughts linking Parshas Korach and democracy, as when a someone asked me about it, the idea came to mind.

Anyways, it would seem the two correlates in explaining the parsha (Nietzsche and democracy) would be somewhat complimentary. Although I think I wrote something to the contrary in the comments of my previous post, Nietzsche's philosophy is quite authoritarian, even a little bit fascist. The slave moralities of which he so despises are not only the systems promoted by the Judeo-Chrisitian religions, but the democratic forms of government that give power to the people and not to some elite cadre of ubermenschen.

So what we have is Korach leading a rebellion against an entrenched aristocracy by appealing to the masses' sense of the value of the individual by making democratic overtures. In truth, Korach has no intention of transfering any power to the individuals (cf. the midrash detailing the arguement between On ben Peles and his wife).

The truth is, in discussing these ideas with a few friends, I'm not sure if the best analogy would be democracy (rule by the people) or communism (classeless society). Either way, the focus is a bit different, as God is the one who is ostensibly deciding who offers the korbanos.

Brain flash: I do recall what I had previously heard from R. Simcha Baer, at least a little. Basically, the question could be asked, what was Korach thinking? Did he really think that God would choose him over Aharon? And what if he chose someone else? R. Baer's explanation, which I am not doing justice, was along the lines that Korach thought that he could establish a democratic system of election for the priesthood, and that by virtue of the fact that he held the popular vote, so to speak, God would have no choice but to accept his offering and install him as the Kohen Gadol. I am sure there were elegant proofs for this, but I do not remember them. But what you then have is basically democracy vs. theocracy (in a more literal sense).