Korach and the Fire Pans

I started to think about this week’s Torah Portion reading about a recent meeting between two of the most important leaders in the world. The President of the US and the President of Russia were discussing the problem of rebellious journalists, the sort of people who accuse leaders of taking too much on themselves – you know, the same sort of complaint that Korach and his fellow rebels launched against Moses.

“Get rid of them.” Said President Trump, “You don’t have this problem in Russia but we do,”

President Putin replied, “We also have. It’s the same.”

It’s not funny. 58 journalists have been murdered in Russia since 1992 and President Putin has been accused of complicity. It’s better in the States – but Presidential Trump called the Montana Congressman who body slammed a journalist in May 2017 “my guy.” The Committee to Protect Journalists have a web site with details of the investigative journalists variously arrested for treason, beaten up and worse. My family are journalists. I have a soft spot for journalists. And I don’t think journalists should be beaten up, arrested for treason or worse.

I get that journalists, especially investigative journalists who poke their nose into the business of powerful rulers can annoy those rulers. I can understand that rulers might wish that these journalists would get swallowed up by the earth, a bit like Moses wanted Korach and his gang to get swallowed up by the earth.

I even understand that Moses is under the pressures of leadership and Korach was annoying and offensive and could have made the same point more politely. But, surely, the point of being a powerful leader isn’t that you get to be able to call down all the might at your disposal to get those who disagree with you swallowed up by the earth.

Moses takes Korach’s rebellion seriously. He challenges the rebels to a face-off on the following day. Each side are to bring fire-pans before God at the Sanctuary and God will demonstrate who God has chosen. The next day Moses turns to the rebels and warns them to stand down. Then he warns those who remain, ‘God is about to show whom God has chosen,’ he says. And no sooner has Moses finished speaking than the earth opens up and the rebels die.

Here’s the problem, isn’t Moses, well, a bit tyrannical?

Doesn’t he sound a bit like the sort of powerful leader who makes journalists disappear? Well that’s not good. I get uncomfortable with this story. And I’m interested in reading it in a way that doesn’t make the most important person in the Bible – the leader who led us out of Egypt and received Torah from God sound a bit like a dictator who makes those who disagree with him disappear.

Maybe there is a clue in the strange test that Moses suggests.

Everyone is to take their fire-pans. Machtato – comes from the Hebrew word to scoop up coals from a fire. You scoop up coals and then place spices on the coals which burn giving up a sweet scent – incense.

Now it might be that you’ve never really stopped to think about fire-pans in your 21^st Century life, but close Bible readers have encountered fire pans before. On the day the Sanctuary was dedicated Aron takes his fire-pan and uses it to bring an offering of incense in the Sanctuary. It’s a great moment, spoiled just a moment later when Nadav and Avihu get so excited about using their fire-pans that they rush into the Sanctuary with, what the Torah calls a strange fire. And they are burnt up.

Rashi – the greatest of Biblical commentators - [1] suggests that when Moses tells the rebels to take fire-pans, of all things, he’s warning them – Hitra Lahem – Sam Mevet Nitan Betocho – there’s spices there, but it’s a spice that can cause death. Korach and his company surely would seen Nadav and Avihu dying with their fire-pans in their hands. They surely should have known they were – quite literally – playing with fire.

Moses isn’t trying, at first, to get his opposition killed, he’s trying to get them to realise they are messing with something dangerous. When he the tells people to back down he’s not trying to maximise the number of people who are going to get destroyed. He’s trying to make them realise they have picked the wrong side.

Maybe that’s why the show down is set for the next day – Moses wants to give the rebels the opportunity to calm down. Actually, in the Rabbis’ mind one of the rebels is calmed down – he starts off as part of the rebellion, but doesn’t go through with it.

But Korach, Data and Abiram are fixated on rebelling. There’s another clue in the Rashi – hi ketoret chavivah michol hakorbanot – this incense is the most beloved of all the offerings. I mean, of course it is. The offering of incense on these fire-pans doesn’t involve killing animals and butchering. Incense smells great and it glows, there’s fire – who doesn’t love fire.

So, here’s my interpretation of what happened.

The rebels rebel. And Moses tries to warn them off – remember the fire-pans, he tells them. What he meant is that the fire-pans contain the possibility of death if mis-used, that’s what happened with Nadav and Avihu.

He tries again – let’s do this tomorrow, sleep on in, come to your senses.

But the rebels don’t hear the warning. Instead they hear they can play with the best toy in the toybox. The one which smells great, and glows. And they miss the point of Moses’ warning. They are so excited about the fire-pans they can’t hear that they are making a mistake.

The next day Moses warns anyone who doesn’t want to get caught up in the whole thing to back down, and the smart ones do, but the ones who are just so captivated with the whole idea of the fire-pans don’t. And at that point Moses realises they are gone. Korach’s rebellion isn’t a cautionary tale for those who are interested in decent investigative journalism – it’s about the dangers of people who say they want to lead because they like the shiny stuff.

Now it still might be that Moses is a little too punchy for my taste, a little too quick to want to dispatch his accusers to be swallowed up by the earth, but I think this interpretation helps a bit.

In this retelling of the story the problem is the rebels not realising they have missed the point. The point of leading the people in the desert isn’t that you get to dress in the fancy-clothes of the High priest and it isn’t that you get to use the fire pan to bring the most beloved of all the offerings. Leadership is about responsibility and making tough decisions when you can’t please all the people all the time. Leadership isn’t easy. It’s not about the fun stuff.

Perhaps the real lesson of the Korach story is how easy it is to be misled by the sparkly stuff. There’s a famous line in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice where one of the suitors for the heart of the beautiful and wise Portia is asked to chose a box that symbolises what he deserves. He choses the box with gold. But it’s the wrong box. ‘All that glisters,’ he says, ‘is not gold.’ The secret to living a good life isn’t chasing after the surface sparkly stuff, the nice smelling stuff. The secret to living a good life is to listen hard, reflect carefully and be prepared to give up on getting the sparkly sweet-smelling stuff.

Maybe watching who is most excited about the chasing the shiny and the sweetest smelling parts of a life is a way to see who NOT to trust. Here’s a story from later in the Hebrew bible. King Solomon is sitting as a judge when two women come before him arguing about who is the real mother of a small child they both claim as their own. There’s no DNA testing and the two women have definitely had two children, but one has died. To whom does the other belong. ‘Cut the baby in half and they can both take a half’ says Solomon. One woman pleads with the king not to kill the baby. The other woman wants to take the better half – the half with the head. That’s the give-away.

There are a lot of wannabe leaders competing for our attention in these strange times; from Israel to America and even our own fair island. Watch out for those who desire for the sweet-smelling stuff, leadership is tough. And in our own lives we would do well to remember not to be distracted by the fire-pans. They may glitter, but that’s not the best path to follow.

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[1] Based on Tanhuma Buber Korach 5

Ten Years a Rabbi At New London

Those of you at Services last Shabbat will have heard the announcements.

Our chairman congratulated the Bar Mitzvah boy and his family on his wonderful achievement - and the congregation responded in full voice; Mazal Tov.

And then Ian announced that this week there would be a kiddush given in my honour, having been Rabbi here for 10 years - and the congregation responded with a couple of tentative Mazal Tovs and a definite sense of  - can we go and get the fishballs yet?

Thanks.

I was reminded of the story of the Rabbi who was so ill he couldn’t get to the Council Meeting. Worried something might have been decided in his absence the Rabbi hauled himself from the sickbed to call the Chair to hear what had been decided. ‘Good news,’ the Chair responded, ‘Council voted 12 to 8 to wish you a refuah shleimah.’

It was always thus.

Moses in these terrific Parshiot is having a tough time. He’s asked 12 senior members of the congregation of Israel to go and scope out the land and 10 of them come back and give a fullsome raspberry to his prospects of leading the people into the settled life in the and they have been promised.

We’ve been doing a poll of our own these past weeks - we are looking at bringing new clergy in to support the community and we’ve been asking members what they think we should be looking to preserve and what we should be looking to transform at this time. Thank you for your responses. It’s even been helpful to understand more about some of the frustrations and dis-satisfactions of some in the community.

‘I don’t really know what’s going wrong,’ one distinguished member shared, ‘perhaps it’s the Rabbi. Things just aren’t what they used to be.’

Thanks.

One of my favourite books is written by Ronald Heiftetz, the Founding Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University - it’s called, ‘Staying Alive in Leadership.’ The issue is, as anyone who tries to provide leadership knows - is that leaders very often get shot at. Leadership, of course, isn’t giving everyone what we want. And when we don’t get what we want it’s all too easy to blame the person standing at the pulpit.

Heifetz says that the big challenges that face us aren’t capable of being solved by a single solution - proper challenges can’t be solved technically - they can’t be solved by a skilled professional - no matter how gifted and hard working. The big challenges facing us are adaptive. Adaptive challenges are a messy conglomeration of factors beyond any single point of control. Adaptive challenges call us all to be creative, bold and sensitive.

So this is the adaptive challenge I identified when I started here.

I’m going to be blunt.

Apologies in advance.

I’m taking a risk that you can’t really sack the Rabbi for a sermon he gives on the occasion of being honoured with a kiddush for having made it to 10 years.

At the time I arrived here as Rabbi New London had been in decline for twenty years. For a generation the founding Rabbi of this community had told committed Jews thinking of joining, or even staying in membership, not to bother. I’m one of those who drifted away. Louis came to see New London as a vehicle for his sermons from this Bimah and not much more. And eventually Louis, of blessed memory, passed away.

That left - well really not very much.

There were no new members and a handful of kids in the Cheder. The only life-cycle events I performed in my first six months here were funerals. The black hole of the Synagogue finances was compounded by the fact that we had a significant number of members on the books who were  - not only not paying dues - but were actually dead.

The legacy of the greatest Jew of 350 years of Anglo-Jewry seemed to be that no-one other that Rabbi Louis Jacobs could lead a community that was founded for him. And now Louis was dead.

The executive Director of those years, Ronnie Cohen, dropped me a note this week, recognising my efforts. He suggested that what has happened here is an example of Techiyat HaMetim - bringing the dead back to life. That’s a little over-dramatic - though it made me smile.

The reason things aren’t what they used to be is that things aren’t what they used to be. It’s not the late 1960s anymore. Louis’s not Louis more. The world isn’t the same world as it was, frankly, even a decade ago. That’s not this Rabbi’s fault, it’s not even Louis’ fault or anyone else’s. It’s life.

And the reason I haven’t tried to re-infuse precisely the same things that energised this community in its pomp is only a small part of what energised the community in its pomp was energising the community the late 2000-and naughties. And I’ve always liked Einstein’s definition of insanity as ‘doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’

I know I’ve done some things that haven’t been easy for every member to accept - and I don’t mind being blamed for them.

But I’ve been blamed for doing things that - really - aren’t my fault at all. There are members cross with me that the Ladies Guild isn’t still doing the great work they did in the 70s. There are members cross with me that Cantor Jason isn’t the Cantor here.
So be it. But really.

Let me say a word about the role of women.

I know there are members who are upset at my leadership in transforming the community on this issue. I’ll hold my hand up for that one.

But - like everything else in this community - it’s never been just about one person, not even the Rabbi.

I’ve a copy of Volume 1 Edition 2 of the New London News, published in early 1965. It contains an article from a founder member arguing for a greater role for women in liturgy. This is a debate that’s been going on in this 54 year old shul for 54 years.

Over the last 10 years I’ve listened to more members and read more survey responses and emails on this subject than on any other. Here’s the most interesting thing about where this community is on the issue of the role of women.
There is no demographic indicator for who feels what - it’s not that men want less roles for women than women, or vice versa. It’s not that new members want more or vice versa. It’s not that more committed members want more or less than less regular attendees. The same goes for age, we’ve old and younger adults who split on the egal issue just we split on every other demographic splits - - - until you get below a age. Once you go below a certain age virtually everyone is in favour of a fully egalitarian community.

Here’s the reality.

The vast majority of the community either strongly want to see us become fully egalitarian or would wish that we become fully egalitarian were it not for the pain that it would cause the minority of members who feel uncomfortable with that change.

I know that there are members who feel uncomfortable - and worse - that New London might become egalitarian - they’ve been made to feel uncomfortable already.

But what’s a leader to do?

On the actual occasion of my ten years here, back in January, I gave a sermon looking transgenerationally - looking long into the future. I said then, that I don’t see any long-term future for a non-orthodox Jewish claim that women should be limited in the roles they can play. It doesn’t make sense to me Halachically, or as God’s will. It doesn’t make sense to me sociologically. It doesn’t make sense to me when I peer into my murky crystal ball.

For nigh on 50 years New London opened its doors to those looking for non-egalitarian non-orthodox traditional Judaism, and once the immediate flame of the Jacobs Affair died back the queues never materialised.

What’s a leader to do?

To those uncomfortable, I’m sorry. I hope I can ease a journey for some of you. I know I can’t ease that journey for many of you.

But what’s a leader to do?

Let me delve into my own filing cabinet of the 500+ sermons I’ve given over last decade from this very Bimah.

500+ sermons! Those of you who listen closely - and there will be an exam - will know I don’t repeat myself, but I looked again at two of my sermons - from my first year at New London and there is something I want to share today.

On my interview weekend in November 2007 I set out what I understood as the role of New London is. And I haven’t changed my opinion in the past decade.

I know - I said then - that there is something that needs to be done. A task which summons our attention and our best efforts. We live in a world where the unfettered call of materialism spreads misery and threatens to rip the soul out of human beings, turning us into productive units, overpaid hamsters spinning our way round and round and not really getting anywhere. We live in a world where religious idolatry – fundamentalism – has succeeded in destroying the World Trade Centres and threatens so much more horror.

We are still the inheritors of Avraham avinu who broke the false idols of faux religious piety and struck out on a journey towards a life with decency, integrity and kindness.

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That’s where we come in. We exist to be a proud, brave, iconoclastic place of community. A place for people to come together in Jewish community to pray, to play, to honour and to celebrate; infused by everything we learn from our glorious tradition.

In the last ten years, we’ve done a lot of that. We’ve had events and programmes that have inspired and I’ve had the privilege of honouring and celebrating and commemorating with so many of you. I did the maths for the number of weddings; 167! But I suspect even above the delight I’ve taken in the weddings it’s been the funerals, or more accurately, the opportunity to be with families at times of pain, that has been the greatest privilege of my pastoral work here.

But perhaps above all the thing I value most is this - Shabbat after Shabbat, in this glorious space, with prayers led so gloriously, by Stephen and then Jason. And the honour and the responsibility of sharing, from this Bimah a Torah worthy of you, and indeed worthy of this unique and extraordinarily Synagogue. And that takes me back to Louis.

At my induction almost ten years ago I ended my address with the words of our founding Rabbi at his induction, at the New West End, back in 1954, because even over 60 years later I don’t think anyone has ever put it better. I don’t expect anyone ever will.

Said Rabbi Jacobs then, and say I now;

"I hope that the Judaism I preach from this pulpit will be a courageous Judaism. To the best of my ability I shall see to it that no shallow, spineless Judaism, one demanding no challenge and presenting no sacrifice, shall be preached here. But I hope that I shall also see to it that no harsh, unsympathetic, inhuman interpretation of Judaism is voiced here [either].

'O my Creator, give me understanding that I may transmit your inheritance; Strengthen and uphold me that I may be far from weakness and fear.' [From the Reshut of the Sh'li'ach Tzibur - Rosh HaShanah]
  
May You bless all the members of this holy congregation, prosper the work of their hands and bring joy into their lives, and may You always be with us as we continue to labour to do your will in sincerity and in truth. 

It’s been a privilege to share these last ten years with you. And I look forward to much else to celebrate together in the decades to come,

Shabbat shalom