Korach 2009

Bob Dylan has a song called “With Gd on Our Side.” He sings about a number of the wars that this country was in, and sarcastically says that they were all okay because Gd was on our side. In the last verse, he drops his sarcasm, and says that if Gd is on our side, He will stop the next war.

That is a great sentiment. Very 60’s. But sarcasm aside, was Gd on our side in any of those wars? The one that comes to mind is World War II. You can say that Gd works in the world today, and you can say that Gd doesn’t, but do you think anyone would have been better off had the Nazis won that war? Would that that have made Gd happy? Or is it not the case that, either as an active participant or as a passive observer, Gd was on our side?

Once you allow for that possibility, you have to ask the question: was Gd on our side in any of the other wars? World War I? The French and Indian war? The Spanish American War? Does Gd sometimes sit out a war? Maybe sometimes He can’t decide which side is right, so He remains neutral.

The rabbis of the Talmud distinguished between מלחמת מצווה, an obligatory war, and מלחמת רשות, a discretionary war. Perhaps Gd takes sides in an obligatory war, like World War II, where the freedom of Europe and perhaps the world was at stake, but does not in a discretionary war, like the Spanish American War, in which what was at stake was whether Spain or America should have influence over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

The question then comes down to this: How can we tell an obligatory war from a discretionary war? The most discretionary wars, wars that were fought for terrible reasons, such as a desire for conquest, to distract a population from problems at home, or even macho posturing by two leaders who refuse to back down, all of these wars are called obligatory, described as absolutely necessary. How do we know?

The Israeli War of Independence and the Six Day War are often described as miraculous. How did the tiny Israeli army, one day old, beat the combined might of seven enemy armies? How did Israel beat the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in less than a week? A miracle! Gd was on the Israeli side.

It would be wonderful if miracles would tell us whose side Gd was on, or even if Gd would just tell us whose side He is on. In last week’s Torah portion, when the spies return with a bad report from the Land of Canaan, Gd tells them they must now wander in the desert for forty years. The people apologize and say they are willing to enter the Promised Land now. Gd, through Moses, says no. The people say they are going up anyway, and Moses tells them that Gd is not on their side, and they will be defeated. They go, and suffer tremendous losses.

In 1979 the Iranian people rebelled against the Shah. He had his prisons and his torturers and his secret police, but he couldn’t stop people from going up on their rooftops at night and shouting ‘Allahu Akbar!” Gd is great. The Shah was powerful, they reminded him, but Gd is more powerful. And Gd was on their side.

The Ayatollah Khamenei has stated that Ahmadinejad’s win in the recent election is the will of Gd. Gd is on his side, says Khamenei. Yet Iranians are once again going to their rooftops and shouting “Allahu Akbar.” The theocratic government, Ahmadinejad, Khamenei, the police, and the Basiji, the religious militia, are powerful. But Gd is more powerful, more powerful even than those who claim to speak in the name of Gd. 

In this week’s Torah portion, Korach rises up against the theocracy of Moses. All of us are holy, he says. All of us are Gd’s people. Why do you put yourself above us, and tell us what do? In this case Gd makes it very clear whose side He is on. Korach and his followers are swallowed by an earthquake, and those who challenged Aaron’s leadership as high priest are convinced by a miracle that Aaron is the one.

So why can’t Gd do the same for us today? Why can’t Gd tell us what job to take, or who to marry, or who won the election? Why can’t Gd tell us if we should support or protest a war?

Gd may well tell us those things, but His method of communication these days is much more subtle. Judaism realizes that people with good intentions may be on opposite sides of an argument. Pirkei Avot tells us that any controversy that is for the sake of Heaven shall be resolved, and any controversy in which both sides are fighting for themselves will not be resolved. What is an example of a controversy for the sake of Heaven? The controversy between between Hillel and Shammai. And which controversy, says Pirkei Avot, was not for the sake of Heaven? The controversy of Korach and his followers. 

Gd is not neutral in the world. Gd wants us to behave in certain ways. It is not always easy to tell when we are acting for our own benefit and when we are acting for the sake of Heaven. But we can stop and ask ourselves: who are we doing this for? Is it to help ourselves? Or is it to make the world a better place?

If Ahmadinejad and Khameni really believe they are on Gd’s side, that doesn’t make them right. There is no question that misplaced religion and self-centered religious authorities can lead you away from Gd. We cannot know for sure which side of a question Gd is on, and it is chutzpadik to claim you know Gd’s mind. But it is a question we should stop asking, and sometimes the answer will come to us.