Chances are there is some
metalwork in your home which you don’t give much thought to: pots, pans,
railings, fences, etc. This week’s parashah is a section of Torah that might
get you thinking about the metal work in your home, because it touches on just
that issue. This week’s parashah is Korah, and you might recall it focuses on
the most infamous of rebellions during the 40-year trek in the wilderness. Korah
and his followers are unhappy with how much power the two brothers, Moses and
Aaron, wielded over everyone else. They demanded that power be more equitably
divided among the people for all the Children of Israel were holy. This was
very much an internal family squabble. But it was a very large family squabble
as it was a very big family. Korah had 250 followers in lock step with his
demands.
So Moses constructs a plan to
determine where holiness lay and where it does not. He asks Korah and the 250
followers to take their fire pans, used in the burning of incense, and make an
offering to the Lord. They do just that. But almost on cue, an earthquake erupts,
swallowing the leaders of the rebellion, including Korah and his entire family,
and then an overwhelming conflagration breaks out and consumes all 250
men. All that remained were the smoking fire pans. What an extraordinary
human tragedy. One would presume at that point to take the fire pans and junk
them. But that is not what God instructs Moses and Aaron to do. To the contrary,
God asks that all the fire pans be hammered into sheets of metal which will
then plate the altar of incense. Now it must be understood that the altar
already was plated. This new cover would be a second cover. But why would fire
pans used in an attempt to overthrow the legitimate authority of Moses and
Aaron be then used for a visible altar, and one that is understood to be
integral to the worship of God? It seems strange. The Torah asserts that the
visible plating would be a warning to all would-be rebels to reign in their
passions. Still, why would such a dark period be given such prominence and
reverence within the community?
America
right now is deep into an iconoclastic mood, that is, we want to tear down
statues commemorating what many claim to be tributes to racism and bigotry, in particular,
statuary that glorified the racism against our black brothers and sisters who
have suffered mightily since the founding of this country and even before. By
the same token, art provides testimony to an age, for better or for worse, and
when we hide such art from view or destroy it, we do damage to truth and that’s
something that no moral human being can support. One sure way to misunderstand
where we are today, is to ignore or distort who we were yesterday. There is much
about our past that we can be grateful for, and much that ought to humiliate
us. But that’s who we are and like God’s solution for what to do with the fire
pans, it is sometimes better to keep the sins, our sins, visible.
We live at a time that has
been very cruel to the arts. It is no wonder that the thrust of social
sentiment is to destroy the statuary rather than mold or chip away at new ones
that might dramatically express a new sentiment about who we are as Americans
today, or at least what we hope to become. Periods of crisis, like the one we
find ourselves in, tend to be periods of great creativity, and now is the time
to capitalize off the anger, the frustration, and the hopes of people for a
nation yearning to be free of racism and bigotry. We have all become very adept
at telling each other how terrible we are and damning ourselves for our sins,
as if there is anyone in this world who can actually lay claim to living free
of sin.
And yet, there is another
way. Like Abraham Lincoln, who hoped to rebuild the South after the Civil War,
and Nelson Mandela who evoked widespread amnesty for past crimes in order to
kickstart a new and improved South Africa, the time has come to move forward
without further humiliation. I am the first to admit that sometimes the only
way to effect change is to put up your dukes and fight. Then again, to bring
about change forcefully but peacefully, ala Mahatma Gandhi or a Martin Luther King,
is a real test of one’s character and proof of one’s true mettle.
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