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66 Friday, July 11, 1986

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

TORAH PORTION

Korach's Rebellion:
Who Is A True Leader?

RABBI IRWIN GRONER

Special to The Jewish News

T

his week's sidra tells us
of a great mutiny led
by Korach, a Levite,
who gathers unto himself all
the malcontents of the people
and attacks the authority of
Moses. He lays two charges
against Moses and Aaron: "You
did not take us, as you prom-
ised, to a land flowing with
milk and honey. Instead, you
have led us to die in the
wilderness." These complaints
attracted widespread approval.
Korach was able to win a large
following.
The challenge of Korach
causes us to address the issue of
leadership. Who are the leaders
of society? By what criteria
shall we judge their accom-
plishments? How can we answer
the indictments levied against
Moses?
A leader can be defined as one
whom people will follow, a com-
pelling personality who sways
the masses. But the Torah does
not agree with this definition.
Although Korach had many fol-
lowers and won great public
support, Moses was the true
leader.
By what standard did the
Torah establish the preeminence
of Moses? For the Bible, popu-
larity does not validate leader-
ship but moral authority does.
Moses recognized the need of the
people, he saw the degradation
that slavery had imposed upon
them, and he brought to them
the discipline of the moral law.
Moses presented a program to
fulfill the Divine mandate.
Korach was not moved by a
moral purpose. His message is
hatred, his aim is discord, his
popularity arises from the hos-
tility to authority he evokes
from his followers. In his lust
for power, Korach utilizes all
the destructive impulses he can
manipulate.
The most vivid contemporary
illustration of the spirit of
Korach is in the leadership of
most of the Arab world. Arab
leaders have the capacity to lead
their people to great achieve-
ments: to the elimination of il-
literacy; to economic progress; to
raising the standard of living; to
the attainment of peace. In-
stead, that leadership, particu-
larly of the rejectionist states, is
based on hatred, violence, de-
struction and despair.
The second accusation oi
Korach is similarly instructive.
"You have failed, Moses." In-
deed, Moses eventually died in
the wilderness together with the
whole generation. How do we
answer that charge?
It may be that all noble lead-
ership fails, for it never attains
its highest goals. The true
leader must fail, because he is
committed to an ideal so ele-
vated, a hope so exalted that

Rabbi Groner is spiritual leader
of Cong. Shaarey Zedek.

reality can never fully conform
to his vision.
Jeremia failed, and so did
Akiva. Abraham Lincoln failed,
and so did Woodrow Wilson. But
authentic leadership is not
measured by material achieve-
ment.
The leader brings an
enhancement of life. He offers
an awareness of truth, an ex-
perience of beauty and goodness.
The leader is only temporarily
defeated, but mankind is im-
proved; for out of his faith social

Shabbat Korach
Numbers 16:1-18:32
I Samuel
11:14-12:22

forces arise which continue to
express the hopes and ideals
which the leader cherished.
Akiva died a martyr's death,
but the Torah survived.
Jeremiah didn't see the rebuild-
ing of the Temple, but the resto-
ration came later. Lincoln didn't
see the fulfillment of his dream
for a reunited America, but this
took place in the years and de-
cades that followed his death.
All the generations that re-
membered Moses, even unto our
own day, were able to discover
strength, courage and wisdom
out of the spiritual gifts he had
bestowed upon them. The ulti-
mate vindication of the great
leader lies in a future guided by
his vision.

France Revokes
'No Holocaust'
Doctoral Thesis

Los Angeles (JTA) — The
Simon Wiesenthal Center hailed
the French Government's deci-
sion last week to revoke a con-
troversial doctorate granted to
Henri Rogues last year by the
University of Nantes. The
371-page dissertation question-
ed the existence of gas chambers
at Nazi concentration camps
and argued that there is no con-
clusive evidence to prove that
the Nazis had ever gassed their
victims during the WW II
Holocaust.
"The Wiesenthal Center ap-
plauds the decision of French
Education Minister Alain
Devanguet to throw out this
bogus doctorate. Further, we are
pleased that French authorities
have also ordered the suspension
of professor Jean-Claude Riviere,
who headed the examining
board which granted Rogues the
doctorate and who clearly failed
to fulfill his basic responsibilities
as custodian of a university's
commitment to the pursuit of
truth," said Rabbi Abraham
Cooper, associate dean of the
Simon Wiesenthal Center.