14,700 people. That is the number that the Torah tells us died in the field at Meribah. Today’s portion is amongst the most difficult in all of Torah. Why did those people have to die?

The usual explanation is that they weren’t loyal—to G-d or Moses. Pretty harsh stuff. That they were swayed by Korach. Korach led a rebellion. It was a real challenge to leadership. He and his two sidekicks and all their families were swallowed up, live, by the earth.

But what about the 14,700 people? Sometimes this text is used to tell us that the G-d of the Old Testament is the G-d of vengeance and the G-d of the New Testament is the G-d of Love. This philosophy was a common teaching in Grand Rapids, at 85% Dutch Reform. And it was always used as a jab at Judaism. We hear echoes of that sentiment in popular culture like throughout the musical Les Mis:

JAVERT
Now bring me prisoner 24601
Your time is up
And your parole’s begun
You know what that means.

VALJEAN
Yes, it means I’m free.

JAVERT
No! It means you get
Your yellow ticket-of-leave
You are a thief.

VALJEAN
I stole a loaf of bread.

JAVERT
You robbed a house.

VALJEAN
I broke a window pane.
My sisters child was close to death
And we were starving.

JAVERT
You will starve again
Unless you learn the meaning of the law.

VALJEAN
I know the meaning of those 19 years
A slave of the law.

He stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s child…and then spent 19 years in jail. This echoes today as well.

Sometimes this text of Korach is used to tell us that G-d demands loyalty. Be careful with all G-d’s commandments or you are going to be zapped. Sometimes this portion is used to tell us that we should guard our tongue. That we shouldn’t spread gossip.

This is a week that has challenged our assumptions about who can read scripture and who can interpret it. What does the Bible say? Who can teach it? How do we read it?

A few snippets of my week. A woman called the synagogue twice. She is looking for an adult Hebrew class. She wants to learn Hebrew to learn to read the Bible better. She’s not Jewish. She is Christian but hasn’t found a “home church”. She is homeless.

Her desire to learn Hebrew is no different than Governor William Bradford, first governor of Plimouth Plantation, who said, “a longing desire to see, with my owne eyes, something of that most ancient language, and holy tongue, in which the Law and oracles of God were write” (Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, Little, Brown, 1856) and who wrote all the marginalia in his own Bible, in Hebrew. If this interests you, I would be happy to discuss my undergraduate paper on this topic at Kiddush. The Puritans came to this country, in part, for religious freedom. In part so they could read the Bible as individuals and not through the eyes of their clerics.

Or my adult Hebrew class, which has one more week to go. They are now studying the machzor so they are ready for the High Holidays. We did the Torah blessings again and had an important discussion about what it means that G-d chose us to give the Torah. Who is the us? Is the “us” exclusively Jewish?

Or an online discussion with my alumni association about whether the Association of Rabbis and Cantors could sign a statement already signed by 26 Jewish groups about the separation of children from their parents at the border. Two members felt vehemently that the answer to that was no. Do we need consensus, a majority or unanimous motion. I expect that heated conversation to continue after Shabbat.

Judaism has never been about being unanimous. That’s why all the opinions are preserved in the Talmud. That’s why the Talmud is not a code book. That’s why I stand up here week after week explaining that Jewish tradition is a layered tradition and that there is often no one way to do something. That’s why I talk about embracing diversity. That includes the diversity of opinion and observance.

Recently I was asked to give a class in how to read Torah. Not the mechanics of chanting, although that might be good too, but how to find the right page, how to know what’s on the page, so I want to spend a couple of minutes introducing you to this book in front of you.

This is Etz Hayyim, the Conservative Movement Chumash. In it you will find the Five Books of Moses separated by weekly parsha. Following each full parsha, not just the triennial reading, is the haftarah, a selection from the Prophets, the Nevi’im. There is usually a brief introduction to the parsha and an introduction to the haftarah. The page is organized to have the Hebrew, the New JPS translation on the top of the page, some commentary at the bottom and below the line how halacha, Jewish law is derived.

Each of the major movements has its own chumash. They each have a slightly different slant and one of my favorite classes in rabbinical school was to look at each of them—which I still often do weekly—to build my d’var Torah. That’s embracing diversity.

But what if there is a moment where diversity of opinion doesn’t work.

What if the interpretation of Korach is the exact opposite of the traditional commentaries, Jewish or Christian? This is after all Judaism. Here are the words that my chevruta partner, Rabbi Linda Shriner Cahn shared with her congregation last night. She began…

“Before I was a rabbi, I was a parent. The challenge of becoming a parent was to follow in the loving caring ways my parents had modeled for me. It was a model based on caring for others, being part of a community and standing up to be counted when times called for it.”

This reminded me of a lovely story that Naomi Rachel Remen tells in Kitchen Table Wisdom.

She tells a story of hearing a prominent rabbi talk on Yom Kippur talk about forgiveness. He began by taking his infant daughter from his wife’s arms and bringing her onto the bimah. He then began his rather traditional and somewhat boring sermon. The baby girl smiled and everyone’s heart melted. She patted him on the check with her tiny hands. He smiled fondly at her and continued with his customary dignity. She reached for his tie and put in her mouth. She grabbed his nose and the whole congregation chuckled. He said, “Think about it. Is there anything she can do that you would not forgive her? Heads nodded in agreement. She grabbed his glasses. Everyone laughed. He waited for silence and then said, “When does that stop. When does it get hard to forgive. At three? At seven? At sixteen? At forty five? How old does someone have to be before you forget that everyone is a child of God?”

I would add, created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God, with the divine spark inside. Naomi added that for her, God’s forgiveness was easy to understand but that personal forgiveness was difficult. If we are supposed to be like God and follow in God’s footsteps, isn’t this the message? It is not a lowering of standards. It is being in a family relationship. Isn’t this how we are to treat everyone, taking care of the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the most marginalized among us?

How appropriate to consider this idea, this Father’s Day Weekend.

Back to Linda’s words: “I look around and see pictures of children being torn from their parents arms in this country which provided a new life for my parents after the Shoah. I cannot begin to imagine the pain and disappointment they would feel if they were to witness what we are currently witnessing. Where is the country that took my parents in?

In this week’s Torah portion, the witnesses to Korach’s rebellion stood by and silently watched the rebellion, waiting for God to intervene. Unlike the witnesses to Korach’s rebellion, religious leaders across the political spectrum in the United States have begun to speak up. We know that it is up to us to speak up.

This is a human crisis, not a political one. The soul of our nation is at stake. I invite you to sign petitions and attend demonstrations. Unlike our Torah portion, we cannot wait for the Divine to take sides and decide who is in the right. The decision is ours, and we need to act.

To quote Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz “The goal of leadership should be effectiveness – not power for its own sake.”

In this case, effectiveness means taking care of the needs of others. We can find a way if we all work together.”

Linda offers a new teaching. Perhaps the reason those 14,700 people were killed were because they stood silently by.

In the coming weeks you will hear scripture quoted and misquoted. Interpreted and reinterpreted. I hope that I have given you some of the tools to understand the bigger picture. And I hope you will not stand idly by.

14,700 people. How many more?