Memory can be redemptive

We remember Korah and his companions to learn from their mistake. By so doing we redeem them, and ourselves.

By DANIEL GREYBER
The Torah portion Korah is read on Shabbat, June 21 (photo credit: PEPE FAINBERG)
The Torah portion Korah is read on Shabbat, June 21
(photo credit: PEPE FAINBERG)
What do we do with what remains from our mistakes? After we have a terrible argument and say things to each other we are not proud of, do we never speak of it again? When we steal, should we pay a fine and, having fulfilled the punishment, move forward as if the crime never happened? If our children hit or tease someone, do we make them apologize and then forget about it? We should forgive, and forgiving means allowing others, and ourselves, the space to stumble, get up and move forward into the future without being crippled by our past. The Talmud teaches that to remind a sinner of his past is ona’at devarim – a form of cruelty with words (Baba Metzia 58b). Memory should not be crippling, but neither should we live as if the past never happened. Memory can be redemptive.
In this week’s Torah portion, Korah challenges the leadership of Moshe and Aaron. Moshe responds by letting God decide. “Take fire pans for yourselves, Korah, and all his company. Put fire in them, and put incense in them before Adonai tomorrow. It shall be that the man whom the Lord chooses, he shall be holy; you take too much upon yourselves, you sons of Levi.”
Korah loses, badly. “And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men who belonged to Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that belonged to them, went down alive into She’ol, and the earth closed upon them; and they perished from among the congregation.”
What happens next is less familiar. God declares that the very fire pans with which Korah sinned are holy and should melted down and used to cover the altar! “The fire pans of these men who have sinned at the cost of their souls – let them be made into beaten plates and used as a covering for the altar for they have become holy because they were offered before Adonai. They should be a sign unto the children of Israel.”
Why keep the fire pans? Rabbi Isaac ben Moses Arama (Spain, 15th century) observes, “The fire pans, as the object with which a heinous crime against God had been committed, should have been banished from the sanctuary… It would have been more fitting to have used Aaron’s fire pans and his alone to serve as a sign of holiness!” But that’s not what happens.
The fire pans were not destroyed, nor forgotten, hidden away, never to be spoken of again. Rather, they became part of the altar, the place where the very service of God takes place, not in spite of the fact that they were used in a heinous sin, but because of it. The fire pans are transformed into holy reminders to the children of Israel about the importance of serving God in truth.
Arama writes, “[The pans] symbolized the victory over falsehood. They were used, admittedly, by sinners, but served to vindicate, in the end, the cause of truth and were therefore sanctified to become a sign to the children of Israel. Whatever counters and abrogates the enemy of holiness is certainly holy – there is none better than he who vanquishes the enemy and there is no vessel holier than that which vindicates the cause of the saint.”
Truth is hard. So often we choose falsehood because it allows us to preserve a perfect sense of ourselves rather than be reminded of who we were. Korah and his companions must not be forgotten; they are part of the Jewish people and part of our own story. The fire pans they used become a central part of how we serve God.
We remember Korah and his companions not to pour salt in a wound, nor to prevent ourselves from moving forward, but to learn from their mistake. By so doing we redeem them, and ourselves.
Daniel Greyber is rabbi at Beth El Synagogue in Durham, NC and author of ‘Faith Unravels: A Rabbi’s Struggle With Grief and God.’ He served as the US team rabbi at the 2013 Maccabiah Games