On the face of it, Korach rebelling against Moshe is about a challenge to Moshe’s leadership or about a desire for power. Yet at the heart of it the conflict is a deeper and older division, one based in the tension contained in very narrow class divisions and the failures of leaders to communicate. Moshe may be our beloved teacher, yet he is also defined by his own imperfections. Moshe is not a consistent communicator with the people, his strength lays in his ability to listen to God and he relied heavily on Zipporah for emotional and spiritual stability, Jethro for moral guidance and an understanding of how to lead, as well as his formerly estranged siblings Miriam and Aaron whose support is the foundation for communicating with the people, and his apprentice Yehoshua who loyally learns from Moshe yet also rises to the need to lead militarily defensively as well as in intelligence and the later campaign in Canaan. Some see the campaign in Canaan as a parallel to Avraham’s not as literal warfare but of teaching, each victory a spiritual one over idolatry and violent chaos.

After Joseph, it would be fair to say that our ancestors assimilated into Egyptian society despite Egyptians initially avoiding dining with them and Jacob’s descendants living in a separate border region. This is why the change of pharaoh ends up upsetting our ancestors’ social order. They were not accustomed to being slaves. Nor was Egyptian society fully accustomed to seeing our people as slaves either, thus it would make no sense that our people would think of themselves that way. Perhaps the truth is closer to them not wanting to leave the wealth of Egypt to travel through hostile lands in order to start over in a place........

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