This week’s torah portion, Korah, really resonated with me. Basically, Korah, a Levite, was tired, hungry, and generally pissed about wandering through the dessert. He gathered together a few buddies (who were presumably also hungry and in desperate need of a shower) and they threw a collective tantrum at Moses–something along the lines of “Who died and made you God?!?”
Moses responded by falling on his face. Traditional commentators praise him for this, noting that rather than reacting by yelling something back (possibly along the lines of “God did, you giant douche! And he’s not even dead! So suck it!”), he took the time to reflect and collect himself. I love that idea, although I also like to think that Moses was feeling the same way I often do when the girls are whining at the end of a long day, when I barely have the energy to stand, much less engage with the latest round of whatever they’re all worked up about.
Either way, Moses managed to pull himself together and, rather than getting into a scream fest or physical fight with Korah, he basically told him to wait and see. “Come morning, God will make known who God is and who is holy.” Now, the story goes on from there, and eventually God got so fed up that He just went right ahead and opened up the Grand Canyon under Korah and his followers (the ultimate “time out,” I suppose). While I don’t condone throwing your children in a giant hole in the ground when they’re acting up, I do think there are a few parenting lessons to be learned from the interaction between Korah and Moses.
The rest of this post is over on Kveller.com.
