Parshat Korach is surely a consequential Parshah. Ultimately it gives us a detailed view of the responsibilities of the Levites, but it is the path littered with revolt, plague and bloodshed. The parsha is called Korach after the initiator of a revolt against the powers of Moshe and also Aaron. For Korach and all who rose up against Moses, unspeakable punishment awaited as the earth opened up and swallowed those involved, including their wives and their families. This was a followed by a plague which killed thousands more. Only after these horrific scenes does God lay out the specifics of the jobs of the Levites.
As someone who writes these poems weekly, I was unable to get past the statement of the earth swallowing the guilty alive. These images brought images of the Holocaust, a particularly of Babi Yar, when so many thousands were shot and killed there. Many were buried alive, a fate which they shared with the kin of Korach.
1. And the techaylet was forgotten......
2. One Wonders
One wonders
in the midst of
the confusion and chaos
of Korach
the scenes in living color
the sliding avalanche of a people
threats and counter threats
for reasons wrong or right
internal plans
that spiraled into actions
a revolt in the desert
"...... the ground under them burst asunder, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households, all Korah’s people and all their possessions."
Like an open sore in one's mouth
that one cannot stop picking
one returns
over and over
again
to these words
one blinks and looks again
the leaders,
the wives, their children,
future generations
lost, lost, lost
Over and over again
Like a bad dream
one barely notices
the paragraphs that follow
the staff that becomes an almond branch
the Levite's workload
the meat
the tithes
the incense pans
the sacrifices
"The earth swallowed them with their households."
For these words are too recent
these words are too true
Words that hit us
in our faces
like bricks
one by one
knocking us to our knees
suffocating us with their violence
These words,
these violent words
written in the heart
of the holiest book
are our nightmares.
How does one go forward from these verses?
For indeed the earth still
opens up
and swallows Jews
It has not finished its work
burying Jews alive
the revolutionaries
the show offs
the guilty
the innocent
believers and non believers
the women and the children
the babies
the old and the sick
those who said too much
and so many who said nothing at all
So many swallowed up by the earth
Never to be seen again
them or their descendants
This same earth that creates life.
This same earth becomes the blanket of death.
One wonders
and dares not look
at scarlet reds,
and drying browns
painted before one's eyes
One can never forget the mass graves
that heaved and breathed
as the living lay under the newly thrown earth
one cannot forget
the terror
the chaos
the dogs
the choking for air
the blood
the death
and those few
that tiny number
who struggled from the dead
their fingernails clawing the earth
the soil between their teeth
pushing away the earth
to begin anew
to stagger into the future
one wonders
one's mouth open
in silent screams
One cannot forget Babi Yar when one thinks of Korach
one cannot help but to wonder
one cannot help but to remember
one cannot help but to be horrified
One wonders
about fine lines
between good and evil
acceptable and unacceptable
and
the power to destroy
One wonders about God
and punishment
then and now
now and then
and one’s mind returns
and returns again
racing, tripping
their eyes open in surprise
we fall with them
face down in the earth
covered, covered
one wonders as one weeps for the fallen
with eyes downcast
with stomach in knots
one cannot erase the memory
of their ends
their lives unfinished
incomplete
bloodied
From Babi Yar
and Rovno
and Zhitomeer
and Berezneh
and Minsk
and Vilna
and Odessa
and Lvov
and Kishniev
and Riga
each life that lay there covered by
choked by the earth
the names fall from one's tongue
like drops of blood onto the earth
and one wonders
In memory of my aunts, my grandmother, my grandfather and a small child who were also swallowed by the earth in graves largely unmarked.
The universe is incomplete.
Numbers 16:30-33
Translation from Sefaria
But if the LORD brings about something unheard-of, so that the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, you shall know that these men have spurned the LORD.”
׃ Scarcely had he finished speaking all these words when the ground under them burst asunder, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households, all Korah’s people and all their possessions.׃ They went down alive into Sheol, with all that belonged to them; the earth closed over them and they vanished from the midst of the congregation.
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