I did a deep dive into Korach this week. Not the portion, the man. And this wasn’t some AI-driven “Tell me about Korach” kind of dive. I went old school, dusting off the old Biblical Personalities book and flipping the pages until his name popped up between Ketziah and Keren-Happuch. There it was like a printout from Sefaria. Everything I needed to know about him, without hallucinatory sources.
The story is simple. Korach is a guy, a wealthy guy actually, who feels slighted by Moses. So he grabs followers and launches a whole movement questioning the validity of Moses as a leader. Moses is kind of dumbstruck by this, especially since Korach is his cousin, but Korach persists, challenging Moses and trying to make Torah laws look silly. God is clearly not pleased with Korach because at the end of the story, the ground opens up and Korach and all his followers are finally swallowed up into an impressive biblical Sarlac pit.
There was no social media back then, but if there were, it isn’t hard to imagine Korach up there with the top accounts. He’s wealthy. He’s from a prominent family. His wife probably posts “get ready with me” videos and maybe is a health influencer.
Anyone with a following feels power in the validation of the unnamed and unknown masses. Korach was no different. I’m not sure how he gathered all his followers, especially with no wifi out in the desert, but I imagine many of them were the same ilk who follow the influencers of today, blindly reposting what they say to repost or following the causes that they say to follow simply because the person asking wears couture.
Obviously, with Korach, it isn’t that simple. But poring through the Biblical Personalities pages, the overwhelming character trait that kept popping up was the wealth of Korach, the power he wanted (and had), and his stature. He felt invincible and untouchable. This isn’t anything new. Even Shakespeare understood that mindset. Claudius, in a soliloquy in Hamlet, comments on this world vs. God. Here on planet Earth, “offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice; And oft ‘tis seen the wicked prize itself buys out the law: but ‘tis not so above: …there the action lies in his true nature.”
That’s right, Claude. You can buy your way out of justice here, but you can’t hide your true nature from the Guy who might sentence you to a sinkhole death. With all your followers, too.
If Korach were an average guy, walking through the desert with everyone else and maybe selling sand dollars, would he have amassed a following? Who knows. But the appeal of wealth, the aura of the Richard Corys in this world, leads followers like the pied piper to one place, again and again. That’s not to say that there is an intrinsic fault with money and wealth. The problem is the tendency to confuse wealth with wisdom and prominence with truth. Korach’s followers, like so many, surrender their judgment, blinded by baubles and pearls.
Korach, man of influence, whose ego gets in the way, influences 250 people to their deaths. They rallied behind him and supported his cause, but I can’t help but wonder if it was solely because of his stature and not his platform.
The story of Korach, then, is a story for now. It is a cautionary tale about who we follow and why. The old advice from my parents about being wary of the friends we keep has expanded to being wary of the people we follow. These personalities and people clog our newsfeeds and yell into our phones while we wait in offices and stand in line. It seems innocuous, but it can become toxic. Because when you choose who to follow, you choose who may lead you into the eventual pit.
