A few days ago, on Shavuot night at Kesher Israel, over 100 people stayed up all night learning Torah and eating great dairy desserts.   The night began with an innovative debate between two of our longtime members, both immensely accomplished individual thinkers.   The debate was over Korach, and consisted of the prosecution and defence of this Biblical character who challenged Moshe’s leadership.

At first glance this might be shocking, -wasn’t the jury long out on Korach?  Isn’t he the one swallowed up by the earth for wickedly challenging Moshe, the Divinely chosen leader?    Nevertheless, compelling evidence was brought for both sides of the argument and the artful debaters made a very good case, both for and against.  All this was drawn from traditional Jewish sources, processed with much rigorous intellectual analysis, and peppered with humor.   When the audience voted the verdict was divided.

The lesson I think is an important one.   In Judaism we are taught to take nothing at face value.  If the Torah tells us a story, it must have 70 faces and much to be learned.   As the Talmud states, one can not compare someone who has learned something 101 times to someone who has studied it only 100 times.  They are vastly different.   Sure there are limits, but the Torah is deep and nothing is cliche.   As the Rabbis write, “every day should the Torah must be new in your eyes”.   On Shavuot night at Kesher the medium was the message, open debate, unlimited by accepted interpretations, challenging prior assumptions.   What a great message for the study of Torah.   Yashar Koach to those who organized, participated and attended all the hours of the Shavuot program!

Shabbat Shalom