Have you ever considered the people for whom many books of the Bible are named? Daniel and Ezra, Joshua and Samuel, Esther and Ruth, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, Micah, Amos, and so on. All of them were good people, holy people. All of them in one way or another were role models. All of them tried as best they could to live blameless lives. Many made mistakes, but in a larger sense all of them lived holy lives. Books are named for the acts of good men and women.
Indeed, one of the reasons that we choose Biblical names for our children is so that they will emulate some of those great role models, as they grow old. An ancient Hebrew proverb holds that 'a man is like his name' which means that people do to a certain extent live out the promise that names give them.
We have learned that lesson from the negative. Children who are called by derogatory nicknames by others often grow up cast to become the kind of people defined by their names. Prisons are filled with people who were condemned by nicknames long before they became felons.
For the Jew, the Torah is not really only the Five Books of Moses, but really a book for every week of the year. Every Sedra (little book) has a name. The first is called 'Genesis', the second 'Noah', and the third 'Go for your own good". The sedra that we read this week is called 'Korah'.
Korah was a very bad man. There is almost nothing in his life that we would want to impart to our children. At best, he was a negative role model. He is exactly the kind of person for whom one would not expect a book or even a portion of the Bible to be named. He was not holy and he did nothing good. At best he tried to bring division into the Jewish people. He tried to undermine the authority of both Aaron and Moses. He wanted power for his own self-aggrandizement. Yet, the sedra is called by his name. Why?
We live in a difficult world where people are not necessarily good. In every generation we have had a Hitler, a Stalin, a Mao, a Sadaam. Human blood has always been a rather cheap commodity. Right living has never been a popular pursuit. Our tradition, which teaches how we should live, does not shy away from the difficulties of the world. We are taught to face evil and to conqueror evil. We are taught that bad people against whom we may have to fight do exist. We are taught to see the world as it is, to recognize every Korah and every Haman wherever and whenever they are found.
A Bible that only emphasizes the good people is by definition fiction. Only when we meet the good and the bad will we have a real picture of life. In these weeks we read about Korah and Balaam and Amalek to recognize the kind of world in which we live, so that we may be cognizant of the difficulties that living a holy life present.