Can Criticism and Belonging Still Live Together?

Parashat Korach and the challenge of staying part of the story

One of the defining Jewish questions of our moment is not whether Israel deserves criticism. Of course it does. Every society does. The question is whether criticism and belonging can still live together. Can we challenge Israel without walking away from it? Can we remain part of the story even when we struggle with where the story is going? Parashat Korach may offer an unexpected answer.

At first glance, Korach sounds almost like a modern democrat. Standing before Moses and Aaron, he declares:

“You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, every one of them, and the Eternal is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the congregation of the Eternal?” (Numbers 16:3)

The first half of his claim is difficult to dismiss. “All the community are holy.” Moses himself would likely have agreed. Just two chapters earlier, when others worried that too many people were claiming prophetic authority, Moses famously responded:

“Would that all the Eternal’s people were prophets.” (Numbers 11:29)

Moses was not threatened by participation. He was not threatened by criticism. He was not threatened by people demanding a voice. So why does Korach become Judaism’s enduring symbol of destructive conflict? Centuries later, the sages distilled the distinction into one of Judaism’s most enduring teachings:

“Every dispute that is for the sake of Heaven will endure; but one that is not for the sake of Heaven will not endure.” (Pirkei Avot 5:17)

We often read this teaching as a distinction between good arguments and bad arguments. But I wonder whether the deeper distinction is between criticism that emerges from belonging and criticism that emerges from separation. The great Jewish argument of our generation is deeply political. And it should be. Questions of war and peace, democracy and power, human rights and security, religion and state, are not distractions from Jewish life. They are Jewish life. Parashat Korach invites us to ask what happens when a political disagreement becomes something more dangerous: When criticism no longer seeks to improve the community but to abandon it. When the language of responsibility gives way to the language of separation.

Across North America, especially on college campuses, many young Jews are wrestling with profound questions about Israel. Some are troubled by the war. Some are troubled by the occupation. Some are alarmed by the actions of Israel’s current government. Some struggle to reconcile their liberal values with policies carried out in the name of the Jewish state.

As an Israeli liberal rabbi, I understand those questions. In truth, I share many of them. I have spent years criticizing the current government and the forces of religious extremism that increasingly shape Israeli public life. I worry about threats to democracy, the erosion of liberal values, the weakening of independent institutions, and the treatment of minorities. I often find myself in passionate disagreement with decisions made in my name as an Israeli citizen. None of those concerns diminish my sense of responsibility for Israel. If anything, they deepen it. I do not criticize Israel because I have given up on it. I criticize Israel because I refuse to give up on it (Mind you, there are days when giving up feels very tempting). I criticize because I care what kind of country Israel becomes. I criticize because I believe the Jewish story unfolding in Israel is too important to abandon to politicians, extremists, or cynics.

My criticism is not an expression of distance. It is an expression of commitment. And that, I believe, is the distinction that Parashat Korach invites us to consider. The problem with Korach is not that he challenges leadership. The problem is that he ceases to speak as part of the collective and begins speaking against it. His rebellion is not an argument within the community. It becomes a challenge to the legitimacy of the community itself.

The Passover Haggadah makes a similar observation about the so-called wicked child. The problem is not that the child asks difficult questions. Judaism has always loved difficult questions. The problem is that the child removes himself from the collective and speaks as though the story belongs to someone else. “Their story.” Not “our story.” That is the line we must be careful not to cross. The answer to criticism of Israel cannot be demanding silence. A Judaism that cannot tolerate questions has forgotten its own history. The answer cannot be insisting that every policy, every government, or every military decision be beyond scrutiny. Love without honesty is not loyalty. It is idolatry. If anything, the Jewish tradition teaches the opposite. Abraham argues with God. Moses challenges God. The prophets relentlessly criticize the kings of Israel. Ours is not a tradition of obedience. It is a tradition of moral responsibility.

But neither can the answer be walking away. Neither can it be abandoning the Jewish people because we are disappointed by Jewish politics. Neither can it be allowing frustration with a government to become estrangement from an entire nation, culture, history, or people. To say, “I am deeply troubled by Israel” is one thing. To say, “Therefore I want nothing to do with Israel” is something else entirely. One is criticism. The other is resignation. One seeks repair. The other abandons the project.

Yet there is another side to this conversation that Israelis must hear as well. Too often, when young Jews raise difficult questions, our first instinct is to label them anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, naïve, or disloyal. Instead of engaging the criticism, we push the critic outside the circle. In doing so, we risk repeating the very mistake we are trying to avoid: confusing criticism with disloyalty. A healthy family does not require agreement. A healthy family requires commitment. The same is true of a people.

The challenge of this moment is not to eliminate disagreement. Jews have never been particularly successful at that. The challenge is to remain in relationship, and in belonging, while disagreeing. To argue fiercely and still say “we.” To criticize and still care. To demand better while remaining committed. To stay at the table. Perhaps that is the deepest lesson of Korach. Not that disagreement is dangerous. But that belonging is sacred.

And if we can preserve that sense of shared responsibility, across political divides, across denominations, across oceans and generations, then our arguments, however passionate, may yet become what the sages hoped they could be:

Disputes for the sake of Heaven.

Shabbat Shalom.

*Perhaps this question feels especially urgent to me because I spend much of my time in conversation with Jewish teenagers and young adults across Israel, North America, and beyond. Through Be-longing, an educational initiative dedicated to exploring identity, community, and shared responsibility, I have watched young Jews wrestle with exactly these questions. Not whether they care, but how to remain connected when caring becomes difficult. Again and again, I discover that the conversation itself is a sign of belonging. The real danger begins when the questions stop.