How Not to Have a Conversation
In the words of the historian and public intellectual Julian E. Zelizer, "We no longer seek debate, nor do many shuls even allow it to happen. We are having trouble being tolerant of the other side" ("The Closing of the American Jewish Mind," Tablet, December 9, 2015). The same could be said in the hermetically sealed ideological chambers of American popular culture too. We see the consequences of this kind of intellectual narrowness and the absence of civil conversation in this week's parashah, Korach. Korah is one of the great villains of the Torah; the leader of a rebellion against Moses.
