Korach:Democracy 2011

Korach:Democracy

In this weeks parshah,  a new appellation of Gd appears [Numb27:16}:  הָרוּחֹת לְכָל-בָּשָׂר .  When Moshe  pleads to rescue the people from destruction on the basis of their misguidance by an individual, Gd’s power over the winds, Gd’s mastery over the capricious, is invoked. The same appellation is used when Moshe confronts the need for  a  successor.  Perhaps the leader knows how to sail using the capricious winds of democratic ideas?

I am reading LEAVES OF GRASS, By Walt Whitman. The book contains poems about the American [Korach experience?] civil war. BOOK XXIII , By Blue Ontario's Shore  the first stanza ends:

“And sing me before you go the song of the throes of Democracy.

 (Democracy, the destin'd conqueror, yet treacherous lip-smiles everywhere,
 And death and infidelity at every step.)”

The conqueror calls itself democratic.
Yet, out of ideas of democracy comes the persecution of the oppressed and the minority.
The Confederacy was an exercise in democracy. So were the Nazis.
What Americans treasure now is the spirit of the will that drives democracy tempered by warmth of caring.