 | "Keeping Up with the Joneses" – no, not the 2016 Jon Hamm movie about a suburban couple that managed to get entangled in an international spy plot after suspecting that their new neighbors were secret agents. I mean something far more important – and far more impactful. We humans are wired to yearn, even to want what we don't have. There are reasons that the Tenth Commandment urges not to covet. It's when we become jealous when big problems – relational, spiritual, national and global – really get going. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Parashat Korah 5785 (2025)
During the early 1900s, in another era of turmoil with stark haves and have nots, an American comic capitalized on the human impulse to compare ourselves to folks who seem to have, be and do more. Thus was born "Keeping Up With the Joneses" – a comic strip that became the popular expression.
"The Joneses" themselves, however, never made an appearance. For 25 years, through the Gilded Age, the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression to the lead-up to World War II, the Joneses' influence loomed large as the personification of social standing and aspiration – but America never met them. What mattered wasn't who they were but what they represented.
Now a century later, in our current era of turmoil again with stark haves and have nots, "keeping up with the Joneses" might take different forms, but the human impulses – and their relational, spiritual, national and global implications – seem little changed.
This week's Torah portion brings Korah's rebellion against Moses. Korah joined with 250 other leaders, "people of renown," to challenge the leadership of Moses and Aaron (Num. 16:1-3). The rebels wanted what they didn't have: ultimate leadership, and with it equality to Moses.
In essence, what they wanted was to keep up with the Moses.
In one respect, Korah was correct. A year earlier at Sinai, immediately before the Ten Commandments, God told Moses to tell everyone (Ex. 19:5-6):
Parashat Korah 5785 (2025)
During the early 1900s, in another era of turmoil with stark haves and have nots, an American comic capitalized on the human impulse to compare ourselves to folks who seem to have, be and do more. Thus was born "Keeping Up With the Joneses" – a comic strip that became the popular expression.
"The Joneses" themselves, however, never made an appearance. For 25 years, through the Gilded Age, the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression to the lead-up to World War II, the Joneses' influence loomed large as the personification of social standing and aspiration – but America never met them. What mattered wasn't who they were but what they represented.
Now a century later, in our current era of turmoil again with stark haves and have nots, "keeping up with the Joneses" might take different forms, but the human impulses – and their relational, spiritual, national and global implications – seem little changed.
This week's Torah portion brings Korah's rebellion against Moses. Korah joined with 250 other leaders, "people of renown," to challenge the leadership of Moses and Aaron (Num. 16:1-3). The rebels wanted what they didn't have: ultimate leadership, and with it equality to Moses.
In essence, what they wanted was to keep up with the Moses.
In one respect, Korah was correct. A year earlier at Sinai, immediately before the Ten Commandments, God told Moses to tell everyone (Ex. 19:5-6):
| וְעַתָּ֗ה אִם־שָׁמ֤וֹעַ תִּשְׁמְעוּ֙ בְּקֹלִ֔י וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֖ם אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֑י וִהְיִ֨יתֶם לִ֤י סְגֻלָּה֙ מִכָּל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים כִּי־לִ֖י כָּל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ וְאַתֶּ֧ם תִּהְיוּ־לִ֛י מַמְלֶ֥כֶת כֹּהֲנִ֖ים וְג֣וֹי קָד֑וֹשׁ...׃ | Now, if you hear inside My voice and keep My covenant, y'all will be My treasure among all the nations – all the earth is Mine, but y'all will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy people. |
Everyone. All of you (all of us) are to be holy – not just Moses and Aaron. Now a year later, Korah spit those words back to Moses and Aaron, saying (Num. 16:3):
| כָל־הָֽעֵדָה֙ כֻּלָּ֣ם קְדֹשִׁ֔ים וּבְתוֹכָ֖ם יהו׳׳ה וּמַדּ֥וּעַ תִּֽתְנַשְּׂא֖וּ עַל־קְהַ֥ל יהו׳׳ה׃ | All the community are holy, and YHVH is amidst them. So why do you raise yourselves above YHVH's congregation?” |
In a profound gesture of humble servant leadership, Moses responded by bowing down to Korah, all the way down to the ground. Moses literally fell flat on his face. (Num. 16:4).
In another respect, Korah was flat wrong. Moses and Aaron hadn't done anything wrong. They hadn't sought to aggrandize themselves. But Korah and his band of un-merry men felt less than – and as they felt, so they were.
The Tenth Commandment – "do not covet" (Ex. 20:14, Deut. 5:18) – is perhaps the most difficult of all. Unlike most others, its command aims at thought and emotion rather than action. Thousands of years before modern psychology, it recognized that the impulse to covet – whether another's thing, relationship, status or power – is baked into the human psyche.
Only in the 1950s did psychologists (starting with Leon Festinger, a nice Jewish boy from New York) first describe social comparison theory – the unconscious penchant to know ourselves and set our goals relative to another's status real or perceived. Keeping up with the Joneses isn't ever really about the Joneses – they never existed! – but about defining who we are and what we want by reference to others.
But long before social comparison theory and modern psychology, Torah understood. So did the Jewish ethical tradition of the 100s CE. "Who is rich? One who delights in one's portion" (Pirkei Avot 4:1). "Who is wise? One who learns from everyone" (same). "Who is honored? One who honors [others]" (same).
Korah couldn't get that. It didn't matter to Korah that already he was a Levite, already a leader, already powerful: he wanted more. And Korah couldn't hear when Moses reminded Korah what he already had (Num. 16:9-10). Maybe that was Korah's greatest error – not that he forgot (because we all do), but not letting himself be reminded and redirected. The result was his downfall and doom, along with the 250 others.
Jewish tradition doesn't ask us to be ascetics, or passive, or pacifists. Sometimes we must stand up. But there's a huge difference between standing up for principle and standing up for one's own ego or yearnings based on what others might have, be or do.
There are no Joneses to keep up with.
In another respect, Korah was flat wrong. Moses and Aaron hadn't done anything wrong. They hadn't sought to aggrandize themselves. But Korah and his band of un-merry men felt less than – and as they felt, so they were.
The Tenth Commandment – "do not covet" (Ex. 20:14, Deut. 5:18) – is perhaps the most difficult of all. Unlike most others, its command aims at thought and emotion rather than action. Thousands of years before modern psychology, it recognized that the impulse to covet – whether another's thing, relationship, status or power – is baked into the human psyche.
Only in the 1950s did psychologists (starting with Leon Festinger, a nice Jewish boy from New York) first describe social comparison theory – the unconscious penchant to know ourselves and set our goals relative to another's status real or perceived. Keeping up with the Joneses isn't ever really about the Joneses – they never existed! – but about defining who we are and what we want by reference to others.
But long before social comparison theory and modern psychology, Torah understood. So did the Jewish ethical tradition of the 100s CE. "Who is rich? One who delights in one's portion" (Pirkei Avot 4:1). "Who is wise? One who learns from everyone" (same). "Who is honored? One who honors [others]" (same).
Korah couldn't get that. It didn't matter to Korah that already he was a Levite, already a leader, already powerful: he wanted more. And Korah couldn't hear when Moses reminded Korah what he already had (Num. 16:9-10). Maybe that was Korah's greatest error – not that he forgot (because we all do), but not letting himself be reminded and redirected. The result was his downfall and doom, along with the 250 others.
Jewish tradition doesn't ask us to be ascetics, or passive, or pacifists. Sometimes we must stand up. But there's a huge difference between standing up for principle and standing up for one's own ego or yearnings based on what others might have, be or do.
There are no Joneses to keep up with.
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