"Now Korah, son of Izhar son of Kohath son of Levi, betook himself . . . "

These are the opening words of our parashah from Etz Hayim, the humash of the Conservative Movement, which uses a translation that generally avoids archaic English vocabulary and style.

So, we should be puzzled that this translation employs a word that is certainly not a part of common usage. Why not simply say, "Now Korah took"?

This invites us to look more carefully at the Hebrew text. The verse (Num. 16: 1) opens with the Hebrew words vayikah Korah, which in many other places would indeed be translated as "Now Korah took." However, here we have a problem. Took is a transitive verb, so it must have both a subject and an object. A verb is a "doing" word, and so we look both for the entity that is "doing the doing" (the subject) and for the entity to which the "doing is done" (the object). Clearly, Korah is the subject, but there is no apparent object. There is no hint of what Korah took-there is no description here, nor is there later, that Korah took anything.

Except himself.

So our translation follows a midrash (in Tanhuma, cited by Rashi) that sees the verb as reflexive, giving us the midrashic reading that "Korah betookhimself to another side, to be separated from the midst of the community."

Last year, Chancellor Arnold Eisen wrote a commentary on this Torah portion, expressing sympathy for the complaints brought by Korah and his followers. He noted that we can discern this sympathy for the cause of Korah among a few ancient and modern interpretations.

It seems to me that the greatest failure and transgression of Korah was not that he raised concerns-or even challenges-to the leadership of Moses, nor that he raised questions about the leadership structures emerging among the Israelites. The sin of Korah was in thinking of himself as "outside the community"; he betook himself and his followers from being part of the People of Israel, and they became a faction, catalysts for further factionalization.

Later, this theme seems to recur as we read, "But as the community gathered against them, Moses and Aaron turned towards the tent . . . " (Num. 17: 7).