A Blessing or a Curse

Balak

Numbers 22:2 - 25:9

Précis: Balak, the King of Moab, is fearful because of the success of the Israelites against other Canaanite peoples, and he hires a local magician named Bilaam to place a curse on the Israelites. Bilaam begins the journey riding upon his ass, which refuses to proceed and actually talks to Bilaam, protesting Bilaam’s foul treatment of the poor beast. Bilaam sees an image of an angel, and he refuses to complete Balak’s mission. Balak reiterates his command to Bilaam to curse the Israelites, but instead Bilaam pronounces a blessing, frustrating Balak.
     The parasha ends with an interesting brief episode: Pinchas, the grandson of Aaron, sees an Israelite having sexual relations with a Midianite woman (a violation of a commandment not to fraternize with the Canaanites), and he slays both of them and, in the process, staves off a plague that had been threatening the Israelites.

Numbers 23:9 “For I see it from the tip of the rocks, and I behold it from the hills; this is a people that will dwell apart and not count itself among the nations."

Our Torah portion this Shabbat brings us Bilaam, the seer, who comes to curse the Israelites and ends up blessing them. As always, someone is trying to figure us out: who are these People? We see evidence of such inquiries in the Torah, in Haman suggesting to the King that the Jews are disloyal, in the historical denial of full citizenship to Jews in any place they lived until late in the 18th century, or in the allegations of “dual loyalty” which plagued the Jews of Europe prior to and during the Holocaust. Jews have always been unique among the nations, dwelling “apart” and yet in the midst of all other nations, without a homeland of our own until the restoration of the State of Israel.


In the quoted verse, Bilaam says, “there is a people that dwells apart, not counted among the nations” (Am le-vadad yeeshkone). In her own d’var Torah on this verse, Rabbi Mindy A. Portnoy of Temple Sinai in Washington DC asks, “Is that a curse or a blessing? Is it our destiny, or our hope? Is it our burden, or our glory?” Bilaam makes an all-too truthful prophesy: Israel (the Jews) is indeed a People who will “dwell apart” in the centuries and millennia to come. They will never be considered just another nation.

The traditional reading of this verse, according to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, is that Israel will dwell in a circumscribed territory, without engaging much with other nations in order to achieve its “inner national mission.”

History seems to have another gloss on this verse. This historical imperative is the same one Israel faces today. No other nation in the world, even those recently created as a result of ethnic conflict, must continually justify its existence as a state. Israel is - at the same time - held to a higher moral standard and denigrated for failing to attain that higher standard by most of the world. It may be trite but it is nevertheless true: the enemies of the Jews seek a new “final solution” through the delegitimatization of the State of Israel. Hamas, bin Ladin, much of Western Europe, and most of the Islamic world continue the tradition initiated by Balak, seeking to curse Israel and the Jewish People. The effort, which began with the “weapon” of a curse from Bilaam, has been transformed into the weapons of rockets, bombs, and the threat of terrorism from groups and states. This is merely a new manifestation of ancient anti-Semitism, a point very well made by Shelby Steele of the Hoover institute in his recent essay in the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575311011923686570.html?mod=ITP_opinion_0#

We need to remember that, in the end, Bilaam was forced to bless us instead: “How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwelling places, O Israel” Perhaps a blessing will arise from the curses being heaped upon Israel and the Jewish People today.