Our Behavior Controls Our Destiny
Segregation in Emmanuel
Adapted from Rabbi Braun’s sermon in 5770
One of my favorite scenes in the Torah is the interaction between Bilam and his donkey. God is angry that Bilam is traveling to curse the Jews so he places an angel on the path “lesatan lo” to play with him as it were. The donkey sees the angel with a drawn sword and he veers off the path. So Bilam hits the donkey to get him back on track. The angel then narrows the path, the donkey tries to squeeze against the wall and again Bilam hits his animal. Finally, the angel blocks the path, and the donkey rears back and Bilam hits him again. The donkey is trying to protect him but Bilam doesn’t get it. The wise prophet doesn’t understand because he cannot see what is right in front of his eyes.
So often we think about all the different reasons why things happen and what we can do to fix them while we ignore the answer, which is staring us in the face. We just forget to look.
Similar emotions strike me every year at around this time. This Tuesday we begin our annual 3-week mourning period for the churban habayit that begins with the fast this Tuesday and culminates on Tisha b’av. Every year as I think about our history, the causes for the destruction and our behavior as a people over time, I think to myself the truth is right there staring us in the face but somehow, we don’t manage to look. Some of those truths and lessons are right there for us in our parsha that deals with an enemy who wishes to curse us and wishes to see us destroyed. That too has not changed since our time in the desert.
Let us start with a very simple question posed by the Abarbanel: Bilam, the great gentile prophet is hired by Balak the king of Moab to curse the Jews. Abarbanel asks the obvious question- WHO CARES?
Why do we really care if Bilam curses us or not? Let’s say he does curse us? Why should we be concerned? If God wants something to happen to us, it will happen without Bilam and the curse and if God doesn’t want something bad to happen to the Jewish people then it should not happen even if we get cursed. Yet it appears from the text that we are very concerned with the potential of Bilam’s curse.
The Midrash provides us with a mystical answer, i.e we should be concerned because the curse would prove effective. According to the Midrash Bilam could determine the split second when God was angry, keveyachol as they say, and if Bilam was to utter his curse at that exact moment it would have disastrous effects.
While we should appreciate that the author of this Midrash sensed the problem and attempted to deal with it, in modern terminology this is a “theologically challenged” Midrash. And it is therefore no surprise that the Abarbanel chooses a different answer. He argues that our assumption is correct, and the curse is harmless. What we are concerned with however is public perception and how the nations of the world would react to the curse. If they saw that Bilam was ready to curse the great and mighty Jewish people, they would become emboldened and might join in the attack on Bnei Yisrael. We are not concerned with the affects of the curse itself but with the affect of someone of Bilam’s status even attempting to curse the people.
In other words, when people perceive Israel as being weak, they will join in on the attack. That idea offered by the Abarbanel in 15th century Spain has real ramifications for Israel today and our relationships with today’s external enemies.
Eben Ezra, the great 13th century Spanish commentator, offers a third answer that I believe is most relevant for the three weeks and a particular current event in Israel.
He too accepts the assumption that nothing will affect us without Gods say so. So what were we concerned with? God knew that the Jews would sin with the women of Moav as recorded in the end of our parsha and that a plague would ensue. If Bilam had succeeded in cursing the Jews then people might have believed that the plague affected the Jews because of Bilam’s curse. According to the Eben Ezra, not only do outside forces have no affect on Klal Yisrael, we don’t want anyone to even mistakenly believe that they do.
It should be clear to everyone that external forces do not affect us when we can truly declare Mah to vu ohalecha yaakov, when our camp is in order!
That is why the entire episode is recorded. Many note that the story of Balak and Bilam is unique in that it happens outside of the camp of Israel and ultimately does not much effect it. Why then is it recorded? Maybe to teach us simply and powerfully that when ma tovu can be proclaimed the Balaks and Bilams of the world are powerless against us.
It is we who control our destiny. When we can’t proclaim Ma tovu, when the Jews engage the women of Moav the plague comes, not because Moav is powerful but because we are weak. Bilam came to understand that lesson. According to Rashi it was Bilam who sent the women because he realized that he could not affect the Jews, and the only way to bring them down was to give them the rope to hang themselves. Something we do all too often.
That is the lesson of Parshat Balak staring us in the face. In the parsha and in the first temple sexual temptation was one of the items that lead to our downfall.
In the second temple, it was our inability to unite as a people. We could not see past our differences and come together- that is the sinat chinan that the Gemara talks about. Different sects and groups fought amongst themselves even as the enemy approached and surrounded us. We are guilty of that today as well. We bicker and fight amongst ourselves even with a common enemy, be it assimilation or Arabs.
Over the last few weeks in Israel a wild chillul Hashem has been playing out in the town of Emmanuel over segregation in a girls Beit Yaakov school. Many parents are not satisfied with the ethnicity or the religious level of some of the Sephardi girls and are going to jail for violating a court order to send their daughters back to school. 100,000 Chareidi Jews protested the high courts decision in Jerusalem. I will admit that I am having a hard time getting an accurate and true description of what actually transpired and why; every report seems different from the last one I read. And probably as in most cases the truth is somewhere in the middle with both sides having made some mistakes.
There is one thing that I am sure about- there is some quality sinat chinam going on here. We have enemies to the north and south re-arming as I speak, flotillas and the like attempting to shame us internationally, Gilad Schalit still captive and we have infighting amongst Sephardim and Ashkenazim in the Chareidi world and fighting between the Chareidi world and the secular courts. Can we dare to say ma tovu ohalecha Yaakov?!
It is history repeating itself; It is there, staring us in the face.
Let us make sure that we don’t forget to look!
