Weekly Internet Parsha Sheet Balak 5778 ...Weekly Parsha BALAK

Weekly Internet Parsha Sheet Balak 5778 ...Weekly Parsha BALAK Given all this, it seems the right time to re-examine words appearing in Rabbi Wein’s Weekly Blog this week’s parsha, uttered by the pagan prophet Balaam, that have come After recounting all the inner failings and rebellions of the Jewish to seem to many, the most powerful summation of Jewish history and people in the desert of Sinai, as recorded for us on the Torah readings of destiny: the past few weeks, we are now forced to turn our attention to a great From the peaks of rocks I see them, external threat to Jewish survival. Balak and Bilaam represent an From the heights I gaze upon them. unfortunately eternal opposition to Jewish existence and to the rights of This is a people who dwell alone, the Jewish people as a nation. Not reckoning themselves one of the nations. (Num. 23:9) Their attack is a two-pronged plan. Balak intends to use force and For two leading Israeli diplomats in the twentieth century – Yaacov violence, military means and the strength of arms to eliminate what he Herzog and Naphtali Lau-Lavie – this verse epitomised their sense of perceives to be a Jewish threat to his hegemony in his part of the world. Jewish peoplehood after the Holocaust and the establishment of the State Bilaam, on the other hand, seeks to destroy the Jewish people of Israel. Herzog, son of a Chief Rabbi of Israel and brother of Chaim diplomatically, philosophically and with a public relations scheme. He who became Israel’s president, was Director-General of the Prime has cursed the Jewish people, to hold it to be guilty before the bar of Minister’s office from 1965 to his death in 1972. Naphtali Lavie, a world opinion, of all sorts of crimes that are imaginary and illusory, to survivor of Auschwitz who became Israel’s Consul-General in New help bring about its downfall and destruction. York, lived to see his brother, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, become Israel’s When the world will see the Jewish people through the eyes of Bilaam Chief Rabbi. Herzog’s collected essays were published under the title, he is confident that they will no longer be able to exist and function as a drawn from Balaam’s words, A People that Dwells Alone. Lavie’s were people. The Lord thwarts the plans of both Balak and Bilaam. The entitled Balaam’s Prophecy – again a reference to this verse.[1] Jewish people are too strong to be overcome militarily and the Lord will For both, the verse expressed the uniqueness of the Jewish people – its not allow Bilaam to curse them in any meaningful way. In fact, the Lord isolation on the one hand, its defiance and resilience on the other. turns the words of negativity and hatred that Bilaam wishes and intends Though it has faced opposition and persecution from some of the to utter into words of praise. These enemies of Israel are apparently greatest superpowers the world has ever known, it has outlived them all. checkmated on both of their fronts of attack. Given, though, the return of Anti-Semitism, it is worth reflecting on one Yet it would be wrong for us to think that the intentions and actions of particular interpretation of the verse, given by the Dean of Volozhyn these evil people did not have an effect. The blandishments and Yeshiva, R. Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (Netziv, Russia, 1816-1893). compliments given by Bilaam to the Jewish people somehow weakened Netziv interpreted the verse as follows: for every other nation, when its the people morally. They are led to believe that the world recognizes and people went into exile and assimilated into the dominant culture, they appreciates their greatness and that it is possible and even desirable to found acceptance and respect. With Jews, the opposite was the case. In become part of that world physically, emotionally and domestically. exile, when they remained true to their faith and way of life, they found One of the weaknesses of the Jewish people throughout the ages has themselves able to live at peace with their gentile neighbours. When been that it is very susceptible to favorable comments and soothing they tried to assimilate, they found themselves despised and reviled. behavior than it is to harshness and criticism. Everyone wants to be The sentence, says Netziv, should therefore be read thus: “If it is a loved, especially those who, deep down in their souls, realize that they people content to be alone, faithful to its distinctive identity, then it will are unloved by so many. be able to dwell in peace. But if Jews seek to be like the nations, the Israel can withstand all the unfair and unjust resolutions of the United nations will not consider them worthy of respect.”[2] Nations without it really affecting its sense of self-worth and inner This is a highly significant statement, given the time and place in which strength. If Israel would constantly be lauded, as it should be by any it was made, namely Russia in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. rational observer of the world scene, it seems that somehow it would be At that time, many Russian Jews had assimilated, some converting to likely to have greater self-doubt and less steadfastness in the face of the Christianity. But Anti-Semitism did not diminish. It grew, exploding problems that confront it. into violence in the pogroms that happened in more than a hundred The Talmud tells us that the Jewish people do better in times of stress towns in 1881. These were followed by the notorious Anti-Semitic May and criticism than in times of compliments and fawning blandishments. Laws of 1882. Realising that they were in danger if they stayed, between The strength of the Jewish people has always been its ability to maintain 3 and 5 million Jews fled to the West. its belief in its own uniqueness and self-worth. This remains the key to It was at this time that Leon Pinsker, a Jewish physician who had Jewish survival in our time as well. believed that the spread of humanism and enlightenment would put an Shabbat shalom end to Anti-Semitism, experienced a major change of heart and wrote Rabbi Berel Wein one of the early texts of secular Zionism, Auto-Emancipation (1882). In words strikingly similar to those of Netziv, he said, “In seeking to fuse with other peoples [Jews] deliberately renounced to some extent their A People that Dwells Alone (Balak 5778) own nationality. Yet nowhere did they succeed in obtaining from their Rabbi Jonathan Sacks fellow-citizens recognition as natives of equal status.” They tried to be This is an extraordinary moment in Jewish history, for good and not-so- like everyone else, but this only left them more isolated. good reasons. For the first time in almost 4,000 years we have Something similar happened in Western Europe also. Far from ending simultaneously sovereignty and independence in the land and state of hostility to Jews, Enlightenment and Emancipation merely caused it to Israel, and freedom and equality in the Diaspora. There have been times mutate, from religious Judeophobia to racial Anti-Semitism. No-one – all too brief – when Jews had one or the other, but never before, both spoke of this more poignantly than Theodore Herzl in The Jewish State at the same time. That is the good news. (1896): The less-good news, though, is that Anti-Semitism has returned within We have honestly endeavoured everywhere to merge ourselves in the living memory of the Holocaust. The State of Israel remains isolated in social life of surrounding communities and to preserve the faith of our the international political arena. It is still surrounded by enemies. And it fathers. We are not permitted to do so. In vain are we loyal patriots, our is the only nation among the 193 making up the United Nations whose loyalty in some places running to extremes; in vain do we make the very right to exist is constantly challenged and always under threat. same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow-citizens; in vain do we strive to increase the fame of our native land in science and art, or her 1 wealth by trade and commerce. In countries where we have lived for contrary – and this is the life changing idea: In our uniqueness lies our centuries we are still cried down as strangers … If we could only be left universality. By being what only we are, we contribute to humanity what in peace … But I think we shall not be left in peace. only we can give. The more we succeeded in being like everyone else, implied Herzl, the ... more we were disliked by everyone else. Consciously or otherwise, Psalm 97: Light Sown for the Tzaddik these nineteenth century voices were echoing a sentiment first Rav Kook Torah ”.אוֹר זָ ֻר ַע ַל ַצּ ִדּיק; וּ ְליִ ְשׁ ֵרי- ֵלב ִשׂ ְמחָה“ תהילים צז:יא articulated 26 centuries ago by the prophet Ezekiel, speaking in the name of God to the would-be assimilationists among the Jewish exiles in “Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.” Babylon: (Psalm 97:11) You say, “We want to be like the nations, like the peoples of the world, Based on this verse, the Talmud in Ta’anit 15a makes the following who serve wood and stone.” But what you have in mind will never conclusion: the tzaddik (the righteous) has light, but the yashar (the happen.

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