Balak

Balak - Michael Wegier 

Michael Wegier is completing 5 years in the UK as Director of Programme at the UJIA. He is returning to Israel this summer and will be the new Executive Director of Melitz in Jerusalem.

Balaam was the Gentile prophet brought from the Euphrates by the Moabite king Balak, to curse the Israelites but with God's intervention, blesses them instead. It is a marvellous narrative that inspires reflection about the impact of Gentile perspectives and wisdom on the fate of the Jewish people.

The context helps us understand the events. In last weeks Parsha, the Israelites conduct most of their 40 years wandering and are now in the final year, awaiting the command to enter the land of Israel. The 40 years have seen the generation of slavery die out and be replaced by a new generation ready for freedom in their own land. Of the quartet that led them, Aharon and Miriam are dead, Moses knows his fate and Joshua is preparing to assume the mantle.

The Book of Numbers is full of accounts of complaint and rebellion by the generation who remembered Egypt. Moses is on the receiving end of much of the aggravation. He sees the people close up and despairs of their weaknesses.  They must look to him as ungrateful and short-sighted.

How noteworthy it is that Moses does not feature at all in the story of Balak, Balaam and God. He only reappears in the final vignette about Pinchas's zealotry.  This way of reading the Parsha requires the absence of Moses.  It is Balak and Balaam's perspective that matter at this moment.  They see a strong and confident Israel who with God's assistance have just inflicted painful defeats on the armies in their way.

Balaam's blessings speak to this admiration.  He cannot "doom when the Lord has not doomed." They are "a people that rises like a lion" and "they shall devour enemy nations". In our morning prayers we begin with Balaam's most famous compliment - "How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings O Israel." What Moses has been unable to see, is vivid to the Gentile prophet.

I am struck by this paradox when considering how Israelis and Diaspora Jews view our contemporary world. I share much of the sense of anxiety that pervades Israel and our community in light of both the security and social challenges facing Israel and the challenge of sustaining meaningful community in the Diaspora.  I take comfort in thinking how a Gentile prophet (perhaps not from the Euphrates!) would see us. He or she would also see the millions of Jews in Israel and around the world who dedicate themselves daily to the physical and spiritual strength of our people and its engagement in the wider world.

Simon Rawidowicz, in his remarkable 1948 essay The Ever Dying People, strongly cautions against wallowing in either too much optimism or pessimism. If we are convinced of our imminent demise, we will act to ensure that our children will continue the Jewish journey and so the cycle continues until the end of days. Balaam is the reminder we need that an outside perspective can show the Jewish people as capable of achieving greatness. May we find leaders inspired by Moses to help us arrive.