Dear Friends,
In this week’s parsha, as the Israelites are minding their own business, wandering through the wilderness in an inefficient attempt to reach the Promised Land, a Moabite king sees them passing and gets intimidated. Afraid of the approaching Israelites, King Balak hires a spiritual hitman named Balaam to curse them. On the way to his planned victims, Balaam’s donkey suddenly stops and begins to speak aloud, warning him that something’s wrong wrong with his plan. Eventually, when Balaam reaches the mountain overlooking the Israelites and prepares to curse them, everything shifts. Instead of a curse, Balaam utters a simple, beautiful blessing. The words he said have become part of our daily liturgy; we sing them near the beginning of morning services. Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishkenotecha Yisrael. “How good are your tents, O [people of] Jacob; your dwelling places, O Israel.”
It’s interesting to think about the fact that the Israelites are completely unaware of all of this unfolding around them. They’re camped in the wilderness, going about their lives, oblivious to the drama happening above them. They don’t know they’re being targeted. They don’t know they’re being protected. They don’t know they’re being blessed. It all happens outside their view.
In a time when many of us are feeling scattered – physically, emotionally, and spiritually – that idea can be oddly comforting. When we don’t quite know what to focus on, when it’s unclear how we should feel or what we should do, when we feel pulled in multiple directions by ever-intense news and chaotic summer schedules, there’s a way in which blessing can still make its way through to us.
The ancient rabbis of Midrash Tanchuma imagine Balaam looking down at the Israelites’ tents and being moved by the modesty and peace of their camp. According to the midrashim, he saw that the Israelites tents were arranged in such a way that everyone had privacy, dignity, and their own space, even in such close quarters. What impressed him was not their strength or numbers, but the quiet, thoughtful, ethical arrangement of their community life.
Even in moments of fear, confusion, or simple disconnection, blessing can emerge – not through force, but through restraint, through peace, and through the quiet goodness of how we coexist and look out for one another. Even when we don’t see it happening, and even when we feel like we’re not spiritually focused or centered, we still have the capacity to do good, to care for ourselves and one another, and to bring peace.
This week, if you’re not sure what you’re feeling or where to direct your energy, you’re in good company. Balaam didn’t know what he was doing either. And still, blessing found its way through him.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Hannah