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Parashat Balak

HE TOOK UP HIS THEME AND SAID: FROM ARAM HAS BALAK BROUGHT ME, MOAB'S KINGFROM THE HILLS OF THE EAST: COME, CURSE ME JACOB, COME, TELL ISRAEL'S DOOM! HOW CAN I DAMN WHOM GOD HAS NOT DAMNED, HOW DOOM WHEN THE LORD HAS NOT DOOMED? AS I SEE THEM FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOPS, GAZE ON THEM FROM THE HEIGHTS, THERE IS A PEOPLE THAT DWELLS APART, NOT RECKONED AMONG THE NATIONS.

(Bamidbar 23: 7-9)

 

 

The lord alone did guide it, no alien god at his side.

(Devarim 32: 12)

 

There is a People that Dwells Apart - Promise or Challenge?

A people that dwells apart [levadad] - as he said: The Lord alone [badad] did guide it - so how can I destroy them?

(Seforno Bamidbar 23:9)

 

The Lord alone did guide it - He guided them in the wilderness alone (unassisted) and yet in security.

No alien god at His side - for not one of the gods of the other peoples possessed the power to display its might and to war with them. Our rabbis, however, explained it as a promise referring to the future, and so, too, does Onkelos render it.

But I say that they are words of reproof which he said with the view of calling heaven and earth as witnesses against them, and also in order that this song should be witness, because He knew that they would in future prove faithless and would bear in mind neither the past deeds that He performed for them nor those that would come to pass, which at a future time He would do for them. For this reason it is necessary to make the text fit in with this and with that (the past and the future). Indeed, the whole section is to be connected with, Remember the days of old, consider the years of generation after generation (32:7): Thus has He done for them and thus will He in the future do for them - all this they ought to bear in mind.

(Rashi on Devarim 32:12, Silberman translation)

 

There is a people that dwells alone - It will live in an insulated land without much intercourse with other nations, living its "internal" national mission as an am [people] as a national social body, and will not seek its greatness as goy [nation] among goyim [nations], not as a powerful imposing national body among the other individual nations.

(Rabbi S. R. Hirsch on Bamidbar 23:9, Levy translation)

 

 

Bilaam Comes to Tel-Aviv

Shira Leibowitz Schmidt

And Bilaam lifted up his eyes and he saw the people of the State of Israel dwelling in their tents according to their tribes... and he took up his parable and said: How bad are thy tents,O Jacob, and thy dwellings, O State of Israel.

If Bilaam were to come visit Tel Aviv today, what blessing would he utter when seeing in the center of the city women and girls dressed as if they are at the beach? What would his reaction be to Israelis who watch "adult" cable television certified kosher by the Israeli Supreme Court "bagatz" judges who claim it is a basic right to watch programs debasing humans? What would Bilaam utter about the Jewish people if he lifted up his eyes and saw the gay parade in the heart of Jerusalem - would he still be able to bless us?

At the beginning of Chapter 24 in our parashah Bilaam is on the verge of giving up his plan to curse the people of Israel. "And when Bilaam saw that it was good in the eyes of the Lord to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for enchantments, but he set his face towards the desert" (verse 1). According to one of the Aramaic translations, as a last ditch effort to curse us and to remind God of our earlier sin, Bilaam faces in the direction of the desert where we had constructed and sinned with the golden calf. But when he faces the desert and sees the people in their encampment, he views a sight so impressive that he abandons his intention to curse the people of Israel, or as Rashi comments, "he made up his mind not to curse them (i.e. he decided to comply with the spirit of God, ruah Elokim)." In the language of Torah, "And Bilaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel dwelling in their tents according to their tribes, and the spirit of the Lord was upon him" (24:2).

The term "dwelling in their tents according to their tribes" that the Torah uses is puzzling, because it should have said "according to the tribes." This prompts Rashi to explain why the Torah says "their tribes" rather than "the tribes" - a seemingly small difference. Rashi sees in the term "their tribes" a veiled reference to the modesty with which the Israelites conducted themselves: "He saw each tribe dwelling by itself not intermingled one with another; he saw that the entrances of their tents were not exactly facing each other so that one could not peer into the neighbor's tent".

The spatial arrangement of the tents, and the values of modesty this symbolized, were so impressive that Rashi surprising repeats his comment three verses later when explaining what Bilaam means by the term "goodly tents" in the famous statement that we repeat each morning, "How goodly are they tents O, Jacob, and thy dwelling places O, Israel!" (24:5). It is not the color of the tents nor the quality of the material that garnered for them the compliment "goodly tents." Again, Rashi reminds us that Bilaam uttered this praise, "because he saw that the entrances of their tents were not exactly facing each other." The mitzvot involved in guarding your eyes and the prohibition of looking at provocative sights are alluded to in Rashi's commentary, and the punctilious observance of these mitzvot elicit this famous blessing from Bilaam.

The Talmud (Baba Batra 60a) elaborates in fine detail on the halakhot related to the building and arranging of homes in order to concretize and maximize privacy and to protect intimacy.

Today our homes have a variety of window coverings: curtains, roll-up blinds, shades, shutter, movable screens, drapes, and vertical blinds. Our doorways are usually not aligned opposite our neighbors' doors, and if they are we have Rav Bariah to keep out peepers. However we put on public display those aspects of our lives that should be hidden from view- be it in provocative dress and behavior, in what we broadcast in movies and television, in what we advertise in the media and on billboards. We don't even need to "peer into the neighbor's tent" because our neighbor is exposing and parading his private life before our eyes.

There are three levels of modesty. The first pertains to every man and woman. Even if an individual is alone on a desert island, he or she should dress and behave modestly because we are created in the Divine image.

On the second or social level, modesty is called for in the deportment and interactions between men and women. The halakhot that go under the much-maligned rubric of tzniut mandate a level of restraint and propriety that helps minimize the possibility that men and women will violate sexual prohibitions. Dr. Hanna Silberstein of Cornell University has termed this the "public service mode of modesty." Responsibility for public propriety falls upon men as well as women, but in a different manner. Each gender is accountable in specific ways for this public service modesty.

Often overlooked is the demand by Jewish law for a third level of modesty, the national. Bilaam referred to the modesty of the people of Israel as a whole. (Unfortunately, this high level of modesty was quite fragile, as we see from the tragic ending of our parashah). This national level of modesty has two aspects relevant to contemporary Israeli issues: that of being decent neighbors, and that of the halakhic-spiritual dimension.

(a) Modesty and neighborly relations.

Are we good neighbors vis-a-vis the Arab population? Do we exhibit respect for their sensitivity on the issue of modesty? The liberal Western values that were brought to the Land of Israel by many of the early Zionist were thorns in the sides of the Arab population here. In building of the State of Israel, we brought improvements in agriculture, health, and transportation to this region which was populated by a traditional Muslim society, and thereby raised the standard of living for all here. But we lowered the standard of living when it came to modesty by bring excessive permissiveness (in movies, advertising, media, billboards, dress, etc.) Our disregard for the values of modesty added to the friction between the Jewish and Moslem sectors, and gave legitimacy to some Arabs to claim that we are a Western, foreign implant here and therefore have no right to be here wreaking havoc in this delicate area.

Adrian Mirvish, a professor of philosophy at California State University (Chico, California) has written on the mis-match between Arabs and Jews here in his essay (Midstream January 2002) titled, "On Gay Marches, the Peace Process, and Others."

"Can you imagine a large, gay, Arab parade winding its way through the streets of Jericho, Hebron or Nablus? What is the problem? Why can't this type of event in fact take place? What has all this got to do with the peace process...? The point has been to show that, in order to be an authentic friend, I must accept the other person's alterity [sic], which is to say his being different from me..."

Mirvish completely misunderstands and inverts the conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Israel. It is the immodest and unacceptable behavior (e.g. the Gay parades) of many in the Jewish sector that is a contributing factor to the ongoing friction here, and that helps prevent a cultural modus vivendi with the Arab population.

There are numerous examples that typify the immodest behavior of Jews that is an affront to Arab sensibilities. In Furedis, an Arab coastal town north of Hadera, Jews used to traverse the town in beach attire on their way to the sea. Only after repeated requests by the residents of Furedis did the latter succeed in persuading the visitors and passers-by to dress in a more respectable manner when going through Furedis.

Another example is the statement by a Moslem cleric from Kalkilya who pointed out the following paradox: From the standpoint of spiritual and social values, he feels close to the religious settlers in nearby Tzufit and Karney Shomron. He feels close to them because he shares with them a high regard for the values of modesty, filial piety, and prayer despite the bitterness he feels towards the settlers with respect to political, territorial, and economic conflicts. On the other hand, he feels a tremendous chasm between himself and the peace activists who come to protest the "separation fence". This chasm between traditional Arabs and the Jewish peace activists is due to the lack of sensitivity of the activists to issues of modesty in dress and to the inappropriate behavior between the young Jewish men and women who come to demonstrate.

 

(b) Modesty and halakhic-spiritual demands.

From the standpoint of Jewish sources there is a national component to the value of modesty. The Land of Israel is described, in a metaphorical sense, as being particularly sensitive to infringements in this area. For example, the Torah reading that was chosen for Minha afternoon prayers of the Day of Atonement features the forbidden relations listed in parashat Aharey Mot and specifies the connection between these prohibitions and our tenancy in the Land of Israel.

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is an abomination. And thou shalt not lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith; neither shall any woman stand before a beast, to lie down thereto, it is perversion. Defile not yourselves in any of these things; for in all these the nations are defiled, which I cast out from before you. And the land was defiled, therefore I did visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomited out her inhabitants. You therefore shall keep My statutes and My ordinances and shall not do any of these abominations... that the land not vomit you out also, when you defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you (Leviticus 18:22-25, 28).

We are told repeatedly in the Bible that our continued existence in the Land is conditioned upon observing God's commandments, and foremost among the mitzvot are those that fall under the rubric of modesty and family values.

Yoske Ahituv has written extensively (see Deot, No. 4, Sivan 5759 and elsewhere) on how the values of tzniut have been transposed by Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook z"l and his school of thought into quasi-mystical concepts such as "the Israelite holiness," "the Israelite modesty," "the purity of the people of Israel," and "the impurity of the non-Jewish nations". It seems to me that Yoske Ahituv has been too quick to vilify what he terms "tzniut hardalit", the (to his mind) over-emphasis on modesty in the nationalistic ultra-Orthodox sector. One does not have to invoke the terminology that so annoys Ahituv in order to point out that the Torah does make demands on us in the area of modesty. It is clear that our living here is closely conditioned upon our behavior in this vital area. Can one say that on the whole the Jewish population in Israel over-emphasizes the connection in the written and oral Torah between modesty on a national level and our rights to the Land?

The Haftarah for parashat Balak sheds light on this subject from a different angle:

"It has been told thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord doth require of thee; Only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk modestly with thy God." (Micha 6:8)

The last term is phrased in Hebrew hatznea lekhet, containing the word tzniut (modesty). The Gemara (Sukka 49b) brings some surprising examples of this demand.

"'...and walk modestly with thy God' - this refers to funeral processions and accompanying a bride to the huppah. If we should perform these public mitzvot in a modest fashion, then all the more so should we be modest in those activities which are not done in public!"

Weddings and funerals are the archetypical examples of functions that may, indeed must, be performed in public. If we nevertheless should try to engage in them with a modesty attitude, then a fortiori we should make every effort to see to it that our dress, marital relationships, and general deportment and be characterized by modesty.

If we take the words of the prophet Michah to heart, then we may succeed in lessening some of the friction between our Moslem neighbors and ourselves because their culture and lifestyle do emphasize modest and family values. In parallel, we will be strengthening the right we have to live in the Land of Israel. Then, on Bilaam's next visit to us and his next attempt to denounce the Jews, his curse, hopefully, will again be turned into a blessing.

Shira Leibowitz Schmidt, a graduate of the Haifa Technion and mother of six, teaches in the Haredi College in Jerusalem.

 

 

Why Have You Beaten Your Ass? The Torah Wants to Promote Moral Sensitivity towards all Creatures

The angel of the Lord said to him, "Why have you beaten your ass...?" (Bamidbar 22:32) The angel came to him to redress an ass's humiliation, and said to him: Even though this ass lacks merit or the patriarch's covenant, I claim its redress from you, all the more so [will I act on behalf of] the entire nation which you seek to annihilate.

(Tanhuma Balak 10)

 

As for their dictum: "[To avoid causing] suffering to animals is [an injunction to be found] in the Torah" (Shabbat 128b) - in which they refer to its dictum - Why have you beaten your ass (Bamidbar 22: 32) - it is set down with a view to perfecting us so that we should not acquire moral habits of cruelty and should not inflict pain gratuitously without any utility, but that we should intend to be kind and merciful even with a chance animal individual, except in the case of need - for you have the urge to eat meat (Devarim 12: 20) - for we must not kill out of cruelty or for sport.

(RaMBaM, Moreh Nevukhim 3:17, based on Pines' translation)

 

For there is no enchantment with Jacob, neither is there any divination with Israel

These practices are all false and deceptive and were means employed by the ancient idolaters to deceive the peoples of various countries and induce them to become their followers. It is not proper for Israelites who are highly intelligent to suffer themselves to be deluded by such inanities or imagine that there is anything in them, as it is said, For there is no enchantment with Jacob, neither is there any divination with Israel (Bamidbar 23:23).

(Rambam, Hilkhot Avodat Kokhavim 11: 16, Hyamson translation)

 

The Mishkan [Tabernacle] as Mashkon [Collateral]

On the day that Moses finished setting up the Tabernacle (Bamidbar 7:1): This relates to that which is written: How fair are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel! (24: 5)

If [he mentions] your tents, why [mention] your dwellings, and if [he mentions] your dwellings, [why mention] your tents?

Rather, how fair are your tents refers to the tents. [As for] your dwellingsmishkenotekha - do not read mishkenotekha, but rather mashkenotekha [your collateral]. God told Moses: "Tell Israel to make a Tabernacle. Then, if they sin, it will be held as collateral for them." Know that this is so, for when they sinned it is written, God heard it and was enraged; he utterly rejected Israel. He forsook the Tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had set among men (Tehillim 78:59-60) - That Tabernacle was made for no other purpose, but only so that when they sinned they could use it as collateral.

(Tanhuma Naso 14)

 

Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses (Devarim 34:10) - But one did arise among the nations. Which [prophet] was it? Balaam ben Be'or.

(Sifrei Ve-Zot Ha- Brakha 357)

 

The bestowal of the gift of prophecy on all human creatures was designed to impress upon the world that the choice of Israel was no arbitrary one, but the reward for Israel's readiness and willingness to accept the Torah. R. Yohanan's famous words to the effect that God offered the Torah first to all the nations, one by one, but all refused, only Israel accepting, is explained in the Gemara as the rejoinder to the arguments of the nations: Did you ever offer us the Torah that we refused it? In this way, later sources motivate the gift of prophecy to the Gentiles.

(Prof. E. E. Urbach, "Midrashot HaZaL al Nivi'ei Umot ha-Olam ve-al Parashat Bilaam" passage translated by Aryeh Newman)

 

An important lesson can be learnt from this. Man's natural qualities do not determine his spiritual status, nor do the talents bestowed on him from Above. Even the supreme gift of prophecy cannot turn him into a saint against his will or without his own endeavors. Man's own will is the sole factor determining whether he will use his qualities, talents and even the gift of prophecy bestowed on him for good, or, God forbid, misuse them, for evil. It depends solely on his own freewill to aspire to the sainthood of a Moses or descend to the villainy of a Balaam.

(Prof. Nehama Leibowitz, z"l, Iyyunim Be-Sefer Bamidbar, Aryeh Newman, translator)

 

 

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