Sabbath Saturday

 Already this morning I have made a list :-) and swept and...

reserved a U-Haul truck for emptying the Holly house on Monday before the closing on TUESDAY!

The light at the end of the tunnel is now almost discernible.

Still having anxiety but it is less. 

I have started making dates with old friends and new.

Plans for the future.

Writing more is one of the plans. 

So in line with my WRITING NOTE Sabbath Saturday, here is a sermon.

"Balak" 

First presented July 19, 2019 as a Drash on Balak by Lisa Hodge Kander

The Parshah this week is Balak. It’s in Numbers 22:2-25:9. I like it. 

One of my favorite verses is found in this week’s Haftarah: Micah 6:8: 

He has told you, O Man, what is good,/ And what the Lord requires of you: /Only to do justice /And to love goodness, And to walk modestly with your God…

Another verse, this one in the parshah itself, inspires one of my favorite songs for the morning liturgy:

Mah tovu ohalecha, Yaakov/ ohalecha, Yaakov / mishk’notecha, Yisrael 

“How beautiful are your tents, Jacob! Your dwelling places, O Israel!”

Good stuff, that. However, I like the Parshah text, in the Torah. I like it even though Rabbi Danielle Leshaw calls it “The Worst Torah Portion.” Sure, it has some problematic parts- I will get to those. 

But, bottom line,  I like it because it’s a story, and honestly, I think it’s funny!

You are familiar, no doubt, with the story of Balaam. The people of Israel, in their travels to the Promised Land, have camped out in the plains of Moab. You’ve read all the “begats” so it won’t surprise you that, with all  that begetting going on, there are A LOT OF ISRAELITES! So many, and they’ve recently beaten up on the Amorites, so Balak, the King of Moab, is getting nervous. He says to his councilors: 'Now will this multitude lick up all that is round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field.'

“They’re going to grab up all of our resources!” Like those hordes of migrants do, right? (This is said sarcastically.)

So Balak, King of Moab, sends his guys to Balaam, who is – well, sort of like a wizard. Apparently Balaam’s blessings and curses always come true. Balak’s guys are to ask Balaam to curse the Israelites, because: he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed. “If you curse them,” says Balak, “then I will be able to defeat them for sure!” 

Flatterer! 

Now, the seer/ wizard Balaam gets a bad rap from the rabbis, and I really don’t see why. Because he never says he’s going to do what Balak asks. Balaam checks in with God every time. The first time he is sent for, he tells the messengers, “Stay the night, I’ll see if God speaks to me tonight.” God does speak to him, and tells Balaam not to go. So Balaam says he won’t go, because God said no.

Balak’s guys go back to Balak, tell him, “Sorry, Boss, Balaam says he won’t go.” They leave out the part about Balaam says it’s God’s decision. Balak sends more guys, his best guys, to try again. With bribes. Balaam says, “Even if the king gave me his whole palace full of gold, I still won’t go against what God says.” Still, Balaam says, “Spend the night. We’ll sleep on it. I’ll let you know what God says in the morning.”

This time, God relents. “Okay, fine, Balaam. Go with the guys. BUT only say what I tell you to say.”

Again, I want to point out, Balaam follows God’s instructions. I don’t know what the rabbis have against this guy, really. Unless it’s the animal cruelty. 

Balaam sets out, with Balak’s best guys, to meet up with Balak and check out the Israelite situation. Balaam is riding his faithful friend, his trusty she-ass (I am not making this up, it says it right in the text). God, for whatever reason, has decided to be contrary and sends an angel with a flaming sword to block the way. 

This is one of the problematic bits—God just told Balaam to go, for goodness sake!

Also, only the donkey can see the angel. Because it’s funnier that way.

Maybe there’s another reason, but please, imagine this:

Donkey sees angel. Donkey plants feet and refuses to budge. (Apparently, donkeys can be mulish in this way.) Balaam, seeing nothing, gets mad and smacks the donkey. They start to go around; the angel moves to block. Donkey tries to squeeze away from angel and squishes Balaam’s foot against a fence. Balaam, seeing nothing, gets mad and smacks the donkey. They start to go around; the angel moves to block. Donkey, seeing no way around, lays down and refuses to budge. Balaam, seeing nothing, gets mad and smacks the donkey. 

You’re seeing this, right? It’s comedy gold.

Balaam is furious. So now, God allows the donkey to say what is on her mind.

“Ow! Dude! Why do you keep hitting me?”

(It’s pretty close to that. I may have updated the language a bit.)

Balaam says, “You made me look like a jackass! If I had gun, I’d have shot you!”

Or words to that effect. I’m working with a translation here.

Anyway, the she-ass says, “Look, have I ever done anything like this before? So, you know, maybe there might be a reason?” And Balaam is forced to confess, no, she’s never acted this way before.

Also, Balaam does not react at all to a talking donkey. Just part of a wizard’s day, I guess.

Then—poof! – God lets Balaam see the angel—and doesn’t Balaam feel like a jackass NOW! I can just hear the donkey saying, “NOW do you get it?”

The angel asks Balaam why he was beating the poor donkey? “She saw me and kept you away from me,” the angel says, “if she’d kept going, I would have let her go, but I would have killed you!”

I can just see the donkey hissing “I saved your life, dude!”

Balaam confesses to the angel, “My bad, I totally did not know you were standing in my way. I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”

I will not bother to point out that it is a female donkey, not a straight white male elephant, that can see what is in the way. While the big shots are blind. I won’t even mention it. 

Anyway, the story continues with the angel saying, “Nah, keep going. Just remember to only say what the Divine One tells you to say.”

Balaam meets up with Balak. Balaam repeats he will ONLY say what God gives him to say.

Seriously, why do the rabbis beat up on this guy?

You will no doubt recall that instead of a curse, Balaam speaks a blessing for the people of Israel.

What I hadn’t remembered, until I read over the parshah, is that Balak keeps trying to get Balaam to curse the people – by having Balaam look at the camp from different viewpoints. “Can’t curse from here on Bamoth-baal? Let’s try over here on Pisgah instead! No? How about the peak of Peor?” Balak drags Balaam to three separate locations.

Three is a magical number. Especially for comedy. Now you’re properly set up for the punch line.

So when Balak asks for curses on Israel three times, there are blessings instead, all three times. 

The punchline? Balak blows up at Balaam—and Balaam speaks a final prophecy, which is not only a blessing on Israel, but also a curse on Moab and its king, Balak.

So there. 

If the parshah ended there, that would be great. I can totally argue it as comic relief. 

But no.

The parshah doesn’t end there. 

It continues on to say that in spite of all these blessings, the Israelites start fooling around with Moabite and Midian women, and worshipping idols, and draw down a plague, and some 24,000 people died of the plague. More problematic bits. 

I really wish we had stopped at the talking donkey. 

There are, of course, serious points to be made. Adina Gerver, in her commentary “The Gift of Speech,” quotes Midrash Numbers Rabah which explains that God made all animals mute, because if animals had the power of speech, “they [people] could not subject [animals] and stand over [this]. For this [donkey] was the stupidest of creatures and this [Balaam] was the wisest of the wise, and as soon as she spoke he could not stand before her.’” Gerver goes on to note “Subjugation, in the rabbinic view, is made possible merely by the inability to speak. The donkey’s sudden, surprising voice in this story flips the power dynamic, rendering Balaam powerless in the face of her newfound authority. Speech is a profound expression of power–and the denial of it a crippling means of oppression–around the world.” Gerver draws parallels to suppression of free speech of minorities in today’s world, and the ways that loss of voice is a loss of power.

Rabbi Lisa Edwards, in her commentary “What Are You Looking at But Not Seeing?,” writes “Balak and Balaam demonstrate what they think is good, namely: to fear alien people (in this case, the Israelites); to take up arms against them; to curse them; to use violence against an innocent animal; to punish those who disagree with them; to allow anger to rage out of control; not to listen to advice or information; and to use a God-given talent (blessing and cursing) in the service of murder.” 

This list of what are wrongly thought to be “good actions”—fearing the other, using hate speech, punishing those who disagree with those in power—is far too prevalent these days.

Rabbi Edwards points out that clearly, the donkey, who has served Balaam well, and in this instance saved Balaam’s life, is actually the hero of the piece. God asks us to do the opposite, Rabbi Edwards states, of what Balaam and Balak attempt; we should welcome the stranger, make peace, treat all kindly. Rather than seeking to curse those we fear, we should heed the words of Micah: God asks us “to do justice, And to love goodness, And to walk modestly with your God.”

Rabbi Steven Kushner, in his commentary “Whose Word Is It, Anyway?”, remarks that it’s important to note that Balaam, a noted seer and prophet of his time, is not an Israelite. “In other words, God doesn't speak just to Israelites.” In fact, Kushner notes, since the donkey speaks, it is clear that “it's the message (not the messenger),” that is important. 

In her commentary, “Distance and Proximity,” Julia Appell notes that Balak, in demanding Balaam see the Israelite camp from different viewpoints, may have inadvertently allowed Balaam to see the Israelites as a community, as people. She sees parallels with today’s world: “In order to build connections and wear down hatred we must see others from the appropriate vantage point, one from which we can appreciate their history, their community, and their values.”

In yet another commentary… and another, and another—we can find and illuminate meanings for today and tomorrow. 

Or, we could allow ourselves to laugh. Even Holy Writ could have some lighter moments. 

You know what? I really wish we had stopped at the talking donkey.