Abraham, Balaam and Blessings

By Lilly MOwn work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link


In this week’s parashah we read about the pagan prophet Balaam, who is famous more for his talking donkey than for himself. The Cliff Notes version of the story is that Balak, the king of Moab, is worried that the Israelites who are now camped on his border, are so numerous that they “hide the earth from view,” will essentially wipe out his people. He sends messengers to Balaam asking him to curse the Israelites so that Moab would be able to defeat them.

After insisting that he can only say the words that God has put into his mouth, Balaam agrees to go and curse the Israelites, but three times he’s thwarted by his donkey, who sees what he can’t. Three times his intended curses turn into blessings, including one of our most often quoted and sung verses, Ma tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mish-k’notecha Yisrael, “How goodly are your tents, Jacob; your dwelling places, Israel.”

There’s a very interesting parallel between Balaam and Israel; Balak says to Bilaam, ki yadati et asher t’vareich m’vorach va-asher ta-or yoo-ar, “For I know that he whom you bless will be blessed, and he whom you curse will be cursed.” It hearkens back to Bereshit, Genesis, when God told Abraham lech lecha, “go forth from your native land, from your birthplace,” to a land God would show him. God promised that a great nation would come forth from Abraham, and said, va-avaracha m’var’chekha, u m’kalelkha ah-or, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse him that curses you.”

Heaven forbid I should equate the most tragic yet comical figure in the Torah to God! On the contrary, it’s God who does the blessing and cursing through Balaam, just as God blesses and curses through Abraham and Israel.

In the tractate of the Mishnah called Pirkei Avot, usually translated as the “Ethics of the Fathers,” Balaam is compared to and contrasted with Abraham, and–unsurprisingly–comes up short.

Let’s start with some of the similarities:
God chose Abraham to be Israel’s first prophet, and Balaam was chosen to be the first gentile prophet. Both of these men came from the world of paganism, and both came to the recognition and worship of the universal God. We see this when we read several times that Bilaam tells Balak that he can only speak the words that God, whom he goes from calling Ado-nai, “the Lord” to Ado-nai elo-hai, “the Lord my God,” commands him to speak.

They both interacted with a malakh Ado-nai,” an angel or a messenger of God, and both men are connected with language that has to do with blessing. And, both Abraham and Balaam come from the same geographic place, Aram Naharaim, which was the center of ancient civilization.

Now let’s look at their differences. According to the tractate of the Mishnah called Pirkei Avot, Abraham had a good eye, a humble spirit and a generous soul. Balaam, on the other hand, had an evil eye, a proud spirit and a haughty soul. Certainly, our sages wanted us to aspire to behave like a disciple of Abraham, and not of Balaam, but life is rarely so black and white. No person is perfect, and both men had serious character flaws, which in the case of Abraham, helps to make him more human than superhero. With respect to Balaam, they help to take him down a few notches and mock him.

God’s blessings come to us in a variety of ways; as Rabbi Shefa Gold chants, “You are the Source of Life for all that is, and Your blessing flows through me.” Each of us is a klei kodesh, a holy vessel, through which God’s blessings flow and emanate into the world. God chose Balaam, a clearly imperfect figure, to remind us first, that we don’t need to be perfect to be God’s vessel (thank you to Rabbi Shai Held), and second, in the words of the prophet Micah, that what God wants most is for us to behave justly, to love goodness, and to walk humbly with God.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Sermons

Yom Kippur: Hope, Despair And A Shining Sun
Yom Kippur: Hope, Despair And A Shining Sun

Yom Kippur 5783 Like many of the quotes and poems that make their way into use, a poem attributed to an anonymous person in a concentration camp, or in hiding, became somewhat of an urban legend, and has often been taken out of context, as well as not accurately...

Kindness

Kol Nidre, 5783 On Rosh Hashanah, we began our prayers in the hopes of moving God, the Holy Blessed One, from kisei din, the throne or seat of judgment, to kisei rachamim, the throne or seat of compassion. Ten days later, here we are at the eve of Yom Kippur,...

Shema: Listening, Hearing and the Shofar

Rosh Hashanah 5783, Day 2 The word, “Shema.” What do you think of when you hear it? Usually, we think of “The Shema” as the verses we chant or sing from the book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, and in that context, it’s a bold theological statement. It is an idea which goes...

Latest Midrash HaZak

Kedoshim: Coming of Age in Holiness
Kedoshim: Coming of Age in Holiness

Photo and art by Rabbi Susan Elkodsi Kedoshim: Coming of Age in Holiness Rabbi Dr. Jill Hackell As I move through my 70s I find myself increasingly aware of my “senior” status in our society. Suddenly, by virtue of my age I am in a category that labels me vulnerable–I...

Parasha Vayakhel: A Mirror of the Holy Whole
Parasha Vayakhel: A Mirror of the Holy Whole

                                  Parasha Vayakhel: A Mirror of the Holy Whole Cherie Karo Schwartz  My Mom, Dotty Karo of blessed memory, was an ultimate crafter. She had a room stuffed with kaleidoscope-colored treasures she’d collected or had been gifted by...

Ki Tavo: Entering the Land and a New Age

Ki Tavo: Entering the Land and a New Age Charles Goldman This midrash speaks to me. Just as the people of Israel were about to embark on the next mega steps of their lives in the Holy Land, and Moses was intoning to them that they have “a heart to know, eyes to see,...

Latest Personal Blogs

Blessing My Bended Knees-A Poem
Blessing My Bended Knees-A Poem

This past week, I participated in a Ritualwell class with Alden Solovy on "Writing From One Word of Torah." I distilled 3 stream-of-consciousness prompts on the word "Baruch/Berekh," the root of which can mean "blessing' and "knee, into this poem. Blessing my bended...

The Eshet Hayil In Our Lives
The Eshet Hayil In Our Lives

Photo: publicdomainpictures.net The Eshet Hayil In Our Lives An email from My Jewish Learning about “A Woman of Valor” prompted me to pivot the next evening’s planned adult learning session to looking at these 22 verses from Mishlei, the Book of Proverbs. These verses...

Live Long and Prosper?
Live Long and Prosper?

By Oklahoma Heritage Association, Gaylord-Pickens Museum - Author, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25656727 Live Long and Prosper? January 5, 2022 began the third year of the seven and a half-year cycle of Daf Yomi, the practice of...

Pin It on Pinterest