Parashat Balak Numbers 22:2−25:9 

Mah Tovu: One Blessing to Hold on To

Parashat Balak is not about a talking donkey. It is about a seeing donkey. Okay, a talking donkey who sees, and none less than God. But once the donkey leaves the stage, the theme of true vision continues throughout the parsha.

Balak king of Moab knows that the Israelites are approaching his territory on their way to the Land of Canaan. He can already anticipate them on the horizon and decides to hire a professional seer, Bilaam, to curse the Israelites and stop them. After some back and forth, Bilaam accepts the job. That’s when the donkey comes in. The donkey who sees God’s messenger blocking the way while Bilaam, the seer, is blind to God’s manifestations. Three times does the animal swerve from its path, three times does Bilaam hit it until God opens his eyes, has him see the angel, bow down – and lets him continue on his journey.

Like so many aspects of this parsha, this encounter is twisted and multi-layered. Why would God block the way just to then let Bilaam move on? What’s the point about making a mockery out of Bilaam, the alleged master-seer who can’t perceive what a donkey can, and still appear to him?

One answer is to reveal Bilaam’s dubious character and limited capacities as a prophet, as we discussed in Torah Study yesterday: Bilaam is a fake, a puppet at the mercy of God’s will and humor.

Another answer is that this episode serves as a teaser. It sets the stage for the unfolding of Bilaam’s mission: Three times does Balak lead Bilaam up to three different outlooks high up on three different mountain plateaus overlooking the desert plain. Three times does Balak offer sacrifices while Bilaam, supposed to curse the Israelites, instead blesses them three times with words that God puts into his mouth.

The narrative structure is tightly composed. Again, a series of three instances; again, Bilaam at the mercy of God’s humor and will. The three episodes on the mountain plateaus are described with identical language, and the dialogue between Balak and Bilaam remains largely the same as well.

Yet there is one significant difference.

The first two outlooks offer vistas only over a portion of the Israelites, not the entire people. In addition, Bilaam doesn’t even look at them, rather he goes “yonder”, “over there”, to some undefined spot facing away from the Israelites. Twice, in something like a blind trance, he summons his woo-woo energy, only for God to interfere with the hocus-pocus. Then, something else happens at the third attempt.

Again, they climb up; again, Balak offers sacrifices, but now, instead of looking away from the Israelites, Bilaam turns his face to the wilderness. This scene is highly dramatic, cinematographic. Imagine it on a movie screen! Bilaam on the mountain plateau, the wind blowing, and below in the desert plain he sees the entire people of Israel, tribe by tribe, tents waving.
That is when he utters his most famous blessing: (Numbers 24:1-5)
מַה־טֹּבוּ אֹהָלֶיךָ יַעֲקֹב מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל׃
How fair are your tents, O Jacob,
Your dwellings, O Israel!

The Ramban, the Catalonian medieval commentator says that during this third time, when Bilaam turned his face toward the wilderness, the spirit of God came over him and for once in his mediocre career, he spoke true prophecy. Because he truly saw the entire people below him, not just portions of them. He beheld visions of the Almighty, when his eyes were unveiled by God. (Numbers 24:16).

One interpretation might be that looking at someone truly and with an open spirit, can allow us to see their beauty and wish them well. The imperative that everyone is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the likeness of God, is so persuasive for a reason.

The rabbis of the Talmud however were less optimistic. They peeled away the p’shat, the plain layer of a “happy ending” — curses turned into blessings, period. In the last chapter of tractate Sanhedrin, with its discourses anticipating better, redemptive times for a people that by then had already experienced a lot of rejection, loss, and hatred, the rabbis consider that after all, most of Bilaam’s so-called blessings had reverted to being curses: What sounded positive in Torah times – a nation dwelling apart, a lion drinking the blood of its enemies – now felt more like negative attributes, held and used against them in rants about Jews being different or abstruse accusations of blood libel.

Only the blessing of the beautiful tents of Jacob, the fair dwelling places of Israel, that one blessing spoken as true, divinely inspired prophecy, was never reverted, Rabbi Abbah bar Kahana argued. While the Talmudic sage couldn’t know about the devastation of synagogues in centuries to come, the Temple had already been destroyed. His understanding of this blessing as everlasting must have another layer to it: Maybe it is the one that is hardest to revert because it primarily depends on us: Even when we are singled-out and slandered, we can do our part to preserve our beautiful tents from the inside. Fighting antisemitic tropes can feel like fighting windmills. But being part of making our tents beautiful is something productive, gratifying, comforting. Something ongoing. Aleinu – it is on us to show up for and in the place where we can truly see the beauty of our entire community.

Mah tovu, and Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Julia Knobloch
rabbiknobloch@bethelsp.org