Parashat Balak, Numbers 22:2-25:9

This Parasha has been generously sponsored by Steven Raiken, in honour of his beloved mother Ruthann Goldstein Raiken - Tammuz 14 (July 10, 2006).

Looking down from the heights is associated with many powerful events and emotions.

Asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory replied with the famous words "because it's there." The adventurer attempted this feat three times as a member of various British expeditions. Mallory went missing on his third attempt in 1924. Some 75 years later, an expedition found his body on Mount Everest.

Our attraction to heights dates back to ancient times. Mountains were thought to be the abode of deities. Offerings were made at "high places." The Hebrew word bamah refers to such places. (In Modern Hebrew, bamah refers to a stage. A closely related word, bimah, is the area in the synagogue where a service is conducted.

Commentators such as Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Nechama Leibowitz have pointed out that Parashat Balak takes special note of high places. Balak, king of Moab, summons the prophet Balaam to place a curse on a people he perceives as a threat: the Children of Israel. Though initially refusing to do so, Balaam gets God's permission, but is told that he will only be able to speak words of blessing. Three times, Balak takes Balaam to high vantage points to gaze on Israel:

In the morning Balak took Balaam up to Bamoth-baal (The high place of the deity Baal). From there he could see a portion of the people.

Numbers 22:41

With that, he (Balak) took him (Balaam) to Sedehzophim, on the summit of Pisgah. He built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

Numbers 23:14

Balak took Balaam to the peak of Peor, which overlooks the wasteland. Balaam said to Balak, "Build me here seven altars, and have seven bulls and seven rams ready for me here." Balak did as Balaam said: he offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.

Numbers 23:28 -30

But under God's command, Balaam's vantage point made it impossible for him to fulfill the king's wish:

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.

Numbers 23:8-9

Looking down from the heights can be associated with many powerful events and emotions. There is nothing more breathtaking than a view from a mountaintop on a clear day. Yet at the same time, the view from a height can also be disconcerting and even paralyzing, as Jimmy Stewart discovered in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.

Heights are places where God communicates with us. Mount Sinai comes to mind, but so does Mount Moriah, upon which God commands Abraham to offer his son on one of the heights that I will point out to you. (Genesis 22:2) Before his death, Moses ascended the heights to view the Promised Land. Moses went up from the steppes of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the summit of Pisgah, opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan; all Naphtali; the land of Ephraim and Manasseh; the whole land of Judah as far as the Western Sea; the Negeb; and the Plain — the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees — as far as Zoar. (Deuteronomy 34:1)

Recently in Canada, manmade heights have taken on a new meaning. Words are insufficient to describe the intensity of this phenomenon, so I will just state "the facts."

A few weeks ago, while driving on Highway 401, I noticed an ambulance on an overpass. I thought there must have been an accident, until I reached the next overpass which had a fire truck parked on it, as did the next overpass. The closer I got to Kingston, Ontario, the more crowded the overpasses became. Not only with official vehicles; there were crowds of people just standing and waiting. Soon, in the opposite direction a motorcade went by. At the center of the procession was a hearse carrying the body of Captain Richard Leary, Second Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry. Captain Leary had been killed while on patrol in Afghanistan.

The people gathered on the overpasses of Highway 401, aka the "Highway of Heroes," were taking part in a new custom, honouring fallen soldiers whose remains are brought to Canadian Forces Base Trenton and then transported from there to their final resting places. The rituals for this custom are very simple according to the blog Military Mom at Home:

Gather along the 401 between Trenton and Toronto (our Highway of Heroes) to honour our fallen soldier. He is coming home.

There is something deeply moving about these modern bamot (high places) – the highway overpasses, where people gathered to pay their respects. A utilitarian road built for speed and efficiency becomes a holy site.

In that instant, the traffic, the time, and reaching your destination as quickly as possible, lose all meaning. All that matters is that one precious soul be brought to his final resting place with as much care and concern as each individual can muster.

Regrettably, two days after this remarkable example of k'vod ha-met (honouring the deceased), it was reported that another Canadian soldier, Captain Jonathan Sutherland Snyder of the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, lost his life in an accident.

And so, as too many of these convoys sadly wind their way along Highway 401, people from neighboring towns gather on the overpasses and gaze on them from the heights, sadly acknowledging that one more selfless individual has joined a people that dwells apart.

Shabbat shalom,
MS