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Balak claimed that Balaam was very powerful in both blessings and curses. Why then did he not request the blessing of Balaam for his own people, rather than a curse on Israel? But then as always, the enemies of Israel preferred its destruction, even at the expense of the destruction of their own peoples, to concentrating on constructive matters which would benefit both themselves and their neighbours. Pinchas Peli
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Our parasha is named for Balak, king of Moav who hires the gentile prophet Bilaam (or Balaam in English) to curse Israel. Almost the entire parasha is taken up with the elaborate tale of Bilaam and his talking donkey and is filled with humor, irony and satire. How can a prophet not see God's angel if even a talking ass sees it (I want to say 'dumb' animal but that's literally not the case, is it?) Anyway, Bilaam hedges his bets and doesn't make any promises to his employer Balak, and indeed, Bilaam ends up blessing Israel instead of cursing them. Our morning prayers (and Israel Radio broadcasts) begin with the now famous words of Balaam, the non-Jew: "How goodly are your tents O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel"
What did Bilaam see? The rabbis say that the entrance of each tent was oriented so that it would not face another's entrance, thereby providing privacy to the occupants. Malbim interprets 'How goodly' to mean he saw moral, not esthetic beauty. Ironically, at the conclusion of the parasha, the Israelites end up committing idolatry and adultery, an affair that ends with a plague that kills 24,000 (compared with only 3,000 who died at the Golden Calf).
We have already seen numerous examples of parallelism in biblical poetry (remember bechukotai vs. mitzvotai). What we might regard as seemingly unnecessary duplication or redundancy (or simply a poetic device), the Rabbis interpret with deeper significance. So, what is the meaning of the two phrases: 'ohalecha Yisrael' and 'mishkenotecha Yaacov'? Beit Yaacov and Bnei Yisrael are synonyms for the Jewish people (see Exodus 19:3), but the Rabbis understand the first to refer to the women and the latter to refer to the men (hence Beit Yaacov and not Beit Rachel or Sarah is the name for an Orthodox Jewish school for girls). From the duplication, we might understand that the two genders are being given equal (albeit) separate mention. Sforno suggests the former as a centre of study; the latter a place of worship.
The Hebrew word 'ohalecha' (tent) is an anagram for 'elohecha', and many a religious school student has misread the prayer as: "How goodly is your God, O Jacob." As mistakes go, I suppose this isn't a bad one! (One last aside on the word ohalecha that I never noticed before. Bilaam continues his oracle with a beautiful pastoral description of trees planted by the water, and using a play on words includes the infrequently mentioned aloe (aholim in Hebrew!). This is not the aloe we might be familiar with from skin lotions (Aloe vera) but a fragrant tropical tree also called the lign aloe or eaglewood tree (Aquillaria agallocha) native to India. Its wood (used for furniture) was so highly prized that the tree was literally worth its weight in gold. A resin from the tree was also used to produce incense and perfume.)
Back to Mah Tovu. Remember when ransom notes were created by cutting up a newspaper and used different fonts for each word and letter? (There was even a popular 'ransom note' font for the computer!) I always think of that when I read the Mah Tovu prayer. The whole prayer forms an organic seamless whole, as if it were a single poem written by one author, even though each of the lines was skillfully 'cut and paste' from a variety of biblical sources. In the prayer Mah Tovu, there are lots of words for dwelling, and note the progression (both in size, permanence and chronology): tent, Tabernacle (mishkan), house, sanctuary (me'on), and Temple, (Heichal). We find God and Jewish spirituality in a variety of dwellings.
Rabbi Eric Yoffe in this month's Reform Judaism writes about the centrality of the synagogue and the crisis that fewer than 50% of Jews belong to a synagogue: "The synagogue is the heartland of the Jewish world." Synagogues have been the 'community centres' of the Jewish people, houses of prayer, study and community. But there has been another centre that has been crucial to Jewish survival, and that is the Jewish home. As important as the synagogue has been in the history of the Jewish people, there has been a reluctance to have the synagogue replace the Temple. That is why Orthodox synagogues are almost never called Temple..., and is precisely the same reason why most Reform synagogues are davka called Temple this or that. (One synagogue in Atlanta even calls itself, The Temple!).
Lessons for Today
When the Temple was destroyed, it was the Jewish home that was made into the Temple; according to the Rabbis, the table is the altar, the people are the high priests, our food the sacrifices. But today there is a reverse trend. Home rituals are increasingly found in synagogues: many synagogues light Shabbat candles on Friday night, or offer congregational Passover Seders, originally family/home centered rituals. Now there is nothing wrong with a synagogue hosting a Friday night pot-luck kiddush! But I worry that it becomes easier and easier for Jews to abdicate their responsibility when Jewish professionals are in charge of 'being Jewish' and Jewish houses of worship are the sole 'centres of Judaism.'
The question Bilaam's blessing invites us to ponder is where will our Judaism reside? In our homes? in our houses of worship? in Israel? at Jewish summer camps? Our phrase even forms the title of a book by sociologist professor Leonard Saxe from Brandeis University: How Goodly are Thy Tents: Summer Camps as Jewish Socializing Experiences. We should remember that Bilaam blessed us with at least two centres: Mah Tovu ohalecha...mishkenotecha. How goodly are your Tents O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel. Our synagogues should be centres of Jewish life. But so should our homes.
Shabbat Shalom
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