This week's portion tells the story of Balaam, the "evil" prophet whom King Balak hired to curse the Israelites -- and who blessed them instead.
The story is fascinating and mysterious. There is also a talking donkey involved, many millennia before Shrek.
Balaam blesses the people three times, and the last blessing has become a core part of the daily morning prayers in Judaism: "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, your dwelling place, O Israel" (Numbers 24:5).
It might seem odd to bless a tent city; we have them in L.A., and they are terrible.
The Sages puzzled over what, exactly, about this particular tent city evoked praise.
For one thing, the tents were clean, and orderly, and arranged in a very specific geographic pattern, according to tribe (see Numbers 2).
One commentary suggests that the tents were arranged so that one never looked into another, preserving privacy and modesty.
But I think perhaps the praise is meant to emphasize the importance of the everyday -- the routine, the mundane.
If what you do on a daily basis -- your "system" for managing life -- is good, then even the humblest tasks can have immense power over the long run.
You can achieve incredible things if you just devote a few minutes per day to achieving them.
That was Israel's power -- not greatness and might, but a devotion to things that were ordinary, allowing the humblest tasks to reflect faith and devotion.
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
