In the Hebrew Torah reading this week,
We read the stories of Balak and Balaam,
The Moabite king and his seer.
And in the world at large,
We find ourselves at moments of outrage,
Rage and political violence that is spilling over,
Perhaps into terror and tyranny,
A very upsetting time.
Our tradition has what to say,
Has something to say about anger.
So early in the Talmud,
It says that,
Could God be angry?
Is anger a mood of the Holy Blessed One?
Yes.
God hath indignation every day,
Says scripture.
How long does indignation last?
One moment.
Talmud asks,
How long is a moment?
One 58,
888th part of an hour,
Fraction of a second.
And no creature has ever been able to fix precisely this moment except the wicked Balaam,
Of whom it is written,
He knows the knowledge of the most high.
Balaam's success was a kind of demagoguery.
They say that about Balak too,
That Balaam was able to incite God's anger and to take advantage of God's anger in order to do as he,
The human,
Wished.
To find what was propitious in God's anger and use it against potential enemies.
But also included in that is that God only gets angry in extremely rare moments.
Maybe there's a lesson for us in the sense of imitatio de,
The Latin idea that we should be as in God's image.
So maybe the point is that we should get angry that rarely.
There's a Jewish and a Greek saying that you have two eyes,
Two ears,
And one mouth,
And you should use them in that proportion.
You should only speak about 20% of the time you are active.
So maybe likewise we are intended only to be angry one small part of the day.
It would be nice.
But retreating to our anger,
Victimhood,
Aggrievedness,
Putting ourselves in the defensive shell is another problem.
So at the end of this portion where Bilaam tries and tries again to curse the Israelites but can only succeed in blessing them,
We'll talk about that in a moment,
Bilaam and Bilak head home.
And as with Pharaoh,
There is a tension in the parasha,
In the Torah reading,
Why God would be so enraged with Bilaam when he merely does as God may have instructed through angels.
One of the explanations in a later source is this moment when they return home.
Such was the measure of their wickedness.
They had seen the greatness of Israel's elevation and Jethro's success in being with them.
Still they continued on their wicked ways as before,
Not taking a lesson but unchanged.
That is a deep danger for all of us.
In our anger,
In our hostility,
In our indignation,
In our wickedness,
Not a word I would use lightly,
We don't change,
We don't really listen,
We don't really engage,
Whether it's with art or another human being in political conversation.
We don't recognize the measure of the person with whom we are engaged,
That they are deeply human even though they may disagree with us.
We don't allow ourselves to be changed.
It's a waste of a life,
Frankly.
We don't seek deeply.
We are at our own risk,
Left at the superficial.
The Sfat Emet,
A Hasidic teacher about a century ago,
Says that another problem that Bilaam had is that he sees only the external shell.
We create our external shell,
Our external armor,
And that is often all we can see of others.
Their superficial,
Their immediate reaction,
Their reactivity and ours.
What if we could go deeper?
What if we,
As artists and humans,
Could see more deeply,
More profoundly,
More generously and nuanced?
So this is known,
There's a phrase in the Parashah in the Hebrew Torah reading,
The Israelites are a people that dwells apart,
And Bilaam looks over,
Squints,
One can imagine,
Over one section of them that he might find curse,
Squints over another section that he might find a thing to curse,
But cannot.
So he turns and faces them all and blesses.
There is a small C,
Lowercase c,
Catholic view of humankind and of the other that allows us to see their breadth,
Depth,
And complexity.
We can squint our eyes and only see our political opponent,
Only see our artistic rival,
Only see what makes us different in a 12-step meeting,
But fail to look broadly,
Fail to see what we share in common,
Fail to see that in total we are all equal.
My father was wont to say that everyone's intelligence adds up equally.
Some are mechanically gifted,
Some are mathematically gifted,
Some are artistically gifted.
We live in different times where certain gifts,
Certain intelligences are more of value,
But we are all,
Each of us,
Of equal merit.
As if when you start the Fallout game,
You have X number of points to divide among your traits and perks.
We are all built from the same number of points.
We should not dismiss everyone or anyone.
So in this difficult story about a non-Jewish prophet and then the slaughter of the Moabites,
We get reminded by one of our sages that Ruth is a Moabite,
And she was the ancestor of King David,
Meaning that David is also a descendant of Balak.
Our enemy can be our guardian.
The person we despise might have something to teach us.
Do not disregard any person or any hour.
Richard Mullins,
The American contemporary Christian singer who died a few years ago,
Said he once had a professor,
He said,
Class,
Never forget,
You will forget almost everything I teach you here.
But please remember this,
God spoke to Balaam through his ass,
And God has been speaking through asses ever since.
So if God should choose to speak through you,
You need not think too highly of yourself,
And if on meeting someone right away,
You recognize what they are,
Listen to them anyway.
Even if you don't like a person,
They might have something to teach you,
And if you like and respect your neighbor as a human,
As a father,
As a community member,
But you know you disagree on how you're going to vote in this election or some other matter of policy or faith,
Seek them out,
Try to learn from them.
It's challenging,
I plan to do it with a neighbor today,
But even a donkey,
Even a jackass can teach us something,
And maybe we are the jackass.
So a couple of metaphors to carry with you as you move forward in your conversations with loved ones,
Neighbors,
Those you fear,
Those you dislike,
Those you resent,
Those against whom you armor yourself or who might be armored against you.
One of the sayings of prophecy is to be prostrate but with eyes unveiled,
Numbers 24 verses 4 and 16.
I love that image,
Right?
Humility but clear seeing.
Humble enough not to recognize that our perspective is not broad enough.
Clear-eyed enough to see what we see and to understand our values and visions but to recognize that might not be all of the world.
There might be more to learn to the end of our days.
The phrase the dust of Jacob comes up in this week's parashah and this week's Torah reading.
Everyone treads upon the dust,
Says our Midrash,
Our fan fiction from the rabbis,
But in the end the dust triumphs over them all.
You can tread upon the dust but it winds up on your boots.
That's the way to be too.
Allow yourself to be stepped on,
Don't fight to be the alpha,
But allow yourself to disperse and to gather,
To be a part of it all,
Not the winner.
Being the winner is less interesting.
So in closing I want to offer you the blessing that Bilaam offers the people of Israel,
How good and great are your tents and dwelling places.
May you feel good and great,
Proud and grateful.
May you experience blessing even amidst challenge and curse.
May you go on.
