Page 2 - Announcements Mon. June 21

26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck, NY 11023 (516) 487-6100 Shabbat Announcements Balak 5781
to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the happened thereafter and yet was deemed to be so important
Lord’s people” (Num. 31:16). In other words, having gone that it occupied a central place in the telling of Israel’s story
through what should surely have been a transformative by Moses, Joshua, Micah and Nehemiah? The answer is
experience of finding curses turned to blessings in his mouth, fundamental. We search in vain for an explanation of why
Bilam remained implacably opposed to the people he had God should have made a covenant with a people who
blessed, and seemingly to the God who put the words into repeatedly proved to be ungrateful, disobedient and
his mouth, and was still capable of devising a plot to injure faithless. God Himself threatened twice to destroy the
the Israelites. It did not change the Israelites, who remained people, after the Golden Calf and the episode of the spies.
vulnerable to the Moabites, Midianites, and the enticements Toward the end of our parsha, He sent a plague against
of sex, food and foreign gods. It did not change Moses, who them.
left it to Pinchas to take the decisive act that stopped the
plague and was soon thereafter told that Joshua would There were other religious peoples in the ancient world. The
succeed him as leader. Torah calls Malkizedek, Abraham’s contemporary, “a priest
of God most high.” (Gen. 14:18). Yitro, Moses’ father-in-law,
So, if it did not change the Moabites, Midianites, Israelites, was a Midianite priest who gave his son-in-law sound advice
Bilam or Moses, what was the point of the episode? What role as to how to lead. In the book of Jonah, during the storm,
did it play in the story of our people? For it does play a while Jonah the Hebrew Prophet was sleeping, the Gentile
significant role. In Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the people sailors were praying. When the Prophet arrived at Nineveh
that the Moabites “did not come to meet you with bread and and delivered his warning, immediately the people repented,
water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they something that happened rarely in Judah/Israel. Malachi,
hired Bilam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to last of the Prophets, says: From where the sun rises to
pronounce a curse on you. However, the Lord your God where it sets, My name is honored among the nations, and
would not listen to Bilam but turned the curse into a blessing everywhere incense and pure oblation are offered to My
for you, because the Lord your God loves you” (Deut. 23:4- name; for My name is honored among the nations – said the
5). Joshua, when he came to renew the covenant after the Lord of Hosts – but you profane it…” (Mal. 1:11-12)
conquest of the land, gave an abridged summary of Jewish
history, singling out this event for attention: “When Balak Why then choose Israel? The answer is love. Virtually all the
son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Prophets said so. God loves Israel. He loved Abraham. He
Israel, he sent for Bilam son of Beor to put a curse on you. loves Abraham’s children. He is often exasperated by their
But I would not listen to Bilam, so he blessed you again and conduct, but He cannot relinquish that love. He explains this
again, and I delivered you out of his hand.” (Josh. 24:9-10). to the prophet Hosea. Go and marry a woman who is
unfaithful, He says. She will break your heart, but you will
The prophet Micah, younger contemporary of Isaiah, said in still love her, and take her back (Hos. 1-3). Where, though,
the name of God, “My people, remember what Balak king of in the Torah does God express this love? In the blessings of
Moab plotted and what Bilam son of Beor answered,” just Bilam. That is where He gives voice to His feelings for this
before he delivers his famous summary of the religious life: people. “I see them from the mountain tops, gaze on them
“He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord from the heights: This is a people that dwells apart, not
requires of you: to act justly and to love mercy and to walk reckoned among the nations.” “Lo, a people that rises like a
humbly with your God” (Mic. 6:5, 8). At the culmination of lion, leaps up like the king of beasts.” “How good are your
the reforms instituted by Ezra and Nehemiah after the tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!” These famous
Babylonian exile, Nehemiah had the Torah read to the words are not Bilam’s. They are God’s – the most eloquent
people, reminding them that an Ammonite or Moabite may expression of His love for this small, otherwise
not enter “the assembly of the Lord” because “they did not undistinguished people.
meet the Israelites with food and water but had hired Bilam
to call a curse down on them. Our God, however, turned the Bilam, the pagan prophet, is the most unlikely vehicle for
curse into a blessing” (Neh. 13:2). God’s blessings. But that is God’s way. He chose an aged,
infertile couple to be the grandparents of the Jewish people.
Why the resonance of an event that seemingly had no impact He chose a man who couldn’t speak to be the mouthpiece of
s
i
h
w
on any of the parties involved, made no difference to what ord. He chose Bilam, who hated Israel, to be the
messenger of His love. Moses says explicitly: “The Lord your
Great Neck Synagogue God would not listen to Bilam but turned the curse into a
26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck , NY 11023 blessing for you, because the Lord your God loves you.”
516-487-6100 That is what the story is about: not Balak, or Bilam, or
Moab, or Midian, or what happened next. It is about God’s
Rabbi Dale Polakoff, Rabbi love for a people, their strength, resilience, their willingness
Rabbi Ian Lichter, Assistant Rabbi to be different, their family life (tents, dwelling places), and
Rabbi Yehoshua Lefkowitz, Intern Rabbi their ability to outlive empires. The Rambam explains that all
Dr. Ephraim Wolf, z”l, Rabbi Emeritus God’s acts have a moral message for us. I believe that God
Yitzy Spinner, Cantor
Eleazer Schulman, z”l, Cantor Emeritus is teaching us that love can turn curses into blessings. It is
Rabbi Sholom Jensen, Youth Director the only force capable of defeating hate. Love heals the
Zehava & Dr. Michael Atlas, Youth Directors wounds of the world.
Mark Twersky, Executive Director Fast of 17th of Tammuz
Dr. James Frisch, Assistant Director Sunday, June 26th
Jordan Wolf, President
Dov Sassoon, Chairman of the Board Fast Begins: 3:36 am; Fast Ends: 9:12 pm