Balak

Parshah Balak
Numbers 22:2-25:9 Micah 5:6-6:8

I don't want to make a habit of mystical interpretations of the parshas. Nor do I want to support ideas I have week to week by looking for what I want to see. I can creatively combined ideas any number of ways. I praise G*d that Torah provides deep meaning in all directions but I pray that I will not be tempted to imagine I can catch it all in a butterfly net.

I pray that Rabbi Grimm will be a great teacher for me. I have so many questions and I want to grow straight; without conceit. I see the Torah as an Angel that allows us to come 'close' to G*d without being destroyed by his radiance. One aspect of the splendor is what I refer to here as the infinite interpretations. If a person tries to limit them they must become corrupt. If a person tries not to limit them they fail because only G*d is 'without' limit. How then should one act? I strive for temperance and an open heart. The Torah is not knowledge to master, it is the master of knowledge.

Balak is stark when compared to Hukkat. Hukkat is action and variety, in Balak there is repetition. Three times Balak, King of Moav, has Balaam make great sacrifices and G*d speaks to him. Although the Mova want a curse on Israel, each of the three times he sacrifices, greater honor is attributed to the 12 tribes by the word of G*d to Balaam. The Parsha also includes an episode wherein Balaam is stopped on the road by an angel. He doesn't see the angel but his donkey (ass) does. He beats the donkey but it will not continue. Then the angel appears to him and he is contrite.

It is interesting that this happens before he is spoken to by G*d. I think the fact that the donkey sees it but he does not is important because Balaam is a non-Israelite prophet. He is like the donkey. Balak the King abuses him for not cursing, as Balaam beats the donkey for seeing the angel. This has some resonance with the speaking verses striking of the stone by Moses in Hukkat. Therefore perhaps, the red heifer’s idea of 'impurity that leads to purity' is transmuted here into the 'lowly can teach us of the all-mighty'. Both are underscored by the need to sanctify G*d. Unless G*d is sanctified no impurity can be purified. Only through G*d are the low made great. G*d alone is the source of purity and greatness. Israel can be like this to the world if it sanctifies G*d. (Which again at the end of the parsha it fails to do again.).

Also very fascinating is the way this parasha shifts to the perspective of one of the groups Israel is in conflict with. Simply doing this and showing there is one among them who does not question G*d's blessing of Israel and who learns from 'seeing' the angel means that Israel cannot 'blindly' view non-Israelites as enemies of G*d. This is held up constantly in Judaism. At the foundation of settlement in the promised land, after so much warfare, it is a clearly an extraordinary ethical precept.
This is simply the formulation, that if we 'see' G*d (Balaam), we seek justice. Oh how I pray for justice! Oh how sure it is in G*d! That which has no balance will not endure, That which has balance persists. Nothing endures without G*d.

Note to self: review the differences in the three statements by G*d to Balaam. Also study the Haftorah again an do a post on these topics.