Angels in front of us

Balak 2011

Getting stuck along the way

Rabbi Neil A. Tow 2011©

It is easy to get caught while we are on the way…

We’re driving and we stop along the road to rest, to eat.  The 20 minute break turns into 40 minutes.

We’re getting ready to leave the house and then the phone rings, or we cannot find a wallet or cell phone.

There is a limitless array of potential obstacles between us and our daily objectives.  The same is true for the long range view of our lives.

The Bal Shem Tov tells of what happens when a person is on her way to synagogue or to do another mitzvah.  Along the way, she stops to chat with people.  This is a sin because she did not journey with urgency to complete the mitzvah, to pray with a community.  And so, in a case like this, God would cause her to have to cross a river on a very narrow bridge, a bridge that would motivate someone to run and cross it as quickly as possible, a scary prospect!  In that moment on the bridge, God would send an angel to block the person from crossing the bridge.  This angel was the same angel that was created when the person thought to do the mitzvah in the first place—for in the moment when she committed to do a mitzvah, any mitzvah, the angel’s soul was created, but without the completion of the mitzvah  - the angel’s body remains incomplete.  Since she delayed in the mitzvah by chatting with others along the way, the angel comes to the bridge to prevent her from crossing.(Besht, Amud HaTefillah, 33)

This teaching from the Bal Shem Tov echoes with an overtone of this week’s parsha, Balak, as we follow the magician Balaam on his way to the Kingdom of Balak.  While there is some controversy about Balaam’s true intentions, Balaam already agreed with God to only bless the Israelites.  Balaam was on his way to do a mitzvah and God sent an angel to stand in his way. 

The delays and distractions, according to the Bal Shem Tov, have an impact on the world of the divine.  The expansion of the universe of God that was set to happen with the formation of a new angel seemed poised not to continue.

We recognize the difficulty of the angels that stand in our way.  We recognize that they can be completely unexpected and undeserved.  They appear like a brick wall in the course of our days and in the course of our years, our projects, our plans and we stand before them wondering what to do.

While some of these angel obstacles may yield us knowledge and precious experience of life-whether easy or hard-others are opaque, stubborn, and painful.  The angel in the story of the Bal Shem Tov is there to be a guide, a reminder, “so that a person will not run away and be troubled and scared.”  The angel standing in front of Balaam seeks justice, and holds up a sword and provides a firm rebuke and new instructions.

How will we respond when the angel steps into our path?  Will we get upset at ourselves and succumb to the moment?  Will we find ways to learn something about ourselves?  Will we be thankful to the Eternal One for granting us a new level of awareness?  (Or a combination of all)

Yesterday as we witnessed the launch of Atlantis, the final shuttle flight to space – I was thinking about the end of the shuttle program as a type of angel in the roadway, compelling us to think again about our plans for space flight, motivating us to recapture the dream that took us to space in the first place. 

In all our journeys, both on and off the planet, may each moment of delay when we face the angel who sees us in our time of distraction and interruption, help us to get back on the path so that we may continue to pursue our tasks, our goals, our dreams, and so we may walk in the way of the wisdom of the Holy One who sends the angels, reflections of the Divine, to shape and guide our lives.  Shalom Aleychem malachey El—yon, we welcome you in our lives, angels of the Most High.