Dvar Torah: Balak - What is a blessing?

Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life?

Say yes, say yes 'cause I need to know
You say I'll never get your blessing 'til the day I die
Tough luck, my friend, but the answer is no!

Why you gotta be so rude?
Don't you know I'm human too?
Why you gotta be so rude?

These are the words to a recent popular song by a band called "Magic!"  

In this song, the young man asks his girlfriend’s father for his blessing on their engagement and marriage.

He is asking, as we say, for her father’s blessing.

Our tradition loves giving blessings.  

The Rabbis teach we should strive to say 100 blessings day.  

On Shabbat we give blessings to our children, to each other, May God bless and keep you.

Throughout the week, outside of services, we make blessings on occasions when we see a rainbow, hear thunder, when we see beauty in the world.

When looking in our parsha this week at the blessings Balak recites to the people of Israel, we begin to think about the idea of blessing.

What exactly is a blessing?

Is it a compliment we give to someone else?  Is it a ‘good wish’?  Is a blessing always positive?  Or is something more going on when we pronounce words of blessing to another person, toward nature, toward God?

Though Balak’s words of blessing to the Israelites sound positive to our ears, as we will see, the Rabbis believe them to be curses.  

Rabbi Abba Bar Kahana teaches, All the blessings of Billam became curses when the Holy Temple (in Jerusalem) was destroyed – except for the blessing which praised the synagogues and the Houses of Study, for these we have to this very day.”

We know this particular blessing, ma tovu ohalecha Yakov mishkenotecha Yisrael.

It sounds as though words of blessing can only be true if they reflect something about our world even as they suggest a reality that we hope for, that we strive for, that we dream about.

And each blessing, whether to a person, to nature, to God, reflects a relationship – We cannot give a blessing in a vacuum, and we do not bless ourselves.  A blessing recognizes the inter-connectedness of each of us to each other, to the earth from which we were created, and to God, the Source of Life itself.

Each time we make a blessing, we reaffirm the relationship.

We notice that the first word of many blessings is Baruch – this word is in the passive voice, we say to God, You are blessed – We might have expected the blessing formula to begin with “We bless You, God”, but it starts by saying, in effect, God, You are blessed by us, through us!  

We are tied together each time we offer blessing, tied together to the recipient of the blessing – together, as Rabbi Lawrence Kushner calls it, in invisible lines of connection.

But are the blessings of Bilaam really hidden curses?

There’s always an element of uncertainty in a blessing.  We hope and pray that our blessing will come to be, that the words and the actions that follow them will raise us up, open us to happiness, to experiences that will enrich us, but we do not know the future.

A blessing, then, is an intention, a hope, a dream – grounded in reality but also pointing toward the unknown, and so, Rabbi Abba bar Kahana’s teaching is striking, since with the destruction of the Temple the reality for the Jewish people changed, and our lens for seeing Bilam’s words as blessings changed as well.  

Blessings involve mystery but they are not magical.  When we bless someone for good health we know that the words and prayers themselves, for example, cannot heal disease, but by offering up a vision of healing, we create hope, we create community, we send out positive energy into the world that was not there before.

It’s for this reason that I find it puzzling and troubling that when Bilaam follows God’s instructions to follow Balak, King of Moav, that immediately afterwards God is angry at Bilaam for going along.  

Though Balak wants Bilaam to curse the Israelites, Bilaam only will follow God’s command, he says as much in the previous moment.

Why is God angry at Bilaam?

God is angry at the perception, that Bilaam rises early to follow Balak and so seems to be intent also on following Balak’s instructions to curse the Israelites.

Should the motives of one who blesses be at issue?  Do we question the motives of those who offer blessings, why they’re doing it, what is their goal?

The lesson of our parsha is that we offer blessings because that’s what we’re designed to do – we naturally reach out beyond ourselves, seeking relationship, seeking meaning, trying to create a world that reflects our values but often stymies us when we see it fall short.

In the song we started with, the young man asks for his father in law’s blessing – the other lesson of our parsha is that we can continue to become more generous blessing-givers – this week let’s give, in our own words, a blessing to someone, a friend, a co-worker – a blessing out to those in need of help and support in the larger community around us, and a blessing to God – and this particular blessing need not be rosy like Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? – when we bless God we can also challenge God saying that as partners with God in creation the world isn’t yet the way it should be, and it’s time for us to join hands, from us finite beings to the Infinite One, to join hands and shine the light of blessing out.

Dvar Torah: Shlach Lecha 2018/5778 - A special parsha & time...

27 years ago, I became a Bar Mitzvah on parshat Shelach.  11 years ago my oldest daughter was born on Saturday morning, June 9, parshat Shelach.  And now, in 2018, Shelach again falls on Shabbat, June 9th, and two days after my 40th birthday.

Shlach 2018/5778

When thinking of the story of our 40 years wandering the wilderness, we can’t help but ask the question of why it takes so long.  Clearly, even the slowest walker would not take 40 years!

From a bird’s eye view, it’s only about 300 miles from Cairo to Eilat.

But for us, 40 years.

The best story I can think of to illustrate the dynamics involved in the 40 year journey is the story of the origins of the Yeshiva University rowing team.  When it started, they had a terrible time in practice and dismal results in competition.  They decided to send one of their number to Princeton, to spy on the team from a longtime powerhouse in the sport with vast experience.  He went over to New Jersey, watched as they practiced, took notes, and returned to campus.  His teammates asked him, “So, what did you find out?”  He responded, “On their team, only one person shouts and everyone else rows.”

The 40 years of wandering from Goshen to the heights of Moab looking over to Canaan is, according to our parsha, the result of choices the Israelites make, just like the rowing team. When they hear the reports from the spies that the Land is inhabited by giants, that the cities are fortified – everyone becomes terrified and loses heart…

40 years though, why is the punishment 40 years?

Because God punishes the Israelites one year for each of the 40 days the spies explore the Land.

Midah k’neged midah, measure for measure.

But is it really measure for measure here?

Benjamin Franklin said, “At 20 years of age, the will reigns, at 30, the wit, at 40, the judgment.”

He suggests what we can see as a progression.  At 20, we are in early adulthood and independence.  The world is a big place.  We have energy, but also we’re relatively untested, and likely somewhat naïve.   At 30, the wit begins to grow, an ability to step back and analyze from experience, to notice and comment from a place of gained knowledge.  Then, 10 years later, Franklin argues we’re able to form more cogent and thoughtful judgments.

The Torah corroborates Franklin’s theory.  40 in the Torah is a number with symbolic meaning of preparation, maturing, a number that implies patience over a period of waiting and perseverance without knowing the outcome.  

We see 40 in the days and nights of rain during the Flood.  40 days of waiting until Moses comes down with the 10 Commandments.  And now 40 years.

Our tradition does critique the people for their lack of faith, but also recognizes that God’s response, though it sounds harsh, contains compassion within it.

After all, as Benjamin Franklin wisely said, 40 years can be helpful as a time for the nation to grow, to find ways to let go of the Egypt mentality, for a new generation of leaders to step in to blaze the trail.  

Rabbenu Bahya teaches us:

יוםלשנהיוםלשנה”a day for a year, a day for a year.” We would have expected the Torah to write the opposite, i.e. “a year for a day,” i.e. that the punishment for each day the spies had spent traveling the land and planning to slander it would be that the people would have to spend an additional year in the desert…If the Torah wrote the verse in the manner it did it was to teach us something about G’d’s mercy which is manifest even while He metes out punishment.
When the Torah chose the wording: “a day for a year,” we must consider the fact that seeing the land of Israel has been described as an area of 400 by 400 miles, approx, this is an area which the spies could not possibly have covered in the space of a mere forty days. However, seeing G’d had known in advance that He would have to decree the punishment mentioned, He telescoped the distance under their feet so that they could cover it in such a short period of time. This is why G’d said: “a day for every year,” i.e. just like a father who is forced to inflict a blow on his son. He does not inflict a cruel blow but is as considerate as possible. The meaning of the verse therefore is: “here I have reduced the extent of your punishment as much as is possible by shortening the time you (the spies) needed to traverse the land so that it took only forty days. “

In other words, Bahya argues we can read 40 years as a minimum penalty rather than a maximum.

But talk to a Washington Capitals fan, the Caps just won their first Stanley Cup trophy, who waited 44 years for this moment, and they will likely tell you that 40 years is an incredibly long time.

Talk to someone who just turned 40, I’m sure there’s someone like that around, who looks back at 1978 when Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin shared the Nobel Peace Prize and wonders how Middle East has stalled for so long, or who wonders if kids today will know that Saturday Night Fever is not a medical condition but rather the 1978 album of the year – There is a structural fear our ancestors may feel, the fear of not knowing the future, not being able to see what the next generations will become.

And we also know tragically this week about how for Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, and for too many others, no matter how much we grow and pursue our dreams the journey itself can be filled with pain, depression, and a sense of hopelessness from which it can be so difficult to raise ourselves.

Like the fictional Jewish rowing team, can we navigate our journey by listening louder than we speak? Can we see each other as resources for support and wisdom?  Can we have a dialogue while we row together, not a dialogue in which we all agree but in which we all participate?  Can we be sensitive to see the rower who is silent, who may look well enough on the outside, but who is hurting on the inside?

If we can strive to do these things, then 40 years will pass by like 40 minutes and those who will enter the land will carry the torch forward filled with a collective wisdom and strength greater than anything one person could achieve alone.

Shabbat Shalom.