We all would like to feel a sense of control, of knowing what will happen to us.
We design elaborate plans when we’re working on a project, or say, for example, writing a Dvar Torah, and we may feel we’ve covered all the points, all the concerns, all the possibilities for the project we’re developing or the message we’re writing, and still they go off in directions we did not expect and by the end what we envisioned is no longer what originally planned.
As an example, when I was in college and started singing a capella music with the Jewish group on my campus my voice teacher told me that even with good technique, and breathing, and knowing the music, occasionally a sound will come out like a voice breaking, and he said, go with it, don’t judge yourself by that result, maybe someone who heard it thought it sounded interesting!
The bottom line is however much we try to control outcomes, we may often find the facts of the matter may have changed or our perspective may have been too narrow or ill-defined in the first place.
My teacher for Tai Chi Chih explained it to me this way. He said, don’t try to do the moves, just let the happen.
In this week’s parsha, Balak, the King of Mo’av, seeks to curse the Israelites after hearing about how they defeated the Amorites. In order to take hold of his fate, he summons Balaam the magician to act on his behalf. Balaam turns down the offer to curse the people after God tells him not to do it, but then Balaam goes along with Balak and his people, ostensibly to perform the curses against the Israelites.
Now Balaam gets himself in trouble for the same reason. As Balaam rides his donkey on the way, the donkey sees an angel of God with sword in hand and so walks off the road. Frustrated when the donkey lies down in front of the angel that Balaam himself cannot see, Balaam beats the donkey three times until the donkey speaks to him and God opens Balaam’s eyes to see the angel in front of them.
Balak here wants to control the outcome and steer his fate, but he only has one way in mind to do so.
Balaam similarly wants to take control of the donkey who has seemed to get out of hand.
In the end, God frustrates both Balak and Balaam.
Instead of cursing the people, Balak stands on the heights and proclaims blessings instead of curses, among the blessings he says the familiar words we heard at the start of the service this morning, “Ma tovu ohalecha Ya’akov mishkenotecha Yisrael…” How good are your tents O Jacob, your dwelling places, Israel.”
In both situations Balak and Balaam try to direct the flow of action and outcome and the more they strain, the tighter their grip on their vision and expectations, the further they get away from their goals.
God humbles them both.
Balak and Balaam are well-spoken and clever, but Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains they both become unhinged by passion and greed, so they become unworthy of their gifts, and God then intervenes…
The lesson then of the story of Balak and Balaam is the only way to achieve righteous goals is with sincerity, purity of purpose, and the humility to continually re-evaluate all these elements to make sure we’re pursuing more than what feels right or good for us in the moment.
When we are watching the search and rescue effort after the collapse of a building, or a tide of evil pushing back when an army re-deploys from a conflict zone, or when we leave extra early but end up sitting in traffic anyway, we may begin to ask whether any effort is worthwhile when forces beyond our control appear to stifle us at every turn.
The faith we pray and practice here can help us navigate the jagged, unpredictable, and undulating surface of our lives. For thousands of years, these prayers, that have changed but a little, remind us there is so much more to know than we can possibly register with our senses. They remind us the goal for us as individuals, and as a people, is to move beyond the animal spirit of survival and to enable us all to feel God’s Presence within and around us. All the prayers, all the Torah learning, all the art and symbolism point toward this goal, and no other. There is no higher goal than living a life that transforms, the lesson of a story like Balak and Balaam into a goal in and of itself, the goal that more control, more knowledge, may give us a feeling of comfort and stability, but the message that ties all Torah stories together is that God does not want us to always feel safe, comfortable, and reassured that we can direct the course of events, because that is God’s job!
No, instead, the Rabbis of the Talmud teach us the most important lesson of humility, an’ve’tanut, that we must lamed leshoncha lomar ani lo yo’de’ah, we must teach ourselves to day I don’t know, or like Rashi, and other great explainers of Torah and Talmud write in their commentaries, Lo yadati peyrrusho, I don’t know what this means.
These thoughts are helpful to us since we will strive to fulfill our visions, even if we’re jousting at windmills, God appreciates our efforts as long as we remember that we’re mortal, and fallible, and and the better striving, the real striving for us, is contributing to the sanctification of life and community and love which are ongoing projects for the Jewish people and so by definition open to our efforts but beyond our complete control because they’re really God’s projects!
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