Balak: Mad Men

Balak: Mad Men

A lot depends on how you say it.  This parsha is about a mouthpiece, a hired communicator, a lobbyist to the Highest Authority. His words had power, they could influence the outcome .

There is a lot of repeating in the prasha.  The messengers of Balak repeat Balak's offers to Bilam. The first messengers repeat the Bialm's reply.  Bilam repeats what Gd has told him, to the chagrin of Balak. 

When Bilam is asked, in his dream, about the princes of Moab who have come to hire him, he describes the mission in some of  the same  prejudiced words of his potential sponsor. 

הִנֵּ֤ה הָעָם֙ הַיֹּצֵ֣א מִמִּצְרַ֔יִם וַיְכַ֖ס אֶת־עֵ֣ין הָאָ֑רֶץ עַתָּ֗ה לְכָ֤ה קָֽבָה־לִּי֙ אֹת֔וֹ אוּלַ֥י אוּכַ֛ל לְהִלָּ֥חֶם בּ֖וֹ וְגֵרַשְׁתִּֽיו׃

The Israelites are described as the (landless) people who left (the place where thy belong) Egypt and are now "covering the face of the earth."  Their population is too dense for their location, they are an invasive species, they reproduce too fast, they  are  like locusts ( Exodus 10:15, uses the same phrase to describe the locusts)...covering the face of the earth.  Covering the eye of the earth, the most delicate and precious part. 

They are a horror.  It would add to Gd's glory to eliminate them!

But the Almighty has sales resistance. Gd says don't go to do this, a solution that would save Bilam from  the trial ( the journey to Moab) and error ( the attempt to curse the Israelites)..  But persistence is one of the key devices of advertising. Bilam's dreamworks concoct a way for him to go.  He may contract for Balak, but stipulate that the statements are beyond his control. Legalese.

Bilam, Balak: these are angry men, mad men The statements of Bilam are  hate redirected to admiration The hate itself  came form admiration. A nation that could leave Egypt  and conquer mighty kings, a nation with a moral code as its constitution, a nation unified by a Gd that  is the same for everyone and does not change is admirable and threatening. So the text tells us
וַיָּ֣קָץ מוֹאָ֔ב Moav abhorred Israel.  The antisemitism of envy is born.

Now, on the threshold of the three weeks of mourning for the downfall of Israel from its glory, we look at these recorded blessings of Bilam  We, in America, where the Jews have flourished , deal with another competing and complementary constitution.

  I, the son of holocaust survivors wonder about the second blessing:
מִ֤י מָנָה֙ עֲפַ֣ר יַעֲקֹ֔ב וּמִסְפָּ֖ר אֶת־רֹ֣בַע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל תָּמֹ֤ת נַפְשִׁי֙ מ֣וֹת יְשָׁרִ֔ים וּתְהִ֥י אַחֲרִיתִ֖י כָּמֹֽהוּ׃

Who hath counted the dust of Jacob, Or numbered the stock of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, And let mine end be like his!

Now we understand the dust: it is the ashes of Treblinka. Which death did he mean: gassing?

But we are the children of the survivors.  Gd spare us from the envy of Mad Men