Balak: What Hath Gd Wrought

Bamidbar 23:23 is a complex verse, part of the second pronouncement of Bilaam .  It ends with this line: What Hath Gd Wrought (in the King James translation). That is probably the translation the Samuel F.B.Morse knew, and hence the phrase that he quoted for the first telegraphic message ever sent. 

Quoting the verse from this weeks parsha was an act of humility.  An artifice had been created, using a force that was unknown to the ancients, controlled electricity. This invention could transmit information at unimaginable speed over thin wires.  Was this not a human creation? Where was the divine  in this? 

What Hath Gd Wrought is the name of a book I read this year.  It is a history of the United States from 1814 to 1848. The book emphasizes the interplay between technology and the expansion of the United States across the continent. The telegraph, carried along railroad lines, was a climax of that process.  Now that messages could be transmitted across great distances in minutes ,  it was possible to unify the continent under a central administration. In that sense, Morse was understanding Bilaam as meaning that Gd had promised the Israelites such greatness that it would amaze the onlooker.  Moreover, the greatness would come through a process that was previously unimaginable, a great innovation.

 Look at the beginning of the verse: כִּ֤י לֹא־נַ֙חַשׁ֙ בְּיַעֲקֹ֔ב וְלֹא־קֶ֖סֶם בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל 

There is no enchantment in  Jacob, no divination in Israel. When people look on in wonder, the achievements  that amaze have come about without magic -  or did they? How different is science from magic?  It is a difference in the attribution of power. Magic ascribes the  power to the individual performers ability to manipulate forces that others cannot possibly understand.  Science makes these forces public.  The One Gd is the source of wonders, and they are available to anyone who can do the math.  (see psalm 20)

Marty Jaffee once told me this joke: 

Israel  was at war.  A chasid cries out among the troops:"Soldiers, don't rely on miracles -- say Tehilim ( psalms)!