Historical patterns in Parashat Balak

Parshat Balak details an international conspiracy aimed at blocking the Jewish advance to the Land of Israel.

A legendary prophet named Bilaam and a regional monarch named Balak collude to sabotage Jewish destiny. This collusion takes place “offline” as the Jews aren’t even aware of the backroom scheming.

The storyline could easily have been summarized in a few quick verses, yet the Torah chronicles the story in great detail. Various rounds of negotiation between the prophet and the King’s emissaries are depicted. Evidently, there is a broader historical meaning to this conspiracy. Apparently, Bilaam’s panoramic prophecies provide a template for Jewish history by introducing historical patterns that will resurface throughout Jewish history and influence the arc of human history. 

There are three historical patterns that this narrative introduces:

King Balak had received frightening accounts of Jewish military victories and was rightfully concerned about the potential implications for his own kingdom. Indeed, having just recently surrendered large tracts of lands in a furious but losing battle with a local Emori tribe, the Moabite empire could ill afford additional territorial losses.

However, Balak’s worries about Jewish encroachment are outsized and disproportionate. He envisions the Jews as a “voracious cow” consuming all in its path, or as a planetary body eclipsing the eye of the earth. The Jews have become the bogeyman or the monster of Balak’s imagination, symbolizing all his worst fears and nightmares. 

In reality, the Jews had solicited peace with both the Emori tribe and the Edomite kingdoms – each of whom were natural enemies to the Jews. Given these pacifist overtures, there is every reason to believe that the Jews would not intimidate their own genealogical relatives – the Moabites who stemmed from Lot. More so, from a halachic standpoint, we were forbidden from launching aggression against Moab. Finally, from a purely strategic standpoint, we had every reason to pursue a peaceful harmony with our soon-to-be neighbors. 

Yet, something about the Jew elicits the worst fears in humanity and the approach of a nation wearied by a 40-year desert journey is extraordinarily alarming to the powerful monarch Balak. This king and his prophet-assistant panic and leap into action because of imagined fears that have no basis in reality. At a psychological level, it is always convenient to project your darkest fears upon the “stranger” or upon the outsider, and Jews have always been that type of “lightning rod.” A Jew isn’t only a “stranger” or the “other.” We also represent God in this world and we challenge the world to higher religious ground. This challenge always arouses uneasiness, discomfort and ultimately, unfounded fears. This emotional cocktail of anxiety easily bleeds into hatred.

Bilaam and Balak were not natural allies and were only united by one common purpose: their fear and loathing of the Jews. In actuality, Bilaam and Balak were lifetime adversaries who banded together to face the Jewish “stampede.” In general, hatred of the “other” creates strange bedfellows and hatred of Jews is no different.

Throughout history, the flaring of antisemitism has launched some very odd coalitions. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Germans and Russians agreed upon very little – other than their dislike of the Jews inhabiting their contested territories. Germans were global capitalists while Russians were socialists; the two nations shared little but mutual animosity toward Jews. It wasn’t uncommon for Jews to be accused as Capitalists by irate Soviet Communists while simultaneously viewed as Communist revolutionaries by suspicious Germans. During WWII and its aftermath, Jews once again found themselves facing hostility from both directions: facing Nazi atrocities from the west and Soviet persecution from the east.

In the contemporary era, hatred of Jews similarly “unites” vastly different factions and groups. In the US, traditionally, Jews have been despised by white supremacists as well as by neo-Nazi groups who view us as “coastal” big-city liberals, endorsing a globalist, hyper-aggressive platform of multiculturalism that threatens the purity of their “Aryan” country. By contrast, European antisemitism derives from the far Left, which casts the Jews as racist colonizers advancing a “tribal” and apartheid agenda that displaces the natural rights of victimized indigenous peoples. 

Over the past 30 years, this venomous version of antisemitism has also begun to invade the world of academia in both Europe and the US. These two factions – right-wing supremacists and hyper-liberal globalists, share absolutely nothing in common and actually detest each other. They are only united in hostility toward God’s nation. Sadly, across much of the Islamic world we are witness to a similar phenomenon, where Shiites and Sunnis who are locked in a 1,400-year-old battle, both stand ardently opposed to the State of Israel.

As these ad-hoc alignments are based on common hatred and little else, they barely last. At no particular moment do we sense an authentic bond between Bilaam and Balak and this marriage of hatred frays under the pressure of deviant interests and discrepant agendas. Even Bilaam’s relationship with his trusted donkey unravels under the pressure of his virulent agenda. This deterioration symbolizes the unfurling of relationships under the toxic influence of malice and hatred.

As this saga concludes, Bilaam and Balak are almost in outright confrontation. Balak’s attempts to banish Bilaam and prevent additional damaging statements are futile; to Balak’s chagrin, Bilaam provides one final vision of human history foretelling the quick demise of Balak’s kingdom. The parsha begins with an alliance bent on eliminating the Jews and concludes amid a junkyard of deviant interests and subverted schemes.

Theoretically, Bilaam’s barking curses shouldn’t concern us; the Jews should be immune to these verbal assaults launched from distant desert hilltops. Yet, the parsha demonstrates how sometimes our curses are actually converted into blessings. 

In the modern State of Israel, we have repeatedly witnessed the conversion of national limitations or barriers into historical opportunities. Saddled with an arid environment, our state was forced to develop advanced irrigation and water preservation techniques. Israel is now exporting these technologies across the globe and assisting modern man in his struggle to provide ample water supply for an exploding and urbanizing population. 

Similarly, our military struggles have forced us to develop advanced military capabilities that have serviced a modern world struggling with violence that is no longer limited to conventional battlefields. Additionally, many of these inventions adopted out of dire need have created “spinoffs” that have catapulted the State of Israel into a global technological leader.

Parshat Balak creates a template for transforming curses into blessings!