These are trying times for Jews and for Judaism. Feeling as though our abuse at the hands of hateful non-Jews will never end, there is an urge to take care of our own, to focus exclusively on Jewish interests and Jewish priorities. In the face of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, we withdraw from active support of civil rights. In the face of infinite enmity from the rejectionist Palestinians and other Arab powers, we say nothing about the anti-Arab bias which pervades America culture. In the face of continuing anti-Semitism, we withdraw from an earlier Jewish vision of universal progress and redemption through reason.
There may be good reasons motivating our changed assessments. Perhaps we did pursue the agenda of the rest of humanity to the exclusion of our own needs. Perhaps we ignored our own heritage and its riches to chase after the cultures and manners of others -- a paralyzing form of self-denigration. But there was, for all its naiveté and misreading of human nature, something stirring about a vision of a world which could transcend conflict and division, a world in which humanity united around the banner of liberation, education and tolerance.
Such a dream may have been flawed, and indeed, suffered a mortal blow in the smokestacks of Auschwitz. But the dream was noble nonetheless. In the light of our post-Holocaust recognition that evil is not about to evaporate, we have come to see that division is a permanent part of the human condition, that Jews must look to their own survival and their own needs since no one else will. The vaunted "civilization" of the West, at whose altar we worshipped, has severe moral and religious shortcomings -- for which Jews paid with their lives.
Our own identity as Jews, the sacred traditions of Judaism, and our people's 'brit' with God are well worth another look, a renewed allegiance and greater fidelity. But we can go too far in our rejection of universal values too.
Today's Torah portion is about balancing those extremes. The Torah describes Balaam as a Gentile prophet who speaks directly with God. Time and time again, following God's instruction, Balaam blesses the Jewish People, praising their beauty as a people, and reminding us of the legitimacy of our own agenda and our own concerns. "There is a people that dwells apart, not reckoned among the nations."
But coming from the mouth of a non-Jewish prophet, these words force us also to look at the larger human context that transcends our Jewishness. Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah comments on how striking it was that God should speak through a Gentile prophet. The Rabbis then ask, "If it was possible for prophecy to transpire through non-Jews in the biblical period, why was that no longer true?" The answer, according to the Midrash, was that Balaam turned against the Jewish people, losing compassion, since it wasn't his own people. "The reason the section of Balaam was recorded was to make it known why the Holy Blessed One removed the holy spirit from the idolaters, for this man rose from their midst, and see what he did!"
Not so the prophets of Israel. According to these same Rabbis, "All the Prophets retained a compassionate attitude towards both Israel and the idolaters." That extra compassion was what marked the Prophets of Israel as true prophets, worthy of transmitting God's voice to the world.
What was true then is no less true today. Our renewed concern with explicitly Jewish issues -- Israel, Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry, Jewish day schools and summer camps, learning Hebrew, studying Torah -- are an important and vital part of Jewish identity and expression. We cannot fulfill our 'brit' with God if we do not address these concerns.
But if we abandon our humanitarian involvement completely, if we turn our backs on world hunger, on civil rights, on the environment, then we betray what was distinctive about our prophets of old, and what was beautiful about an earlier vision of what Judaism should be. The two need not conflict. Rather, as we plumb the depths of our sacred traditions, becoming increasingly at home with Torah, Talmud and Midrash, as we learn to pray and to converse in Hebrew, as we grow in observance of the 'mitzvot,' let us recall that God's revelation to our ancestors was based on their compassion for all people. We may not be prophets ourselves, but we are the descendants of the Prophets. We prove that in compassion expressed through deeds of piety and justice.
Shabbat Shalom!