How good was that!

So Rabbi, welcome back from Sag Harbor. Initially when I started thinking about the theme tonight, I thought about the big event in my life this week, which was that I had an accident when using a power tool, they say Jews and tools don’t go together, and I ended up in the emergency room and I had an operation and I am so fortunate. And when that happens, you just want to be thankful for the good in the world, for the good of the doctors and their teams and people that help you. But as I progressed, I read that editorial in the New York Times and I realized that, you know what, it’s bigger than me. There’s something about just celebrating good that we are desperately lacking in our world. And so tonight, I’d love to be disruptive, and maybe we will be a little disruptive. But what we’re really going to do is explore this prophecy of a prophet of the nations named Balaam that talked about how good is it to share your tent, and we’re going to discuss what good is and what the power of good is, and maybe what the antidote of good is. So, are you ready to join the Good Train?

2:34 – AM:

I’m ready. Let’s go. I’m ready.

2:37 – GS:

Okay, so we are in Numbers 24.1, and it says, Now Bilaam, seeing that it pleased God to bless Israel, did not, as on previous occasion, go in search of omens, but turned his face toward the wilderness. As Bilaam looked up and saw Israel encamped, tribe by tribe, the spirit of God came upon him. Taking up his theme, he said, Word of Bilaam son of Beor, word of the man whose eye is true, word of one who hears God’s speech, who beholds visions from the Almighty, prostate but with eyes unveiled, and here he goes. How fair are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel? Ma tovu o halecha Yaakov, mishkanotecha Yisrael. Like palm groves that stretch out, like gardens beside a river, like aloes planted by God, like cedars beside the water. Their bows drip with moisture, their roots have abundant water, their ruler shall rise above Agag, their sovereignty shall be exalted. God, who freed them from Egypt, is for them like the horns of a wild ox. They shall devour enemy nations, crush their bones, and smash their arrows. Crouch, they lie down like a lion, like a lioness who dares rouse them. Blessed are they who bless you, accursed they who curse you.” And as I’ve been doing in the last few parshiot, we’re taking something out of context. We’re not going to get into to the whole long story of a talking donkey and how we got here. We’re just going to look at this parasha, this little segment that talks about this amazing prophecy/blessing that has really grown legs. As I said, it’s the first prayer we say every morning when entering the Synagogue.

4:55 – AM:

This is It is amazing. I mean, and that’s the real question. How could it be that the most famous verse of the Torah was popularized by a prophet of the nations who wasn’t even really good for the Jewish people?

5:10 – GS:

So I have put in the notes two articles that are on our favorite site, TheTorah.com. One is called Bilaam and the Problem of Other People’s Revelation, and the other one is Bilaam the Seer is Recast as a Villain. So what they argue is if you just look at these verses by themselves, he’s not considered a villain. If you look at Numbers 24, 15 – 16, he took up his theme and said,  Word of Bilaam, son of Beor, the word of the man whose eye is true. שְׁתֻ֥ם הָעָֽיִן

It goes on: Word of one who hears God’s speech, Who obtains knowledge from the Most High,

נְאֻ֗ם שֹׁמֵ֙עַ֙ אִמְרֵי־אֵ֔ל וְיֹדֵ֖עַ דַּ֣עַת עֶלְי֑וֹן

If you just read the verses that we’ve read now, there doesn’t seem to be anything negative about Bilaam, which In a sense, Rabbi, if you think of the fact that we use his prophecy, there’s a certain logic to the fact, I mean, you can always make the case it’s the song, not the singer, so to speak, but in this case, if you read just these verses, if it is a profound message, and we’ll try to delve into what the message is, this is a guy whose eye is true, who hears God’s speech and obtains knowledge from the Most High. We can discuss another time maybe how the tradition later on put him into a negative position or didn’t give him his credit. It, maybe a little bit like Jethro, but I think for the purposes at hand, it certainly says some nice things about him, especially in terms of his prowess…, his power to say words that have had such an impact on our people.

7:09 – AM:

Yeah, I mean, that’s an important point. You see, I have a bigger question, which I’m sure will lead into what you’re going to talk about. Why does the story of Bilaam even make it into the Torah? Why does it make the cut? It actually is kind of one big parenthesis to the story, you know, the story of the desert. There’s spies in Korach and Moses hitting the rock, and next week Moses appoints a successor, which is Joshua. Where does Balak come from

7:39 – GS:

I don’t normally listen to other podcasts on the Parsha before we broadcast, but I saw that there was a podcast with Everett Fox Jewish Quest, episode 136 with Everett Fox, and I listened to it, and he kind of asked the same question, and his answer is, with all this negative stuff that we’ve been going through, whether it’s the spies, whether it’s Korach, whether it’s hitting the rock, the Jewish people, Israelites, needed a little bit of chizuk.

“So this whole section of numbers is nothing but complaining. By the time we get to this parasha, we’re really in need of a psychological boost.

And the people indeed are in need of some kind of not only talk, but a shot of injection of something positive. And so we move all of a sudden from this complaining bunch of ex-slaves who are about to all die in the wilderness, to a vision of a people dwelling alone but blessed. And it’s a tremendous emotional relief to get to this point, otherwise it’s all gloom.”

Of course, the only strength and positivity that you can get from this story is not the back story of trying to curse Israel. It’s the punchline, which are these verses, and these verses are a light within so much of the negativity and the darkness, they must have given the Israelites, as they were beginning the process of understanding that they would have to wage war, that they were not going to just be let in and to come home to their land. This was going to be a struggle. They had this Balaam say to How amazing you people are. Because at the end of the day, it’s almost like a pep talk, isn’t it?

9:00 – AM:

It really is. So you’re saying that this is it’s for the sake of the people. The people needed a pep talk. You know, they always say, and I’m sure this is true, that, you know, it’s okay to be to be complimented by your friends. But when your enemies compliment you, that’s really good.

9:17 – GS:

You know, I was almost thinking of having the whole podcast just on that, meaning to say there are things that have been said about the Jews that we have almost taken as a badge of courage, or whether it’s the wandering Jew that we covered in a previous episode, or Whatever it might be, and I thought that was in this category, and yes, we’re going to see even in the commentaries, there is that aspect of this. I mean, we Jews today are exactly the same. If a celebrity or an influencer who’s not Jewish says something nice of us, it has so much more purchase than if one of us says that. I mean, I think it’s natural, right? I mean, he’s objective.

10:05 – AM:

I mean, that’s what I’m saying. That comment is not so surprising. It’s true. What’s interesting is that the Torah includes it. That’s interesting.

10:15 – GS:

So, following on those scholars who believe that actually this text evolved over time, and for whatever reason, and I’m not going to get into the reason you can read those scholarly articles, over time, Jewish texts put Bilaam into a negative light.

But check out Sifrei 357, it’s the last chapter in Sifrei Devarim. It’s the end of the book, and it’s when Moses has died, and it says, there was no one like Moses. And the Sifrei says, and there shall not arise in Israel again a prophet as Moses, that’s the quote. And the Sifrei continues, but among the nations there did arise. And who was he? Bilaam, the son of Boer. But there is a difference between the prophecy of Moses and the prophecy of Bilaam. Moses did not know who was speaking to him, and Bilaam did know.

11:37 – GS:

The speech of the hearer of the words of the Almighty, Moses did not know when he would speak until he did so. Bilaam knew. Know of the knowledge of the Most High again quoting from our psukim. Moses did not speak with him unless he was standing, and Bilaam spoke with him when he was fallen. The vision of the Almighty shall be seen fallen in his eyes and covered. To whom may he be compared?

12:05 – GS:

To the king’s cook, who knows the expenses of the royal table, and it’s commenting on the pasuk that says there has never arisen a prophet such Moses in Israel and it makes a diyuk and says in Israel yes but in the world there was Bilaam. This is revolutionary.

12:38 – AM:

It’s revolutionary. These midrashim about Bilaam are revolutionary. Every one of them.

12:44 – GS:

So the next one is fascinating. In the Jerusalem Talmud Barakhot, it has a variation, a longer variation than what’s in the Babylonian Talmud, and it says, Rabbi Samuel Bar Nachman, in the name of Rabbi Yehuda Bar Zebida, said, It would have been logical that one also would have to recite the chapter of Balak and Bilaam every day, meaning during the Shema. Right now, we have three different paragraphs that we recite after the Shema every day. If there’s one prayer a day, you’re supposed to say its the Shema and these three paragraphs, and the rabbis are saying that actually this Mat Tovu should be part of that. Why does one not recite it? Not to inconvenience the public too much. Shalo latzriyach al hatzibut. So, this is a subject for another podcast, that there was a time where rabbis did not add prayers and add hours of our time in synagogue because they actually cared about inconveniencing the kahal, the tzibor, But, be that as it may, they said, you know, we have three paragraphs, we shouldn’t add a fourth with mat tovu, because it’s too much. But it begs the question of why they would want to add it. So Rav Chuna says, why would you want to add it? It says lying down and standing up. So if you recall when I said the verse in verse 9, they crouch, they lie down like a lion, like a lioness who dares rouse them. So simply because it talks about a lioness going down and coming up, we think about Uvashatacha uvkumecha, that when you lie down and when you rise up you should say these words. Rabbi Yosef Bar-Arabun said, because it contains the exodus and God’s kingdom, so we know from the Haggadah, the reason we talk about the tzitziot even at night is because it includes a reference to the Exodus. Rabbi Eliezer said because it is written in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Ketuvim, that because reference is made to Bilaam in all three of the various renderings of Tanakh, that’s why you should say it. I’m not that impressed by the answers. We’re going to find out that there were other answers given, but again, getting back to the value and the esteem that Billum was held in, there was a thought that we would be saying these verses every morning and every night as we rise up and as we go to bed. It’s pretty, pretty powerful.

15:48 – AM:

It’s remarkable is what it is, right? I mean, that these verses are as important as the Shema.

15:55 – GS:

So I always believe that there’s a genius to the Jewish people and that when you have a question like this, it’s not necessary in terms of the answers because what they’re asking is, this is what the Jewish people do, why is it so so important, and it’s possible that they might have lost the reason, but the value is still there. So I came across another Sefirah note who quoted from the Pri Etz Chaim, Gate of the World of Action 1:17. It’s written by Chaim Vital, who was a Kabbalist in the 16th century, and he writes as follows. It is necessary after one sits in the synagogue, before he begins to pray at all, and particularly at the morning prayers, that he accepts upon himself the yoke of the command to love one’s neighbor as himself. צריך שיקבל עליו מצות ואהבת לרעך כמוך

16:57 – GS:

Because when you say the Shema, the key is that you are being m’kabel ol malchut shamayim, the yoke of heaven. And here he says, tzurich sh’yikabel alav mitzvot vi’ahavta l’reyacha kamocha. So he’s saying when you walk into synagogue, and we’re going to get to the point where he is intentioning this matovu moment, you have to accept upon yourself the yoke, who knew there was such a yoke, to love one’s neighbor as oneself and to focus his attention on loving every Jew like himself. Since in this way the combined prayers of all Israel will rise and bear fruit and succeed, and it is forbidden for a person to pray before God in sadness, rather as a servant serving his master in great joy, for if not, there is no power in the soul to accept higher inspiration that comes as the result of prayer. To pray, you cannot have sadness. And it is only appropriate to be sad at the moment of the vidoy; of confession, but for all other prayers he should not place opposite his eyes any sadness, even regret over sins committed, and this is a huge and something one must keep in mind, it is invaluable. So, it is amazing that he combines this sense of loving one’s neighbor as oneself with the opposite of sadness. We started in the notes, I talked about the commentator in the New York Times,  who talked about the crisis of lonely and disconnected young men being radicalized into pure nihilism. The combination of being able to say,  Ma tovu, how good are these tents?  and the fact that tents are places that people live, tents our community. He combines this concept of being happy, being happy to serve one’s maker, to be a creation of God, and loving one’s neighbor and having the most basic social skills. This just blew me away.

19:14 – AM:

That’s remarkable. Now, I have a question to ask you. Do you think tents are different than homes? You think there’s something there?

19:22 – GS:

So, you know, he hasn’t really gotten into Ohel, a tent from that regard. But I do think that tents and Mishkan—and we’re going to get into the fact that latter rabbinic commentaries didn’t associate them so much with domiciles, but they related them to synagogues and houses of study… There’s definitely this sense of Bilaam looked at these people who clearly had their deficiencies They sent the spies. They had the Korach, getting back to Everett Fox’s comment. But how goodly are your tents? You are a community. If I had to talk about this ma tovu, good, I would say there was a book called Good to Great. We don’t have to be great. Sometimes we just have to recognize the good. And this is what it’s about, that we have community. That’s how I read into this, but this Ol Mitzvah, the Ahavta l’reacha kamocha, the accepting upon yourself first, before you start your prayers, before you really enter the the synagogue, to accept upon yourself the yoke, the burden, or the liberation of loving one’s fellow as oneself, I just was blown away with.

21:04 – GS:

So he doesn’t make the connection to the Ma Tovu, but the same source sheet that I looked upon quotes a Siddur Sefard upon arising Hashkamat HaBoker Seder Halichat L’Beit HaKnesset, and it says, before beginning the morning prayers, you should say the following.

21:26 – GS:

I hereby accept upon myself the positive commandment to love my fellow Jew, and of course, you know, Rabbi, you and I can say vi’havta l’re’ach ha’kamocha really means my fellow. It’s open for interpretation if it’s my fellow man. My family member, how large that community is. And then it goes on, the following verses from scripture are recited upon entering the synagogue, how good are your tents, Jacob. So at least in the rendering in this Sephardic Siddur, Nusach Sephard, it does make the direct connection. Between accepting upon yourself the yoke of loving one’s neighbor as oneself and saying, how goodly are your tents, O Jacob, the dwelling places of Israel. So I find, and credits to the other Sefirah notes who made this connection, It is clear that this is the verse and this Sephardic Siddur are literally saying the reason it belongs in the Shema is because you have to accept the ol Ahavta l’Reach Kamocha along with the ol of Malchut Shemayim. You have to accept loving your neighbor as yourself, loving yourself self-loving joy and positivity and communion with other people along with accepting God. I think it ties the knot and it literally is an answer to that Talmud Yerushalmi and Bavli about why you would think of putting these verses into the Kriyayat Shema every morning and light.

23:26 – AM:

I think that’s really nice. I mean, yeah, I mean, that that’s, that’s really, you know, it’s interesting that there isn’t a discussion about putting the Ahavta l’Re’ach Kamocha in the daily service. It’s only this which represents that love that we that we put in the daily service. Isn’t that interesting? Why doesn’t it? Why don’t they say we should put love your neighbor as yourself into the daily service?

23:50 – GS:

I think that’s a wonderful question. It’s almost like it came in through the back door. It came in surreptitiously. We had to discover it through Chaim Vital and Nusrach Safard. So that kind of goes along with what the scholars are saying in theTorah.com, two articles that I referenced. And what they said, and it’s understandable that as the Jewish people went into exile and were continually persecuted, they started to close ranks, and they started to take, whether it’s a verse like loving your fellow as yourself and making it relate to Jew. Also, when it came down even to ma tovu ohalecha, I’ve been taking liberties and saying it means your fellow person, your communal, sharing, tent-bearing person, if you look at Rashi’s numbers, how goodly are your tents, how goodly are the tent of Shiloh and the temple, meaning a temple in Jerusalem, all of a sudden you see the commentaries who are particularizing it. Who on the one hand are particularizing Bilaam as a prophet of the heathen who was forced to say this, became a forced mouthpiece of God, and on the other hand taking his prophecy and his blessing and particularizing and contracting it and constraining it. You said at the beginning of our podcast, how you can tell it’s different when your enemy blesses you. The Talmud in Sanhedrin says, Rabbi Yochanan says, from the blessing of that wicked person, meaning Bilaam, you can ascertain what was in his heart. He sought to say that they should not have synagogues and study halls. How goodly are you, Tents o’ Jacob? You can realize from that that he understood the secret sauce of our people, and he had in his mind to curse those and those tabernacles, that is our strength. So again, they took it into the realm of polemic, and in a sense, they constrained it, and in a sense, that might lie behind why they didn’t put flagrantly Love your neighbor as yourself. Because it’s hard to love your neighbor as yourself when you have a pogrom and when the rules that you live under are different from the rest of the population. It’s natural, but it is kind of what it is.

26:42 – AM:

Well, you know that Rabbi Akiva famously says, Love your neighbor as yourself doesn’t mean actually love your neighbor as yourself. You can’t really do that. But don’t do to other people what you would not want to have done to you.

26:53 – GS:

And again, he turned it around as a negative, but even that talks about a victim.

27:02 – GS:

Remember that you’re a victim and never victimize as a result of it. I think that’s absolutely beautiful. So I started thinking about Ma Tovu, and of course I called the name of this episode, How Good Is That?, because Ma Tovu means how good. It is just an open-ended assertion of things are good, and we’ve got to recognize the good that there’s another very famous pasuk that uses the same type of phrase, and it’s Psalm 133. For those of you who have trouble with long psalms, this psalm is three verses, and it says, the song of assent of David.

How good and how pleasant it is that brothers dwell together!

הִנֵּ֣ה מַה־טּ֭וֹב וּמַה־נָּעִ֑ים שֶׁ֖בֶת אַחִ֣ים גַּם־יָֽחַד

It is like fine oil on the head running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron that comes down over the collar of his robe, like the dew of Hermon that falls upon the mountains of Zion. There the Lord ordained blessing and everlasting life.

28:12 – Unidentified Speaker

We have another iconic verse that has stood the test of time. It clearly was impactful when it was written in the Psalms, but up until the Zionists and the Chalutzim (pioneers), it was a song of how amazing it is when brothers and sisters, whether it’s kibbutzniks, whether it’s idealists, whether it’s people that share a vision, where it’s humankind sit together. It’s not a very high reach. It’s not saying how goodly it is when world peace exists.

It’s good. We live in a world, it seems to me, where everybody thrives on trading bad news. And if these kids that we talk about that ultimately take a gun and start shooting people up and they become nihilists, it’s because they live in a culture that thrives on bad news. And I think if the words of Bilaam are as high or if not higher than anything that Moses ever said, it’s because it sets the bar, I wouldn’t say low, because once you understand it, it is oh so powerful, but it’s just recognize the good of human communality, of being together. It’s just such a powerful message. It blows me away.

AM: Fantastic this was great and you started by saying that you know that this is a week of gratitude and you’re really not only do you choose a verse that represents gratitude but you have a whole explanation a Kabbalistic explanation and a regular explanation that all come back to the same point so I think that on this week we can all be grateful, and you can be especially grateful. And we all, all of us in Madlik wish you a Refuah Shelemah. You should feel better quickly, and you should get back to the swimming pool and the tennis court and all those things as quickly as possible. And it’s nice to know that, injured or not, Madlik keeps on going.

GS: Well, thank you very much. It’s a privilege, a joy. It is good to be here. So let’s all praise the good, thank the good, share the good. Start out your day by sharing good news, not bad news. Look at the world half-full and not half-dead. If you want to pray, understand that you can’t pray unless you’re joyful and not contrite. It’s a very powerful image, and if we have to thank Bilaam for that, thank you, Bilaam. That’s as good as it gets. Shabbat shalom. Shabbat shalom. Be well. Bye-bye.