D'var Torah Balak - “Mah Tovu - How Good it is to be Different”

June 29, 2018 - Congregation Beth Israel

Written and delivered by Rabbi Jeremy Gimbel

Shabbat Shalom!

Mah tovu ohalecha ya'akov mishkenotecha Yisrael (round, 2x)

Those words -- How good are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel -- are
spoken in this week's Torah portion after a man named Balak -- a wealthy, racist,
xenophobic, and paranoid leader -- uses his power and influence to speak ill of a
people, for the sole reason that they are different.

Balak is a king of the neighboring Moabite community and he is fearful of the

Jewish population. They’re just too big, he complains, they have too much
influence...I think we have heard that before. Balak decides that the only way he
can get a leg up on the Israelites is to hire a local prophet, Balaam, to stand on
top of a mountain and curse the Israelites. Although Balak does his best to
persuade Balaam to curse the Israelites, Balaam repeatedly tells Balak that he can
only speak the words God puts in his mouth.

It should come as no surprise, then, that when Balaam goes to the high place and
takes a look at the Israelite community, he does not curse the Israelites, but he
blesses them, differences and all: “Mah tovu ohalecha ya’akov mishkenotecha Yisrael
- How good are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel.” This blessing was so
powerful that the rabbis who formed our prayerbook ensured that the first prayer we
say in a morning service begins: “Mah tovu ohalecha ya’akov mishkenotecha Yisrael -
How good are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel.”

What is it about these tents and dwelling places that brought Balaam to offer these
words? Rabbi Yochanan teaches in the Talmud that Balaam saw that the doors of their
tents did not exactly face each other, and that the Israelites thus respected each
other's privacy. (Bava Batra 60a) In other words, the Israelites respected
community cohesion and the right to be different, unique, individual.

Jews embrace differences. Take a second and think about what the one, central
teaching of Judaism is. If I was to poll the room, I’m sure I would get different
answers from nearly all of you. The rabbis struggled with this as well. For Rabbi
Akiba, a -- not the, but a -- central teaching of the Torah was to love your
neighbor as yourself. For Hillel, it was, “What is hateful to you do not do to
another.” While these stalwarts of our tradition could not agree on a central tenet
of Judaism, the fact that they cannot agree is actually one of the more beautiful
things about Judaism: we embrace dialogue, we embrace nuance, we embrace the right
to be different. Judaism does not say, “You must think this way;” Judaism says,
“Oh, good, you’re thinking!”

What else makes us different? It is our obligations to each other and to God which
are articulated in this week's Haftarah portion by the prophet Micah: "It has been
told you, O mortal, what is good, and what the Eternal requires of you: Only this:
to do justly, and love mercy/lovingkindness/goodness, and walk humbly (aware that
we are only human) with your God." (Micah 6:8) Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin posits that
this verse means something radical: "Don't pay attention to what society say. Know
that there are greater ideals out there, a deeper reality...to be Jewish is to
strive for the ethical no matter what the circumstances. To be Jewish is to listen
to God, even more than you listen to people [and what you think society is telling
you]. In other words, strive to be different, for being Jewish inherently means to
be different.

So, perhaps Balaam’s blessing was a reminder to us all. Perhaps Balaam’s blessing
was meant to hold a mirror up to us. Perhaps Balaam’s blessing was really something
very Jewish: celebrating what makes Jews different.

This Shabbat, may we be like Balaam, reminding us to celebrate our differences, to

see the good, and create a Shabbat Shalom, a Shabbat of communal wholeness, of
goodness, of peace.

Mah tovu - how good it is to be different!

Sing Mah Tovu (Round)