Dvar Torah for Parshat Balak

Based on Likutey Halakhot, Hilkhot Yom Tov 5:11

This coming Sunday is the first day of Bein HaMitzarim (literally, Between the Straits) a.k.a., The Three Weeks, the three week period of mourning for the Beit HaMikdash (the Temple). The 17th of Tamuz, the first day of the Three Weeks, is the anniversary of the breaching of the outer walls of Jerusalem. The Ninth of Av, the final day of the Three Weeks, is the anniversary of the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. (This year these two dates fall on Shabbat. Therefore, they are observed on the following day.)

You’ve been walking around this planet long enough to know that “what goes up, must come down.” No matter how hard, we try we can’t escape the gravitational pull of the earth. No matter how hard and high we may throw something, it will go only so far before it comes back to the ground. (Satellites and spaceships will be discussed later.)

Anything that manifests kedushah (holiness) automatically and irresistibly attracts the Jewish soul. OK, not quite as irresistibly as we would like. There are many, many anti-gravity forces busy at work keeping us away. In fact, even the thing that exerted the strongest pull towards kedushah, the Beit HaMikdash, was destroyed when the anti-gravity, anti-holiness, forces became too strong. This was a result of the sin of the golden calf (which took place on the 17th of Tamuz) and our sins.

What do we do to show that we are mourning the Temple’s absence, the absence of the awareness of Hashem’s continual presence? On Tisha B’Av (The Ninth of Av), the climax of the three weeks of mourning, we sit on the ground. This has multiple significance. The first aspect of sitting on the ground is that we are showing that we recognize our lowliness-we have been defeated, by others and by ourselves, and have failed to maintain our commitment to the Torah and her values.

This leads into a second aspect of sitting on the ground. We are trying to re-establish a connection with the gravitational energy symbolized by the earth. We very much want to be drawn to the true “gravitational force,” to the holiness that Hashem has made available in the world. This is an application of what the prophet says, “Wake up! Get up from the earth” (Isaiah 52:2)! That is, “Wake up! Get up! How? Learn from the earth.” Resist that and those who try to keep you away from holiness.

“Undo the chains around your neck” (ibid.). The prophet specifically uses the word “chains” because the anti-kedushah forces want to keep us bound to our sins, tethered to our taavot (lusts). Because the element of earth is what contains each of the other three elements and so, in one sense, is the source of that which we lust for. Yet, that same earth symbolizes the humility that we so much need to have vis-‡-vis the Creator.

This contradictory symbolism underscores a fact that we cannot afford to forget: We cannot always tell if some thing is a magnet drawing us to kedushah or, God forbid, away from it. Is a job offer going to enhance our ability to serve Hashem or blind us to our purpose in this world? Is a relationship with a prospective significant other going to turn you into Abraham and Sarah or into Ahab and Jezebel? The tension created by the confusion of not knowing how all the elements of a situation are mixed is necessary for our free will to be in effect.

Our only hope to choose properly is to respond with humility and ask God to guide us in the decision making process that His will be done. We can do that honestly if we bear in mind that no matter how attractive and seductive the money, sex or food that haunts us is, it is not the reason we came to this world.

Although we must break the chains of lust, we know that it is not always so simple. There are two tools that we can make use of to achieve this goal. The first is desire for kedushah. Even as you bite into that seemingly irresistible cheeseburger you can scream in your heart that you don’t want it; you can tell God that you deny any affiliation with it-as guilty as you may be for eating it, it is not you and it is not who you want to be! What you want is holiness and anything that manifests it.

The second tool is humility. Don’t seek glory or honor that you don’t deserve. (Respect is something else.) Keep in mind that you were (or are) too weak to resist temptation and too blind to always distinguish between what should be sought and what should be avoided.

However, the point is not to feel miserable, dejected or rejected. “Sitting on the ground” is a necessary step, but a temporary one. And you have the best neighbor. “Rebbe Yochanan said, ‘Wherever you find the humility of the Holy One, there you find His greatness’” (Megillah 31a). And as Reb Noson interprets this: Wherever you experience the humility of the Holy One, there you experience His greatness. By commiserating to God and deferring to Him you will experience the greatest measure of closeness to Him.

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The following is related to the parsha.

A story:

One time the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the famed kabbalist) was learning with his students. He noticed two ravens on a nearby tree. Their feathers had been plucked. The Arizal said to them. “You villains! When you were in this world you wanted to destroy an entire nation. Now when you suffer, you come to me?! Be gone!” The birds flew away.

The students asked the Arizal to explain to them the exchange he had had with the ravens. The Arizal answered, “Know that those two birds are Balak and Balaam. They have just finished one Gehinnom (Hell) and are about to enter another, more severe one. They asked me to pray that they be spared. That’s why I answered what I did.”

agutn Shabbos!
Shabbat Shalom!