Rabbi Eric Yanoff
Parshat Balak
By any measure, the Torah portion of Balak is absurd: A faraway guru-like prophet named Bilaam tapped to curse the people of Israel … Our God, usually quite decisive, flip-flops and decides to let Bilaam try cursing (with conditions) … A talking donkey (like something out of “Shrek”!). … The story should make us laugh and shake our heads.
Bilaam tries, multiple times, to curse us — but only blessings come forth, culminating in the most famous praise: “Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishkenotecha Yisrael — How good are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings O Israel!” (Bemidbar 24:5). Rashi’s commentary cites a Talmudic stipulation (BT Bava Batra 60a) that Israel’s tents were praiseworthy because their openings did not face one another, allowing privacy for each household.
The value of privacy, symbolized by the varied directions of tent openings, is an important teaching — and yet it stands in contrast with another teaching about a superior tent — that of Abraham, whose tent was open to all directions so that he could see out and prepare for guests approaching from afar. The model of an open-sided tent is re-enacted by the wedding chuppah as the ideal Jewish home — a space set apart for the couple but open on all sides to include everyone in their simcha, in their home.
Presumably, if Abraham could see out in all directions, then people could also see in, from all directions. Which, then, is the perfect home — one with opaque sides that keeps our business hidden and private, with openings askew from one another … or a more open, transparent, welcoming tent that affords little privacy or discretion?
These two distinct models of a perfect tent reflect a tension in our communal lives: There are times when, perhaps even against our instinct, we open our homes and force ourselves to be seen by those who can care for us. In addition to the symbolism of the chuppah, I think of shiva as one such time when our homes are open to receive other’s care.
There are other times when privacy is needed and valued; for example, the mitzvah of bikkur cholim (visiting those who are sick) teaches us that we must be affirmatively admitted to a person’s bedside by the patient. As a rabbi, I experience my knock on a hospital room door as a sacred moment — giving agency and say-so to a person who may otherwise feel less in control or assured, due to illness or injury.
So, too, in the past nine months, this tension of how cloistered and protected we are versus how open and bare to the world we are has proven painful for us as a Jewish people. In many alliances, we often assumed that we were an “open tent” — welcoming in and embracing others’ pain and needs, taking on their struggles as our own causes, joining arm in arm, as allies and friends … and then we felt the pain of their silence when WE were at our most vulnerable.
Understandably, we might tie down our tent flaps and turn inward, feeling hurt, abandoned, ignored. It is certainly reasonable, especially given the silence of those whom we might have thought were allies and friends, that we might emphasize the needs of our own tent more, unlike Abraham’s looking to others on the horizon. Yet I have still been amazed how many still cling to both tent models — insisting on openness and connection, while also focusing on our people’s most immediate, internal, critical needs at this moment of vulnerability and pain.
Notably, I write this from Camp Ramah, where we teach Jewish values of privacy and dignity, each tzrif (bunk) claiming its own private space, its own “vibe” — while the sense of open community, togetherness and love is unmistakable and infinitely nurturing.
Bilaam, the prophet from afar, looks at Israel and cannot see inside the tents; he sees this opaqueness as a praiseworthy “secret sauce,” worthy of blessing. Abraham looks out of his open tent from within, in the hope that potential friends may come from the outside and become welcome guests and allies.
Both are necessary for us to survive as a people both distinctive on our own, and connected with the world around us. Both, in balance, make us worthy of those words, “mah tovu” — how good we can and must be in a world desperate for our goodness, our light, and our dignity as a Jewish people.
Rabbi Eric Yanoff serves as a rabbi at Adath Israel in Merion Station and is finishing a month teaching at Camp Ramah in the Poconos, where his love of Judaism led to his decision to pursue the rabbinate. The Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia is proud to provide diverse perspectives on Torah commentary for the Jewish Exponent. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Board of Rabbis.