Dvar Torah – Parashat Balak | Rabbis For Human Rights

Dvar Torah – Parashat Balak

By Rabbis for Human Rights on July 8, 2007 - כ"ב תמוז תשס"ז

This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Balak. Balak, King of Moab, is afraid of the approaching Israelites and asks Balaam to curse them. God first tells him not to go, allows him to go but threatens him on the way, and finally instructs Balaam to bless rather than curse. Having not been able to curse the Israelites, Moabite women seduce the Israelite men to idolatry and sexual debauchery. A plague erupts, and God orders that all of those leading the people into sin be killed, and Pinkhas, the grandson of Aaron impales an Israelite chieftain while in the midst of sexual relations with the daughter of a Midianite chieftain.

One of the clear lessons of this story is that we can destroy ourselves from within where nobody can destroy us from without. Last week we dealt with 300 olive trees uprooted from Kariyut by settlers from the adjacent outpost. Half those trees are still missing and presumably were sold at great profit in Israel. Yesterday Palestinians being attacked by settlers in Um El Tuba waited for over an hour for security forces to arrive, and then let the settlers go. On Tuesday soldiers put a woman in a punishment cage as her children looked when she came to retrieve her ID card taken from her when she “dared” to cross a “forbidden” road to harvest her wheat.

This kind of behavior corrodes us from within.

As we read of the terrible but consensual sexual crimes of the Israelites in this weeks portions, I can’t help but think of the fact that next week our former president will admit guilt to sexual crimes committed against women against their will.

Yesterday Minister Eli Yishai announced with great fanfare that the Israeli Wisconsin Plan was now dead. Long live the new plan. Without a doubt the changes made by Yishai will relieve the suffering of many. However, as far as we know, the new plan still relies on the same for profit companies to be truly concerned with the welfare of the unemployed, is still based on the lashon hara that a large percentage of the unemployed are “fakers” who need to be forced to take all of the jobs that don’t exist until Israel begins to create more living wage jobs. This way of looking at others within our society also corrodes us from within and destroys communal solidarity that ought to be the very fabric of society. Just as the Israelites let in foreign women to tempt them with idolatry, we are letting in foreign companies in to run our social welfare system in a way very far from the values of communal responsibility for the weak among us that helped us survive in the desert of exile for thousands of years.

As suspicious as I am of the new program, I do take heart from the fact that the State has recognized the truth of the claims we have been making for almost two years that the Israeli Wisconsin plan is causing great suffering and injustice. It is making moves to fix this, even if these moves are far from adequate.

May it be Your will, Oh God, that we free ourselves of the idolatry of the power of the gun and the idolatry of profits over people to return to the building of the society that You intended.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbis for Human Rights recommends that you read these articles in Balaq

Balaq: Human Rights and adhering to a democratic process - July 10th, 2008
Dvar Torah – Parashat Balak - July 8th, 2007
Balaq: Deluding ourselves into thinking that all is well in our society - July 6th, 2006
Balaq: We cannot negotiate for peace on the one hand and violate Human Rights on the other - July 14th, 2005

Rabbis for Human Rights recommends that you read these articles in rhr profile

Our Issues - February 5th, 2008
Rabbis For Human Rights Site map - February 5th, 2008
Rabbi Dr. Baruch Leff - January 2nd, 2008
Dvar Torah – Parashat Metzorah - July 8th, 2007
Dvar Torah – Bamidbar - July 8th, 2007
Dvar Torah - The Value of Peace As a Religious Goal - July 8th, 2007
Dvar Torah – B’Haalotkha - July 8th, 2007
Desecrating Their Graves- Desecrating Our Souls - July 8th, 2007
Dvar Torah – Parashat Balak - July 8th, 2007
Happy are they who maintain justice, and do righteousness at all times - June 27th, 2007
Our Mission - November 21st, 2006
Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi - February 4th, 2005
Who We Are - January 21st, 2000

Categories: Balaq, rhr profile
Tags: Bo, human rights, order, palestinians, settlers, truth