We Must Stand Loud and Proud As Jews Again

Our own Jewishness begins to sicken us, and so we scramble to conform, in seeking validation and confirmation of our worth as citizens of the world. After thousands of years of revulsion, of nausea at the sight of our beards, and our head coverings, the world has sold us the message of our own repulsiveness. We lower our heads and take off our yarmulkes. We change our Hebrew names, fix our noses, and destroy all evidence of our Jewishness.

What a shame to forget the mighty nation that we are, whose presence in the great Judean desert made nations around us tremble. What a tragedy to forget the fearsome men and women from whom we come, whose every move was ordained and instructed by G-d.

Thirsty Souls: how do we keep our heads held high? We must close our eyes, and visualize that which we read in this weeks Torah portion. In it, is something you will never come across again. We are given a glimpse, in the form of perfect poetry, of the Jewish people from G-d’s perspective. We are given permission to see ourselves from the mind of G-d.

In an attempt to rid the world of the loathsome Jews, King Balak seeks out Bilaam, the non-Jewish prophet, who had direct access to G-d, His curses and His blessings. Balak cries out, “Please come and curse this people for me… for I know that whomever you bless is blessed, and whomever you curse is cursed.”

G-d hovers above Bilaam, and causes not curses, but blessings to flow from the mouth of the prophet. Bilaam takes up his poem, thundering, “How can I curse whom God has not cursed? For from their beginning, I see them as mountain peaks, I behold them as hills; it is a nation that will dwell alone, and will not be reckoned among the nations. He does not look at evil in Jacob, and has seen no perversity in Israel; the Lord, his God, is with him, and he has the King’s love.”

We are likened to the towering Andes mountains, whose existence seems to precede the world, whose lonely peaks scrape the heavens above. Like that fearsome mountain range, we Jews seem to be tethered to the core of the earth. Like those lonely mountain tops, we have been, and always will be different, alone in the way we eat and sleep, live and teach.

Like those soaring mountain peaks who seek no validation, or permission to stand tall and strong amidst the high elevation winds, we Jews need no permission or validation to live the way we do.

How can anyone curse those who are so loved? All the disgust in the world cannot faze us; we have the King’s love.