Coping with Loss and Betrayal

Chukat/ Balak 5786

Two weeks ago, we read of Moses pleading with God in order to save the people that he had liberated. Yet, now we read of Moses cursing those very same people, referring to them as “rebels” because they had the audacity to complain about a lack of water. Why did Moses turn on his flock so quickly? Rabbi Jonathan Sacks provides us with a simple, yet, convincing answer. 

Immediately preceding the water shortage, Moses’ elder sister, Miriam, had died. In fact, the Talmud (Taanit 9a) explains that due to Miriam’s merit a well of water miraculously accompanied the Children of Israel throughout their travels up until her death.  Moses, for the first time since leading the people out of Egypt was confronted with a crisis without his trusted big sister at his side. After all, it was Miriam who had watched over him as he had floated down the Nile in a basket. Miriam ensured that Moses would be cared for by his birth mother, Yocheved, after Pharoah’s daughter drew him from the water. To use Maimonides terminology, Miriam was chavera habitachon,  a true friend that is always there for you.

The loss of such a friend is heartbreaking. The betrayal by such a friend is devastating. The Jewish world is now struggling to deal with such betrayal. President Trump, despite his significant faults, up to this point had been considered by many as one of the most pro-Israel presidents since the founding of the modern Jewish state, twice joining with Israel in attacks against the genocidal Iranian regime. Such strikes were carried out in order to protect the United States, Israel and their allies from the world’s leading sponsor of terror. But now, the President has done an about face. As David Horovitz, the founding editor of the Times of Israel recently opined, Trump’s attempts to appease Iran, which include condemning Israel for taking defensive action against Iran’s terror proxy, Hezbollah, echo the 1938 Munich Agreement. That infamous agreement permitted Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia in hopes of avoiding war with Germany.   Of course, instead of culminating in the “peace in our time” that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain predicted, the appeasement attempt only emboldened the Third Reich, making a second world war inevitable.

Though echoes of 1938 are deeply troubling, echoes which can be heard by close reading the Torah are reassuring. Parshat Balak, the second Torah portion we read this Shabbat, reminds us that we can overcome  betrayal. Balaam, a prophet for hire, betrayed God and Israel by attempting to subvert the divine will by cursing the very nation which God had declared was to be blessed. Though Balaam opened his mouth with the intent to curse Israel, the Lord true to his word, would not allow the rogue prophet to do so. To the chagrin of his patron, Balak, the king of Moav, every time the gentile prophet attempted to curse Israel, a blessing passed through his lips.  

Of particular significance is Balaam’s blessings, “How good are your tents O Jacob,” (which still today is recited upon entering a synagogue) in which he refers to Israel by the name of its third patriarch, Yaakov (Jacob). When Jacob found himself alone on the road at night, after being forced to flee home fearing his brother’s homicidal rage, we are told v’yifga Hamakom, literally meaning “he chanced upon the place.” However, Hamakom doesn’t simply mean “the place,” it is a reference to God. In other words, God is in the places we least expect to find him, even the darkest of places. Balaam’s invocation of Yaakov is a reminder that though we suffer loss and betrayal, our God stands by our side and lifts us up. As King David states in Psalm 27, “Though my father and mother abandon me, God will take me in.”