Friendship Over Fear (Chukat-Balak)
There is no shortage of wisdom in this week’s double Torah portion, Chukat and Balak. But this year, I found myself returning to the teaching of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory, whose clarity often feels not only wise, but prophetic.
In Balak, the non Israelite prophet Bilaam is hired to curse the people of Israel. He stands above the Israelite camp, ready to harm them with words, and instead words of blessing emerge. Some of those words have become among the most beloved in Jewish tradition: “How good are your tents, Jacob.” We now prayerfully recite them when entering Jewish sacred space, often forgetting that they first came from a man who intended us harm.
But Rabbi Sacks reminds us that not every apparent blessing is simple. The rabbis understood Bilaam’s language as ambiguous, with curses hidden inside blessings. One phrase in particular troubled Rabbi Sacks: “a people that dwells alone. (Num. 23:9)” It can sound noble, even comforting. We are unique. Set apart. We have survived by maintaining our covenantal integrity.
And yet, Rabbi Sacks warned, there is a difference between being set apart and being alone. The Torah itself teaches, “It is not good for a person to be alone. (Gen. 2:18)” To be distinct can be holy. To be lonely is a curse. And if we tell ourselves that Jewish destiny is loneliness, we may begin to live into that story.
That warning feels painfully current. This week, Rabbi Yoni Birnbaum shared that a holiday rental in eastern France became conditional once the owners realized he was a rabbi. Suddenly, before his family could be welcomed as guests, he had to answer for Israel. That is not hospitality. That is hatred. It is the old curse dressed in polite language: no Jew is simply a person, a guest, a neighbor.
But that must not be the only story we tell.
Because there are also people who step in when Jews are threatened, people who say, “We are with you.” There are allies who refuse to let hatred have the final word. And there is Israel, which, even amid its own pain and imperfection, so often rushes toward disaster, as it is already doing after the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela. That, too, is part of who we are: not condemned to loneliness, but called to blessing.
Chukat and Balak together remind us that Jewish life moves through wilderness, loss, fear, and uncertainty. But the answer to fear is not isolation. The answer is covenant. The answer is friendship. The answer is to build a world in which no vulnerable people is left alone.
Bilaam may have intended loneliness as a curse. We are called to answer with connection. We can be proud without being closed. We can be distinct without being isolated. We can be wounded without becoming only defensive.
To be a Jew is not to be hated by others. It is to be loved by God, to be a blessing.
