Healing Well of Miriam

18 Tammuz 5779 / July 21, 2019  ~~ Parshat Balak

Balaam was called the prophet of the Nations, considered by the rabbis on a par with Moshe Rabbenu.  Balak, the king of Moab, asked this prophet to curse the people of Israel.  Even Balaam’s donkey was convinced that mission was folly.  So, after the donkey bashed his leg against the wall and then spoke to him, Balaam prayed and agreed to only speak the words Hashem allowed him to say.  Balak was furious when the prophet, contrary to his own desire, blessed Israel from every high place that he took him: “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob.” 

When Avraham received the covenant—that he would pass to the chosen line of his children—he was promised: “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.”  This is the stalwart mission of Bnai Noah—to bring this promised blessing upon their own nations.

There are representatives in the American Congress who take every opportunity to spew vicious anti-Semitism, not just at Israel, but also toward American Jews as having questionable loyalty.  (Where have we heard that before?)  They cloak their distortions and outright lies in pseudo righteous indignation.  Unfortunately, they have their fan clubs—people sucked in by the politically correct morality of the moment.  Yet this is nothing new—from the leaders or the followers.  It is the same spirit of Amalek that was embraced by Balak and by Balaam.  What is interesting to note is that in the end, even while still trying to find a place to get away with cursing Israel, Balaam was unable to speak anything but blessing.  He was clearly unaware that God is God of EVERY place in Heaven and Earth; no place is empty of His Presence.  This is what the Bnai Noah of the Nations have come to understand, as they have embraced the consciousness of Abraham. 

In the United States, one president after another promised to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, thus recognizing this ancient capital of Israel, that was chosen by God Himself.  One president after another crumbled under pressure and reneged on this promise.  We have the great privilege to have been witness in our own time to the historic honoring of this promise by President Donald J. Trump.  With this, he represented the United States in blessing Israel, and other nations followed the example.  What more “goodly tent” can there be than the place called by God “a House of Prayer of all Peoples”?