Rabbi Kane received the honor of being named a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Hartman Institute at a ceremony this week.
This week's Torah Reading:
Balak
2013:Numbers 22: 9 - 25:9
Parashat Balak
tells of the fascinating story of the king of Moab (
Balak
) who calls upon the prophet
Balaam
to curse the people of Israel so the Moabites can conquer them. As Balaam travels to find the Israelites, the Torah relates a fascinating confrontation between him and his donkey. As they are traveling, Balaam's donkey sees an angel of God which Balaam cannot see, blocking the way. The donkey will not move. In response, Balaam beats the donkey. Finally, the Torah relates that God opens the mouth of the donkey and words come out! The donkey says "What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?" (Num 22:28) Balaam's eyes are opened and he is then able to see the angel of God.
Try as he might, Balaam must speak the truth, the words that God puts into his mouth. Each time he goes to curse the Israelites, he blesses them instead! In one instance, he recites the words that became part of our liturgy to this day:
ma tovu ohalecha ya'akov, mishkenotecha yisrael:
How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel." (Num 24: 5) Having failed in his mission, Balaam returns to his home.
The sessions at my final week at the Hartman Institute centered on the different points of views of the two most important Jewish communities in the world-Israel and the United States. While there are great efforts made to connect our Jewish community and Israel, and also great efforts to make the Israeli Jewish community more sensitive to the needs of American Jews, at times it feels like Balaam and his donkey, where one cannot see or understand what seems obvious to the other.
This is something that could of course lead both communities to despair, or conversely it could help us understand how fortunate we are to be at this juncture in history where we have both a thriving diaspora community and a re-established Jewish homeland. It was only 75 years ago that we had neither. One of the many pieces I will bring home with me is that if a donkey can make a prophet see what he might otherwise not understand, surely Jews in Israel and America, through hard work and thoughtful dialogue, can do the same for each other.
Shabbat Shalom
,
Rabbi Steven Kane
