Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

At the beginning of this week’s sidra we find a verse that is somewhat difficult to comprehend.  Balak, the king of Moab had heard reports of Israel’s victory over the Amorites.  Frightened about what the Israelites might do to his own people, Balak in conjunction with the neighbouring Midianites hired a heathen prophet by the name of Balaam to curse the Children of Israel and impede their progress.  Moabite and Midianite elders were then sent to discuss the matter further with Balaam.  So far, so good, however the next verse is theologically problematical:

וַיָבֹא אֱלֹקִים אֶל-בִלְעָם וַיֹאמֶר מִי הָאֲנָשִים הָאֵלֶה עִמָךְ

And God came to Balaam and said, “Who are these men with you?” (Numbers 22:9)

The question God asks of Balaam is somewhat confusing; in fact it is quite absurd.  After all, how is it possible that God, described in Jewish theology as omniscient, i.e. all knowing – is unable to identify these men?  If God knows everything, why does He need to ask this question?

Rashi’s commentary offers one answer:

By asking this question, God intended to mislead Balaam.  The strategy worked for Balaam assumed that there would be times when everything is not manifest to God.  As a result, Balaam proposed, quite erroneously as it turned out that “I will select a time to curse Israel when God will not be able to observe it.”

The Spanish commentator, Ibn Ezra, proposes a different idea:

By asking, “Who are these men?” God was simply opening a conversation with Balaam.  This is similar to the question put to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” (Gen. 4:9).   For when Cain denied knowledge of Abel’s whereabouts, God informed him, “The sound of your brother’s blood cries out to Me.” (Gen. 4:10).  God knew the answer before he asked the question.

The Italian commentator, Sforno, brings a third idea, namely that Balaam was acting disingenuously.

Who are these people, on whose account you are trying to receive prophetic messages?  Be truthful, have they really come to you simply to inquire about matters which will occur in the future; are you being honest when you claim you need to know about the future in order to give them guidance?  Is it not true, that the real reason for them coming to see you, is so that they may enlist your support to curse Israel – and what you are really asking for is My permission to fulfil their request?

However, I am drawn to the commentary of the Kli Yakar, written by Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz (Poland 16^th/17^th century), who argued that God’s question to Balaam, “Who are these men with you?” was not meant to demonstrate any lack of knowledge, but rather to prompt Balaam to reflect on his own actions and above all the company he was keeping.  In other words, the Kli Yakar understood the question as somewhat rhetorical and at the same time derisory: “Who (on earth) are these men who have come to see you!”  It is as if God was dumbfounded at Balaam’s choice of company and questioned how he could engage with people such as this, who would only harm his reputation and influence him negatively in the future. 

The way the Kli Yakar turns a question into an exclamation is similar to another verse in Parashat Balak: מַה-טֹּבוּ אֹהָלֶיךָ יַעֲקֹב מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל.  Although the verse begins with the interrogative מַה which is normally translated what – in this case it is not so much a question, more a statement of fact – How goodly are your tents O Jacob, your dwelling places O Israel (Numbers 24:5).  Similarly in the Book of Psalms we find the well-known phrase: מָה-רַבּוּ מַעֲשֶיךָ ה’ (Psalm 104:24) – here again the word מַה does not introduce a question – the Psalmist is not asking about God’s greatness, as if it is something that requires debate or measurement, rather the Psalmist utters an exclamation of sheer praise: “O Lord, how manifold are your works!”.

Of course the main lesson to be learnt from this commentary of the Kli Yakar is that we should be wary of the company we keep, of the nature of the friends we make, and that we should surround ourselves as much as possible with good people.

It was Jordan Peterson in his 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos who suggested that one of those rules should be Make friends with people who want the best for you.  In that chapter of his book, Peterson wrote some advice on this topic:

Here’s something to consider.  If you have a friend whose friendship you wouldn’t recommend to your sister, or your father, or your son, why would you have such a friend for yourself?  You are not morally obliged to support someone who is making the world a worse place.  Quite the opposite.  You should choose people who want things to be better not worse.  It’s a good thing, not a selfish thing, to choose people who are good for you.  If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness.  They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others, and punish you carefully when you do not.  This will help bolster your resolve to do what you should do, in the most appropriate and careful manner.  People who are not aiming up will do the opposite.  They will offer a former smoker a cigarette and a former alcoholic a beer.  They will become jealous when you succeed, or do something pristine.  Maybe they are trying to test you, to see if your resolve is real, to see if you are genuine.  But mostly they are dragging you down because your new improvements cast their faults in an even dimmer light.

Don’t think that it is easier to surround yourself with good healthy people than with bad unhealthy people.  It’s not.  A good, healthy person is an ideal.  It requires strength and daring to stand up near such a person.  So have some humility and make friends with people who want the best for you.

Although this was written by a non-Jewish Canadian, one feels that his words are but an extension of those written by one of our sages who lived in Judea two thousand years ago and contributed to the Mishnaic tract known as Ethics of the Fathers:

נִתַּאי הָאַרְבֵּלִי אוֹמֵר הַרְחֵק מִשָּׁכֵן רָע, וְאַל תִּתְחַבֵּר לָרָשָׁע

Said Nittai of Arbel: Keep your distance from bad neighbours,

and do not ally yourself with the wicked.  (Pirke Avot 1:7)

 

Nittai seems to have written this after the Pharisees had asked John Hyrcanus, the political leader of the nation (152 – 63 BCE), to relinquish the spiritual leadership of the people, i.e. the role of High Priest.  He reacted by abandoning the Pharisees, the sect to which Nittai belonged, and joined instead their arch enemy, the Sadducees.  Nittai viewed this as outright treachery and hence warned all his disciples to avoid contact with the ‘wicked’.

Continuing with the same theme, the rabbis in Pirke Avot added to Nittai’s original advice:

אָמַר לָהֶם צְאוּ וּרְאוּ אֵיזוֹהִי דֶרֶךְ יְשָׁרָה שֶׁיִּדְבַּק בָּהּ הָאָדָם.

רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אוֹמֵר, חָבֵר טוֹב. רַבִּי יוֹסֵי אוֹמֵר שָׁכֵן טוֹב

He (Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai) said to his disciples: go forth and see the right way to which a man should cleave?  Among a variety of responses, Rabbi Joshua said, a good companion and Rabbi Yose said, a good neighbour.  (Ethics of the Fathers 2:9)

All of these thoughts are summarised by Maimonides in Hilkhot Deot:

דֶּרֶךְ בְּרִיָּתוֹ שֶׁל אָדָם לִהְיוֹת נִמְשָׁךְ בְּדֵעוֹתָיו וּבְמַעֲשָׂיו אַחַר רֵעָיו וַחֲבֵרָיו וְנוֹהֵג כְּמִנְהַג אַנְשֵׁי מְדִינָתוֹ

It is natural for a man’s character and actions to be influenced by his friends and associates and for him to follow the local norms of behaviour.  Therefore, he should associate with the righteous and be constantly in the company of the wise, so as to learn from their deeds.  Conversely, he should keep away from the wicked who walk in darkness, so as not to learn from their deeds.  This is implied by Solomon’s statement (Proverbs 13:20): “He who walks with the wise will become wise, while one who associates with fools will suffer.”  Similarly, Psalms 1:1 states: “Happy is the man who has not followed the advice of the wicked.”  (The Laws of Personal Development 6:1)

The Rambam continues with advice to move home in order to be closer to righteous people, but then goes so far as to say that if this is not an option: “It is better for a person to live in caves and deserts rather than among sinners.”

Little surprise therefore that a rabbi and experienced educationalist, Elchanan Poupko, shared the following reflection:

Over my years as a teacher, I get to see first-hand the extent to which where someone sits or who they are friendly with can impact their academic success and performance in school.  I get to see students who lift all those sitting around them, inspiring them to do better.  I get to see parents whose first concern is who their child is friends with or spending time with.  The power of our surroundings is impossible to overstate.  

All of this was first taught in a parable by the prophet Haggai.  He poses a question to a group of priests:

‘If one of you is carrying a holy sacrifice in his robes and happens to brush against some bread or wine or meat, will it too become holy?’”  “No,” the priests replied. “Holiness does not pass to other things that way.”  Then Haggai asked, “But if someone touches a dead person, and so becomes ceremonially impure, and then brushes against something, does it become contaminated?”  And the priests answered, “Yes.”  (Haggai 2:12-13)

The message is frighteningly clear – something good is so difficult to transmit to another body or to another person, but by sharp contrast something bad attaches itself to something or someone else with consummate ease.  Is this not the message of Abaye in Talmud Bavli Sukkah 56b?

אוֹי לָרָשָׁע אוֹי לִשְׁכֵינוֹ, טוֹב לַצַּדִּיק טוֹב לִשְׁכֵינוֹ

Woe to the wicked, woe to his neighbour.  Good for the righteous, good for his neighbour.

 

The sources quoted above tend to consider this matter in terms of personal relationships and personal growth, but perhaps one may broaden this a little in the light of recent global, political events.  The Jewish community of Australia, not to mention those Jewish communities elsewhere in the world, have in recent times felt extremely disappointed by the anti-Israel stance taken by their elected representatives.

There have been so many examples – to illustrate here is a brief extract from a recent article by Melanie Phillips.  Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong has accused Israel falsely of “killing civilians by the thousands”, for overseeing the starvation of children and for pushing ahead with “illegal settlements” in the West Bank.  Norway’s foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, has accused Israel of war crimes.  When a heckler at a meeting in Calgary last April shouted “There’s genocide happening in Palestine right now” Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney responded: “I’m aware! That’s why we have an arms embargo!”  These statements are all blood libels against Israel, based on lies and wild distortions and the reversal of victim and aggressor in a vicious scapegoating that’s truly wicked. 

The picture these governments are all painting, depicting Israelis as inhumane monsters, is bound to incite hatred of Israel, a belief that it’s so evil it shouldn’t exist at all, and corresponding violence against Jews as “supporters of child-killers” or “genocide”. 

In the case of Penny Wong, who visited Israel but insulted the Jewish people by refusing to visit the sites of the Hamas massacres in southern Israel, she even called for restraint on the part of Israel before the IDF was mobilised and had begun to search for and try to retrieve the hostages held mercilessly in the dungeons of Gaza.  Such comments by the Australian Foreign Minister were ridiculed by members opposite in the House of Representatives. 

One really needs to ask what motivated Wong, and overseas her counterparts in France, UK and Canada?  In the case of Australia it is patently obvious – Labor, led by anti-Zionists such as Albanese and Wong – preferred to cosy up to their ‘friends’ in Western Sydney where large numbers of Muslim voters, far outnumbering the relatively few Jews in the Eastern Suburbs, had been indoctrinated by their Muslim preachers and teachers to hate all things Jewish and/or Israeli.

Why else would she call for the recognition of Palestine as she did in a speech at the Australian National University in April 2024?  She said international recognition could help “build momentum towards a two-state solution” with Israel.  When asked to comment, the Prime Minister said his government had always supported a two-state solution, although he did not think Hamas should have any role in a future Palestinian state.  “He did not think” – clearly a perennial problem – he did not think Hamas should have a role to play – as opposed to knowing with absolute certainty that they should have no role to play – how could they – a barbaric, terrorist, Islamist movement?  Yet he could not bring himself to say this for fear of offending various groups of people in Western Sydney and perhaps in some inner-city electorates whose votes he would need in the upcoming Federal Election.

Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Birmingham however, spoke up without fear or favour and said the government’s argument to “pre-emptively recognise a Palestinian state puts statehood before security and will be seen as a win by the terrorists who initiated the current horrific conflict.  To give the greatest chance for a sustainable ceasefire that leads to prospects for stability and security, Labor should instead be applying maximum pressure on Hamas to immediately and unconditionally release all hostages and surrender all terrorist capabilities.”

Watching the Australian government in action, one is entitled to ask the question –

מִי הָאֲנָשִים הָאֵלֶה עִמָךְ

Do you understand who you are befriending, do you understand who and what you are supporting, what they represent and what they desire?

Why would you not support instead an ally, a fellow democratic nation, a country that has consistently looked after its citizens, irrespective of gender, of religious background, of sexual orientation – all the values that your political party claims to believe in and uphold? 

There is no doubt that you would expect Israel to come to the support of Australia if anything comparable. God forbid, happened here – and the fact is – Israel would be there for you – so why have you turned your back on Israel and its supporters, why have you allowed anti-Semitism to flourish, why have you made decision after decision that has insulted the Israeli government and the Israeli people?

There can only be one answer – and it was written many years ago by the author of the Kli Yakar, Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz:  Who (on earth) are these people with whom you consort?  Do you not understand that by mixing and befriending people such as this – who seek to destroy the Jewish State – that their evil has contaminated you, it has polluted your thinking, it has soiled your standing and stained the reputation of the very country that you seek to improve; and most sadly for you, they will continue to influence you negatively as long as you remain attached to their lies and distortions. 

Time therefore Mr Albanese and Ms Wong to rethink your position and place yourselves on the right side of history – aligning yourselves with people who are motivated by a moral right, a legitimate case and an argument founded upon truth.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi David Freedman