Rabbi Breit's Blog

When I was a little kid I was crawling through a big plastic tunnel in a line of kids at some indoor playground. The two boys in front of me were messing around and kept stopping, holding up the line of hands and knees, and my face was stuck adjacent to the second guy’s sneakers and rear end. Now if I’m being generous to little Elizabeth, I should also say I was feeling claustrophobic and a little panicked, trying desperately to exit this trap plastic contraption. But after one very prolonged stop -- I got mad. I jabbed forward with my pointer finger trying to poke this kid in front of me hard in the leg. I missed. I jammed my finger, angry and with force, into the plastic tunnel wall. I sprained my finger and it turned all kinds of purple. Thus at age seven I had the painful searing realization that when you lash out with a vindictive burst to hurt others, you’ll probably just end up hurting yourself. If you're lucky.

In our parsha this week, Balak, King of Moab, angry and afraid of the thriving people of Israel, sends the prophet Balaam to curse the Jews. At first God says to Balaam don’t go, so Balaam doesn’t go. But then Balak comes back with more wealth incentives and so Balaam brings the subject back up with God. It seems like God gives him the go-ahead.

But, in what almost seems like a divine slapstick comedy of the old Yiddish proverb “man plans and God laughs,” Balaam is waylaid on his way to curse the Israelites. His donkey veers off road into the fields with him on it. Then when back on the road, it leans to the side and smashes his foot into an alleyway wall. And then finally it just lays down in the middle of the road. Seems like God is pissed and this isn’t going the way Balaam planned.

The rabbis discuss at length what might be happening here. How can God OK Balaam’s journey and then angrily throw it off course? Some rabbis say it’s because well yes technically Balaam was allowed to go, but that he went with a little too much enthusiasm about cursing the Israelites. Others say God didn’t give ever him the go ahead; he imagined it in a false prophecy he wanted to hear because of the gold paycheck dangled in front of him. But maybe it’s a little something like my jammed finger.

Let’s imagine younger me had better aim. Let’s imagine I’d really jabbed my whole anger into that stranger child’s backside. What then? I would have hurt a stranger, been in trouble, and most certainly not gotten out of that tunnel any faster. If anything I can only imagine my childlike fisticuffs would have caused a delay of tunnel parade. It would have definitely been way worse. There was actually a sort of blessing in my jammed finger. Not only did it teach me that the cruelty you spew out into the world has every chance of coming back and hitting you, but it also spared me from an even worse act of violence.

So yes, it might have really hurt. But what a blessing to have my own intention to curse another backfire so quickly and with such (relatively) minimal consequences. I hope by this age I have learned not to fire angry fingers at the world. But, when we all inevitably get so mad as to forget that lesson, may we be so lucky to have our hateful intentions foiled quickly -- by a jammed finger or a stubborn donkey. Shabbat shalom!