Numbers Cycyle Five Balaak

Balaak

The parasha Balaak hits us on the head. Hey, wait, we want to say, isn’t Torah the story of the Israelites, told in our perspective? What we realize immediately is that Torah is beyond perspective. It’s in the place of dream.

 Let’s put it this way. We can say that Torah is our side of the story.  But then, as you might imagine, we’re not getting the big picture, We are much wiser to say that Torah  is one big dream we share. And just like with any dream, perspectives can meld, switch, jump back and forth.  We don’t need the big scholars for any kind of validation on this thought. All we need to do is row row row our boat. Yes, life is but a dream.

 And not only that but more. Sometimes (we might think) it isn’t  me who’s speaking with this voice but some spark within the same dream,  a spark that defies life, defies death, flies through channels and vessels into someone else’s time and place. Sometimes there’s the human way just like there’s the earth way and we can't separate either into land-plots or bodies. The light in you is light in me. The darkness in you is darkness in me. I have to try and raise you up because you are me. I have to push out your dark behavior because it is in me. We are the same. I don’t care what gender you are, or era, race, age. We make each other disgusting or beautiful. We purify each other as best we can. Sometimes we have to be harsh. Sometimes we can be gentle. We can try to pretend this isn’t true. We can try to call this land or body mine. And we do try. For a good seventy years or so. And then we die.

Moses Cordavera, a Sfadt kabbalist, the teacher of Rabbi Luria and the student of Rabbi Caro, emphasizes the interconnections of  our inner sparks  person to person rather than our individual singularity as seen by our flesh and bones,. The light paths connecting us takes the front seat in our story of existence. Our individuality comes second. In the long run, what this leads to is the idea of gilgul or the transmigration of the souls. In the short run,  what this means is that suddenly we can see situations through the perspective of an enemy, a prophet, an angel, a lover, a friend, even a donkey, It’s like we are traveling at a speed beyond rational acceptance into the dream connections of other animate beings. My advice is to enjoy the ride.

To a certain degree.

  This is the question though: What if the connection becomes dark?  What if the dream connection only brings us darkness? What if someone is acting in a way that is unkind and we have no choice but to be influenced by it? Do we say that he or she was wonderful in the past so it's all right? Is it all right to dishonor others publicly? To threaten others simply to protect oneself? To betray? To deceive? To lie? To use respect rather than to earn it? To use and abuse civic or religious position?

 In Talmud we read that three people go to a place of self-hatred and never come out …those who dishonor others, those who commit adultery, and those who call others a wrong name. The rabbis of Talmud also are very careful about who they ordain.  They don’t ordain  those who might use their ordination to give themselves bonuses in behavior. So what do we do when faced with situations filled with fraudulent behavior and darkness? After  all their darkness is our darkness. Their dread and fear is our dread and fear.  We are so intricately connected it’s beyond our wildest dreams. Yet we can't call them out on it  because we don't want to dishonor them.

A girl friend related this story to me recently.  There was a person in her life who she respected. For years. Then, he began to act in a deceitful way and refused to recognize it. He would apologize. He would write nice emails. But he wouldn’t change his behavior.  He began to manipulate her and others. At first because of his position she excused him. But then she couldn’t excuse him anymore. And he was acting like it was small. He was doing, what we call in Talmud, ona’at devarim and disregarding it as nothing.

And this is what we need to see. His actions were our actions. They belonged to the community, the world. His need to belittle the seriousness of it…this way-of-being… entered our beings and insulted his past teachings and his past teachings were beautiful.That very fact (she admitted to me) upset her greatly.

In terms of kabbalah, this is the spread of darkness through the exquisite light connections as described by Cordovera. This is serious. The question is what do we do about it? Well first, we need to honor Pinchas but realistically place his infamous action aside.  (I’m sorry for all of you who love the sordid drama).  And then we need to think about it. How do we do something now to purify a specific situation?A sensitive one?

This is what my friend did therefore. She tried to pretend it wasn't happening. She got up and did yoga. She went running for an hour. Nothing seemed to work. Denial wasn't possible.  It was very disappointing.  Then, when she got home she opened the cupboard doors under the sink and this is what she saw…a big fat rat. Her first instinct was to slam the door shut.  It didn’t move. What she later found out was that it had eaten poison and was slowly dying. Anyway, of course, like any smart woman would do, she first got on the phone and called her 18 year old son. He didn’t have a car (that’s another story). He said he’d be home that night, that he’d be happy to take care of it then.  It was only 2 in the afternoon.

She could have said all right, ignored the rat. But she didn’t want to live with a rat in her house for another moment. She decided to get rid of it herself. She opened the cupboards all day to see if it was dead. She even tried putting it out of its misery by throwing things at it, An apple. A rock. Her aim was bad though,. And truth be told, she finally did have compassion for that rat. Rats after all are God's creatures. As are snakes. And the gematria for the snake is the same as the genatria for the messiach.  But she was wondering, how was the rat feeling? Why had it come back in this life as a rat? But I'm on a tangent here.  She found within her heart what we can call rat-compassion. Then, at 7:30 it was dead.

And this is what she did.  She wrote the name of the person who  had acted deceitfully and dishonored her on a paper. She put it in a plastic bag. Carefully, she placed the rat into the same bag.  That was enough. She drove it to a far away dumpster and there the rat still sits, her past- friend’s name crowning it. Then one day it will all get crushed together.

She said she felt alot better after this episode. She did part of his tikkun. She protected heself. That was for sure. As long as she thought she was rat-free….well, she was rat-free.  

This way the next time she sees her past-friend (who still has his own tikkun to do) she can know she at least killed the rat in him that had entered her house. And she can smile.

There are ways to purify. Some may seem strange. Some may seem cruel. I'm not supporting what my friend did but it is one possible way to deal with difficult situations. This is why:  We need to stay away from the cruel and keep Torah at the dream-state…the dream of metaphor. And when we do these harmless things it’s all with the knowledge of how intricately connected we all are. There’s no avoiding or excusing. We must find peaceful ways in the world of dream to honor Torah by knowing each other and cleansing each other as well. We  want to be kind. Sometimes when actions are outrageous it takes an angel to keep words even and restrained. Those who act the most despicably are usually the ones who will be the first to attack others for words said. Whatever happens, we must be acutely aware of healing. And we must remember that we bless others sometimes with our gevurah...by not allowing certain rats in our house.  In fact we can even say we must keep the rats out. Despite our compassion. We keep the rats out.  This is a chukoth.