Balak hires Bilam to curse the children of Israel. Frustratingly, for Balak, Bilam does not do so. On the contrary, God forces him to bless them four times, which is rather poor customer service.

After the third time, if you have ever been on hold with a recalcitrant utility provider, you can really understand the depths of Balak’s pain:

(י) וַיִּֽחַר־אַ֤ף בָּלָק֙ אֶל־בִּלְעָ֔ם וַיִּסְפֹּ֖ק אֶת־כַּפָּ֑יו וַיֹּ֨אמֶר בָּלָ֜ק אֶל־בִּלְעָ֗ם לָקֹ֤ב אֹֽיְבַי֙ קְרָאתִ֔יךָ וְהִנֵּה֙ בֵּרַ֣כְתָּ בָרֵ֔ךְזֶ֖ה שָׁלֹ֥שׁ פְּעָמִֽים׃

And Balak became angry with Bilam, and he clapped his hands together! And Balak said to Bilam, “I called you to curse my enemies and you have gone and blessed them three times now!” (Num. 24:10)

We are not without sympathy for our enemies. I’d like to focus on a particular note in Bilam’s first blessing to the people of Israel, as I have struggled to understand it for many years. It goes like this (Num. 23:8-9):

(ח) מָ֣ה אֶקֹּ֔ב לֹ֥א קַבֹּ֖ה אֵ֑ל וּמָ֣ה אֶזְעֹ֔ם לֹ֥א זָעַ֖ם ה׳:

“How can I curse one that God does not curse? How can I bring wrath upon one with whom God is not angry?

(ט) כִּֽי־מֵרֹ֤אשׁ צֻרִים֙ אֶרְאֶ֔נּוּ וּמִגְּבָע֖וֹת אֲשׁוּרֶ֑נּוּ הֶן־עָם֙ לְבָדָ֣ד יִשְׁכֹּ֔ן וּבַגּוֹיִ֖ם לֹ֥א יִתְחַשָּֽׁב׃

Because I look upon them from the mountains; I study them from the hills; they are a people that dwells alone and they will not be included among the nations.”

This is such a strange blessing. What is so good about dwelling alone and not being included among the nations? Granted, we relish and appreciate our special role as the chosen people but, if we are honest, we have known so much pain from our separation. It is possible, perhaps,that if we had been accounted for among the nations, we would not have suffered from the Holocaust? The Spanish inquisition? Pogroms? Massacres of dhimmis in Saudi Arabia? Tach v’ Tat? The Crusades?

A rather painful and recognizable note sounds when we read Rashi:

​​ובגוים לא יתחשב –^[1] …דבר אחר: כשהם שמחים אין אומה שמחה עמהם, שנאמר: י״י בדד ינחנו (דברים ל״ב:י״ב). וכשהאומות בטובה הן אוכלין עם כל אחד ואחד, ואין עולה להם מן החשבון, וזה ובגוים לא יתחשב.

Amongst the nations they shall not be counted-... Another approach: when the (children of Israel) are happy, no other nation celebrates with them…but when things go well for the nations (the Children of Israel) feast with each and every one…

This song resonates with us. Perhaps we may think of times when the people of Israel play the patsy, outstretching their arms but not receiving someone else’s when it is their turn.

Perhaps, then, we would have preferred the blessing of being a little accounted for amongst the nations.

But I do not think so. Allow me to explain, if you don’t mind, by resorting to the dramatic climax of Shakespear’s Merchant of Venice. There appears a gorgeous meditation  on the qualities of mercy:

“The quality of mercy is not strained.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes

The thronèd monarch better than his crown.” (Act 4 Sc.1 190-195)

So says Portia - at that time portraying a legal expert named Balthazar- in the Merchant of Venice. Shylock the Jew however, demands not mercy, but justice. He shall have his pound of flesh. Portia, pretending to be a legal scholar sent to advise on the matter, awards him just that. However, she also says that he forfeits his life if he should enforce the rule. Should an “alien”, which Shylock is, make an attempt “direct or indirect” on a citizen’s life, he forfeits his own, along with all of his property.^[2] However, the parties are merciful. Shylock is not forced to give his life or all of his fortune. Instead, Shylock can keep half of his fortune provided he converts to Christianinity.^[3] So do Mercy and Justice clash in the Merchant of Venice. In the end, all receive only mercy.

So, mercy is greater than justice, Shakespear tells us, as he simultaneously reveals that mercy is reserved for those who are like us. What kind of mercy is this? I was often taught in school and museums that we are kind to everyone because we are all alike. We share characteristics, qualities, humanity, feelings, goals, pursuits, cultures, loves, whatever. For Shakespear, mercy is based on sameness.

I think we know this view well. On the one hand, we wish to be good to others, and it seems so often that the problem is that we see others as different when we should not, and this leads to so much violence, pain and suffering. But, it must also be said that this view does not include a path of kindness and peace and tolerance towards those who are not like us. People who are perhaps radically different than we. What shall we do for them?^[4] We might want to warn them: If you are not the same, then watch out.^[5] 

Think on the mercy doled out in The Merchant of Venice. Yes, mercy for the merchant, who not only keeps his flesh where it belongs but gets half of Shylock’s fortune as well. But Shylock- he gets mercy only after conversion. In order to get mercy, he must acquire a baptismal certificate, which Heinrich Heine, a German Jew who converted to Christianity, famously called “the ticket of admission into European culture.”

The French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas critiqued this approach to ethics.^[6] It is egotistical, instructing us only to extend our hands to those who are like us. And it is terribly reductionist. Instead of treating each person as a unique, irreducible whole, we lop off any characteristics and habits they have that don’t remind us of us; we refuse to greet them for they are, instead forcing them into a box to be like us. Only then, do we feel obligated towards them.

It is here that we return to our Parsha, to the blessed and praise we receive from an evil man, Bilam. Bilam says we are alone, we are different. Indeed, it is so. In fact, as Jews, we seem to ever only have two choices- we may embrace our distinction or erase our identity, and we find so many shades of gray in our actions that strengthen one side or the other. Yet, we have no cruelty for those who are different from us. On the contrary, what we have is moral responsibility.

God tells Avraham Avinu that He chooses him so that “all of the nations of the world will be blessed through him” (Gen. 18:18).^[7] We are to be a ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש, a Kingdom of priests and a holy nation, meaning, the commentators tell us- as we have discussed many times before- that we are to act in a way that inspires the world to borrow from our own unique wisdom, found in our agreement with God.^[8]

And so, we need not be the same. Not at all. We are greeted in our lives by so many people from within our community and without, like us and unlike us, and in order to treat them well, we do not need to say to them- “we are the same, you and I. There are no significant differences between us.” On the contrary, we can say “look how different we are! Perhaps we have almost nothing in common! Yet, you are created in the Image of God and I owe you a moral debt to be good to you.”

We dwell alone, so often. But we will produce no crimes because of it. Instead, we meet the Other and greet them kindly. We encounter them, perhaps we see mostly that we are unlike one another- but in meeting them, we find that they demand nothing short of courtesy and sometimes our help. If we can be like that, we will deserve high praise indeed.