There are moments in life when everything feels overwhelming. Whether you're raising children, building a family, or starting a business, you're deep in the grind. Waking up in the middle of the night with sick kids, dealing with moody teenagers, juggling endless tasks. You start to feel like it's all just too much. You begin to complain. You compare. You wonder if maybe others have it easier. Maybe they're the lucky ones. And slowly, your focus shifts from the blessings to the burdens.
I know this firsthand. I have almost three teenagers and two little ones. There are nights with no sleep, days filled with noise and chaos. And sometimes I catch myself wondering, why does it feel so hard? Why can't things just flow?
Then, every so often, something shifts everything. A few years ago, my older kids went to different friends for Shabbat. By the end of the weekend, each of the three families came up to me and said, "Your kids are amazing. So polite, so kind, so respectful." And I was stunned. Because all I could see at home were the struggles. But through someone else's eyes, I saw something else entirely. I saw what I had built. I saw goodness. I saw growth.
That is exactly what Parashat Balak is about. It's the only time in the entire Torah where we get a zoomed-out view of Am Yisrael. We've just come through some of the hardest moments, Korach's rebellion, the sin of the spies, the loss of Miriam and Aharon. From the inside, it feels like collapse. But then Balak hires Bilaam to curse us, and Bilaam climbs a mountain and looks down. And from up there, from this elevated perspective, he doesn't see a broken people. He sees something beautiful. He sees tents full of dignity, homes of holiness, a nation striving and growing.
He opens his mouth to curse, but only blessings come out. Because when you zoom out, when you look from the outside, with perspective, with clarity, you see the truth. You see what God sees.
Sometimes we need others to help us see what we really have. And sometimes, we need to climb the mountain ourselves. Step back. Zoom out. Look not through the lens of frustration or fatigue, but through the lens of vision and faith. Look at your life. Look at your family. Look at what you've built.
The tents of Israel were never perfect. But they were sacred. They were full of heart, of effort, of love. That's what Bilaam saw. And maybe the greatest blessing is to learn to see our lives not just through our own tired eyes, but through the eyes of Heaven.
You know how when you're flying into a country at night, and you look out the window and see the lights forming perfect grids, or the fields laid out like a masterpiece of order and beauty? From up there, everything looks peaceful, glowing, organized. But if you were to zoom in, to land and walk into the neighborhoods and homes, you'd find broken fences, cracked sidewalks, families with struggles and challenges. Up close, it's messy. But from above, it's breathtaking.
I know they call it a bird's eye view. But maybe we should start calling it God's eye view.
Shabbat Shalom Rav Shlomo