Every few weeks, the Torah gives us a gift.
After weeks of reading about the internal struggles of Am Yisrael, Korach's rebellion, complaints in the desert, leadership crises, and endless disagreements, Parashat Balak suddenly changes the camera angle.
Instead of standing inside the camp, we step outside.
For the first time, we see ourselves through someone else's eyes.
Bilam is not part of Am Yisrael. Chazal even compare the level of his prophecy to that of Moshe Rabbeinu, although everything else about him could not be more different. Yet Hashem chooses him to become the one who teaches us how the world sees the Jewish people.
He climbs mountain after mountain searching for the perfect place to curse us.
Instead, every time he opens his mouth, blessings emerge.
He sees something that we often fail to see ourselves.
"How goodly are your tents, O Jacob."
He notices the modesty of our homes.
He sees a nation that protects each other's dignity.
He sees a people that refuses to disappear.
"Behold, a nation rises like a lion."
He sees strength where others expected weakness.
He sees hope where others expected defeat.
Sometimes it takes an outsider to remind us who we really are.
Today, we desperately need that perspective.
As another election season approaches, it becomes easier and easier to see only the faults in one another. The left points to everything wrong with the right. The right points to everything wrong with the left. Every headline magnifies another failure. Every conversation becomes another opportunity to prove why someone else is destroying the country.
When all we search for is darkness, darkness is all we find.
But if we zoom out, like Bilam was forced to do, an entirely different picture appears.
A nation that came home after two thousand years.
A country that turned deserts into farms.
World changing science.
Medical breakthroughs.
Countless acts of chesed.
Young men and women willing to sacrifice everything for people they have never met.
Families opening their homes.
Volunteers rebuilding communities.
Despite everything we have endured, we continue to build.
Perhaps the greatest blessing Bilam ever gave us was not his words.
It was his perspective.
Sometimes we simply need to step back and remember who we are.
The second lesson comes from one of the Torah's most unusual conversations.
Bilam, the great prophet, cannot see the angel standing in front of him.
His donkey can.
The animal stops three times, trying to save his life, while Bilam becomes increasingly angry, convinced that he alone understands reality.
Only afterward does Hashem open Bilam's eyes.
How remarkable.
The prophet needed the donkey to teach him that he was blind.
There is a profound lesson here.
No matter how educated we are.
No matter how accomplished we become.
No matter whether our confidence comes from science, philosophy, politics, or even religion.
None of us sees everything.
Sometimes another person notices what we have missed.
Sometimes someone with less experience has greater clarity.
And sometimes, as this parashah teaches us, even a donkey can see what the greatest prophet cannot.
Humility begins when we accept that our perspective is incomplete.
Parashat Balak reminds us that Geulah begins with two forms of vision.
The first is an ayin tovah, choosing to look for the goodness in one another before searching for faults.
The second is humility, recognizing that someone else may see something that we cannot.
If we learn to look at Am Yisrael through Bilam's blessings instead of through our arguments, and if we learn to listen with the humility that Bilam lacked, then perhaps we will become the generation that brings a little more light into the world.
As I told my students this year:
"An ayin tovah is contagious. When we train ourselves to see the good, our light becomes stronger than the darkness."
May we merit to become people who see the good, speak the good, and bring out the good in one another.
עין טובה מביא גאולה
Shabbat Shalom Rav Shlomo