Unscrolled Balak: This Against That

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

The Torah opens with a wide establishing shot of the universe. In it, we behold all of creation—the waters above and the waters below; the celestial bodies in their orbits; the flora and the fauna of the earth.

We then zoom in, narrowing the frame until the earth is all we can see.

What begins as a history of the universe becomes a history of the earth and of mankind. We are introduced to Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. We are told the story of Noah and the great flood. We learn of the Tower of Babel. And then comes Parashat Lech Lecha, and our narrative scope narrows once again.

“When Terach had lived 70 years, he begot Abram, Nachor, and Haran (Genesis 11:26).

From here on out, this is no longer the story of the universe, nor the story of the earth, nor the story of the human race. It is now the sacred history of one people and their relationship with God, who redeems them from slavery and brings them to a promised land that He has designated for them as an inheritance.

For the most part, this is how it will be for the rest of Torah. Only in rare moments will the frame again widen—reminding us that God is indeed God of the world, and not merely the protector of one small tribe.

In Deuteronomy, for instance, God warns the Israelites not to set so much as a toe into the hill country of Seir, for God has “given the hill country of Seir as a possession to Esau” (Deuteronomy 2:5). God then makes a similar pronouncement about the Moabites. “I have assigned [the land of] Ar as a possession to the descendants of Lot” (Ibid 2:9).

From this, we can learn that there are other promised lands, which are apparently promised to different peoples.

Another such instance of frame-widening takes place in this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Balak, in which we meet Bilaam, a gentile prophet who is hired by the Moabite king, Balak, to curse the Israelites, who he believes have become too numerous.

According to a simple reading of the text, Bilaam seems like a good enough fellow. He refuses to curse the Israelites despite King Balak’s insistence, instead blessing them.

The sages, however, remember him more ambivalently, charging him with cursing the Israelites on the sly, by way of blessings that could be plausibly read as curses. Still, the sages give credit where credit is due, contending that Bilaam was equal to Moses in terms of prophetic ability.

This an example of what the Hasidic master Rabbi Tzadok Hakohen of Lublin called “Zeh Leumat Zeh,” or “this against that.” According to this theory, the world of the Jews and the world of non-Jews are held together by a kind of symmetry and parallel development. At its worst, this can become a source of enmity between the Jews and the non-Jews. At its best, it can become a flowering of mutual inspiration and cooperation.

At its worst, this can become a source of enmity between the Jews and the non-Jews. At its best, it can become a flowering of mutual inspiration and cooperation.

In the story of Bilaam, the narrative frame is wide enough for us to see the workings of “zeh leumat zeh.” Just as the Jews have a great prophet, so do the nations of the world. That said, this is still very much the Israelites’ story. Bilaam is thus primarily defined for us through his relationship to the Israelites.

But even if the frame has only widened a little, falling short of its Genesis 1:1 expansiveness, we would be remiss if we didn’t take such moments to gaze out and soak in as much of the view as we can, for hidden in its details are the unarticulated tenets of the Torah’s cosmology.

Doing so, what do we see?

A landscape checkered by promised lands. A world populated by chosen peoples. A God who speaks to those who listen.

Matthew Schultz is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (2020). He is a rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts.