Social Growth
A Message for Parashat Balak 2017
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It is difficult to overlook several ironies that
are latent in Bilam’s blessings to Am Yisrael, when reading them within their
proper context.
Consider the opening words of his first berakhah:
Behold! It is a nation that will dwell in solitude and not be
reckoned among the nations. (Bemidbar 23:9)
Whereas Bilam praised the nation for their
ability to stand apart from other nations, the immediate aftermath of this
episode is one of intermingling and sexual misconduct between the men of Am
Yisrael and the women of neighboring Moav![1]
The third berakhah, as well, is quite
ironic. Glancing at the nation’s ordered encampment in accordance with their tribes
(24:2), Bilam exclaimed:
How good are your tents, Yaakov, your dwelling places,
Yisrael. (24:5)
The very structure that impressed Bilam at
that moment was, in the eyes of the Hakhamim, a strong cause for the
group that had not long before joined Korah in rebellion. The Hakhamim
explained that the several members of the tribe of Reuven who joined Korah were
specifically drawn to him because of their adjacent living quarters![2]
* * * *
Christopher Thomas Knight is the subject of a
recent book by Michael Finkel, The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary
Story of the Last True Hermit.[3]
Knight lived in solitude in the woods of Central Maine for nearly thirty years.
He directly encountered and exchanged word with another person only once during
that duration. Following his forced emergence into society, Finkel pressed him
to share insights about life and the human condition that he had gleaned during
his extended period of solitude. Knight responded:
I did
examine myself. Solitude did increase my perception. But here’s the tricky
thing – when I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity.
With no audience, no one to perform for, I was just there. There was no need to
define myself; I became irrelevant. The moon was the minute hand, the seasons
the hour hand. I didn’t even have a name. I never felt lonely. To put it romantically:
I was completely free.[4]
Knight described his “freedom” as a complete
loss of self-identity. It was born out of isolation from others. A loss of societal
pressures to explain one’s thoughts, beliefs or actions to others, necessarily
leads to the loss of one’s name.
* * * *
This insight may further explain a detail
from an earlier episode in the Torah. Upon learning about God’s punishment to
him for killing his brother, Kayin immediately settled to the east of Eden,
bore a child with his wife and built the mankind’s first city.[5]
What was the significance of his city-building?
Tracing backwards for the source of sin in Bereshit,
a peculiar dialogue following Adam’s indulgence from the ess ha-hayim
stands out. God asked him, “Where are you?” And Adam had difficulty responding.
[6]
Rav Kook z”l suggested that this exchange revealed the core of Adam’s
sin. Adam’s inability to properly identify himself left him in the perfectly
vulnerable state for the serpent’s evil advice.[7]
Reflecting upon his own sin, perhaps Kayin discovered that it too had stemmed
from a deficient self-identity. The cause of that deficiency was perhaps his
state of quasi-solitude. He therefore set out to “discover himself” by creating
the social environment of a city.
* * * *
Philosopher David Kishik noted that
“philosophy” is typically depicted as a solitary activity conducted in remote
natural settings. People generally believe that philosophers think in a clearing
in the middle of the forest, a cave on the slope of a mountain, or on a rocking
chair on a porch in a quaint college town. Kishik noted that this is far from
the truth. He noted that the birthplace of the ancient philosophy of Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle was the city of Athens. Many important strands of modern
philosophy were similarly born in the city – from Bacon’s London to Descartes’s
Paris and Spinoza’s Amsterdam, all the way to James’s New York. He explained
the reason for this phenomenon:
Ideas do not operate in a
void. They respond to and depend on human beings in particular situations.
Ideas prevail not because of their immutable logic but because they are
embedded in the social environment at hand.[8]
His observations broaden
our analysis, as they suggest that even the thoughts that extend beyond our self-understanding
are best performed by means of exchange with others.
* * * *
Perhaps the depth of Bilam’s blessings lies
in their irony.
Am Yisrael’s failure with benot
Midian was a paradoxical step forward in establishing their national distinction.
The strength of a nation that has never ventured – and even stumbled – beyond
its environs is considerably weaker than one that has. True self-identity is
born out of encounters with others. It is the questioning pressures of a social
environment that force us to best articulate our beliefs. And though Korah’s
companions from the tribe of Reuven found themselves on the wrong side
of an ideological divide, the exchange of ideas that resulted from the
structure of their encampment was commendable.
* * * *
In his The Big Sort, Bill Bishop wrote
about how contemporary American society has geographically, politically and
even spiritually “sorted itself” into like-minded groups. He explained the
tragic outcome:
As
a result, we now live in a giant feedback loop, hearing our own thoughts about
what’s right and wrong bounced back to us by the television shows we watch, the
newspapers and books we read, the blogs we visit online, the sermons we hear,
and the neighborhoods we live in.[9]
Our reactions to the setbacks that result from
our involvement with people who think differently than us are often
short-sighted. Our search for immediate results “in our favor” and the fear of
potential pitfalls cause us to avoid these opportunities for growth. Bilam’s
blessings urge us to reconsider.
[1] Bemidbar 25:1.
[2] See Commentary of
Rashi to 16:1, s.v. ve-Datan.
[3] Michael Finkel, The
Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit (New
York, NY, 2017).
[4] Michael Finkel, “The
Strange and Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit,” GQ Magazine, Aug. 4,
2014.
[5] Bereshit 4:16-17.
[6] Bereshit 3:9-10.
[7] Mussar ha-Kodesh no. 97.
[8] David Kishik,
“Metrosophy: Philosophy and the City,” The New York Times, July 6, 2015.
[9] Bill Bishop, The Big
Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-minded America is Tearing Us Apart (New
York, NY, 2008), pg. 39.