Parashat Balak: Vision

Vision

A Message for Parashat Balak 2018

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Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,

Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

(Walt Whitman)

“Sight” and “vision” are dominant themes in Parashat Balak. Initially mentioned regarding King Balak – “And Balak…saw all that Yisrael had done to the Emorim…” (Bemidbar 22:2) – Bilaam “the seer” predictably engages in a variety of his own visions in the subsequent narrative. Indeed, Bilaam described himself by means of sight: “The man open-eyed,” who beheld God’s vision “prostrate with eyes unveiled” (24:3-4). And although his failure to see in the episode with the donkey and God’s angel is perhaps most memorable, Bilaam’s bird’s-eye view of Am Yisrael were in fact most effective in his general mission.

Erica Brown wrote about the irony that beset Bilaam’s vision. She noted that while he exceled in “long-distance” vision, Bilaam was blind to the cries of a donkey right in front of him.[1] Bilaam could see and perceive the strengths of Am Yisrael as a nation and articulate them in his several blessings in a way that their leader Moshe had failed. Whereas Moshe had errantly referred to them as “rebels” (20:10), Bilaam declared: “How goodly your tents, O Yaakov, your dwellings O Yisrael!” (24:5). His sight was strong enough to understand a distant nation that encamped in the valley below but was blind to his dream-visions of a forbidding God.

I believe that Bilaam’s sight may serve as a foil to that of the meragelim, as described in Parashat Shelah. Moshe chose a highly-regarded group of men and sent them to scout Canaan. He fundamentally instructed them: “And you shall see the land, what it is like…” (13:18). They were tasked with observing the various people and landscapes of Canaan and then generating an integrated report that captured the breadth of their sights. Upon their return, however, the meragelim recounted a vision of disparate details which was narrow in scope and limited in understanding. Instead of answering the general question of “what it is like,” the scouts revealed a tunnel-vision of the land by demonstrating its large-dimensioned fruits and locating each neighboring nation. The meragelim’s vision, in its contrast to that of Bilaam, is most recognizable to us: They saw and understood everything up close but were blind to a broader picture which required some distance.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks pondered whether our experience of life in continuous progress and motion may in fact be an illusion. He suggested that we might actually be piecing together countless “still-frames” in constant subconscious activity. Sacks posited that our eyes and brains may “take” perceptual stills of our surroundings and happenings – as on the “burst mode” of our iPhone cameras – and then somehow fuse them to give a sense of continuity and motion.[2] Shifting these two perspectives of sight and perception to our own biblical case studies, we might suggest that Bilaam failed at pausing between the successive snapshots to take stock of what was happening directly in front of him, while the meragelim became trapped in the many stills of the present and therefore failed to grasp the scene as a whole.

An individual who can see and appreciate the “stills” while also fusing them is rare. This ability is the mark of leadership. Moshe perhaps sensed that his father-in-law was imbued with this trait when he asked him to serve as “eyes” to the nation (10:31). And this is possibly the meaning of “the eyes of the nation” (15:24) as reference to the leadership. The difficulty in achieving a “fused vision” is the result of engagement in the day-to-day activities – the “stills”. It is extremely hard to keep involved in the present while concurrently connecting our vision to past and future as well. It is for the reason, I believe, that Bilaam thrived where Moshe had failed. Bilaam approached the nation as an outsider and he could therefore see past their many flaws which constantly surrounded their leader Moshe.

A leader is challenged to engage his vision with the countless “stills” of the present while at the same time realizing that they are mere fragments of a “fused” whole. Leadership gurus Ronald Heifetz and Martin Linsky captured this idea with “the balcony metaphor.” Dancing on the ballroom floor necessarily blinds you from the peripheral activity taking place several feet over. Asked about the dance you might therefore exclaim: “The band played great, and the place surged with dancers.” Watching the scene from above, however, you can realize various patterns taking place on the dance floor. You can then see, for example, that when slow music played, only some people danced; when the tempo increased, others stepped onto the floor; and some people never seemed to dance at all. A leader lives in constant flux between the ballroom floor and the balcony. Although he or she realizes that they are most effective while dancing on the ballroom floor, they are also aware that they can best understand what is actually happening when perched from above.[3]

The stories of Bilaam and the meragelim present us with starkly different approaches to vision. Whereas Bilaam could only see from a distance, the meragelim could only see what was near. A true leader adeptly utilizes both of these visions. Intimately involved in the present, he or she can nonetheless maintain a broader perspective and operate “both in and out of the game.”

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[1] Erica Brown, Leadership in the Wilderness: Authority and Anarchy in the Book of Numbers (New Milford, CT, 2013), pg. 169.

[2] Oliver Sacks, The River of Consciousness (New York, NY, 2017), pg. 161-84.

[3] Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, Leadership on the Line (Boston, MA, 2017), pg. 53. Cited by Brown (fn. 1).

Parashat Balak: Social Growth

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.

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[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.