Weekend Update - Part 2

(cont. from Part 1)

Let's be clear, our communal relationship with G-d has had its ups and downs. But in general, if you reaffirm your dedication and devotion to one another daily and steer clear of the pitfalls in the G-d/Jews marriage, you'll pretty much be set (whether Jew or Gentile). And what were these pitfalls? Infidelity and baseless hatred.

The Talmud in Yoma 9b (pg. 24) indicated that the 1st Temple was destroyed because of the prevailing idolatry, sexual depravity and murder. These are the "Big Three" mitzvos that cannot even broken in order to save your own life. Clearly, the prevalence of these transgressions reveals a gross rejection of the commitments made during the wedding of G-d and the Jewish people (which is represented by Shavuos, the festival of the Giving of the Torah). The Jewish people were unfaithful in their relationship with G-d, for which a "short" 70 year exile in Babylon was decreed.

The 2nd Temple's destruction was ascribed (ibid., pg. 25) to baseless hatred (in Hebrew, שנאת חינם, sinas chinam). In Pirke Avos 2:16, Rabbi Yehoshua groups sinas chinam with the evil eye (jealousy) and the evil inclination as things that "remove a person from this world." Based off the relative severity of the exiles (70 years versus 1,940 years and counting), it is clear that baseless hatred and jealousy is far worse than even the Big Three of idolatry, sexual depravity and murder.

In this week's parasha, Balak (Num. 22:2-25:9), we meet a non-Jewish prophet (one of 7), Balaam, who is sent to curse the Jewish people in an attempt by the Moabite king, Balak, to weaken the Israelites enough to defeat them in battle. In a twist, Balaam instead blesses the Jewish people several times, culminating in the would-be curse which is now recited every morning upon entering a synagogue: "How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel!" (Num. 24:5)

Though Balaam was one of only 7 non-Jewish prophets in the Tanakh, he wantonly advocates for all of the Big Three and is guided by a deep seated hatred of the Jewish people. Balaam himself is an idolater who serve Baal in one breathe while communicating G-d's words in the next. In Num. 25, the Moabite women try to seduce the Israelite men into sexual depravity and idolatry, at Balaam's suggestion (though his involvement isn't specifically introduced until a later parasha). Further, Shemos Rabbah 1:9 relates that Balaam was one of three advisers of Pharaoh, when Pharaoh asked what he should do about the "Jewish problem". Balaam advised the Pharaoh to kill the Jews, for which, though delivering three blessings to the Jewish people, he is killed by Yehoshua in parshas Matos (in a few weeks).

Balaam's wickedness and subsequent demise serve as a lesson to those who commit the physical act that spiritually represent the potential stumbling blocks in marriage. The not-so-profound lesson being that hatred and infidelity, no matter how beautiful and poetic the repentent words of the adulterer (or, worse, hater), can destroy a marriage. Two whole posts to prove a relatively simple statement, but there you go.

And with that I wish my friends, the newlyweds, a lifetime free from the infidelitous Big Three, and even more so, from sinas chinam. May you enjoy all the happiness, devotion, and fulfillment that comes from their absence.