This week’s parshah is so unusual that the Talmud refers to it (excluding its last story) as a separate book. In it, we read about a failed plot to curse and thereby stymie the Jewish people’s renewed advance upon the land of Israel. The Talmud reasonably suggests that this was not the only such plan. But how important are failed plans and plots, such that the Torah needs to mention any of them at all?
The obvious answer is that they become important when they only fail as a result of overt divine intervention, as in our story. Unsurprisingly, then, this seems to be the angle taken by several Biblical authors who mention our story and the response of gratitude consequently expected from the Jewish people. Its most powerful formulation: My people, remember now what Balak king of Moav devised, and what Bila῾am, the son of Be῾or answered him… that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord. (Michah 6:5)
That said, it is not so simple to remember something that did not happen. Imagine, for example, if the Holocaust had almost happened, and we only found out about it almost happening after the fact. How much of an impact would that truly make upon us? (The reader may object and point out that the critical factor is what we mentioned above: God’s intervention. Yet I think that variable needs to be considered contextually. Divine intervention was the standard operating procedure for the Jewish people in the desert from the time they left Egypt until they entered the land of Israel. If the natural course of events would get in the way, God intervened, such that the story of Bila’am was really not that unusual here.)
My suggestion is that the Torah is well aware that we are likely to pass by the story of Bila’am with little interest (and hence little gratitude). It presents the story nevertheless to try to get us to realize that our awareness (and gratitude) of what God does for us tends to be focused on the tip of the iceberg. As for each time that we are aware of God’s active salvation, there are many more times when things did not go wrong only because God was there for us.
In fact, the most likely reason for God to allow catastrophes to happen to us only to save us from them is precisely because it is often the only way to get our attention. But it doesn’t have to be that way. And that may be Michah’s very point. In his exhortation to get the Jews “to know the righteous acts of the Lord,” he only explicitly mentions one other event – the exodus from Egypt under the leadership of Moshe, Aharon and Miriam (6:4). Even assuming Michah was limiting himself to that formative period in Jewish history, why pick these two events from a long list of what the Jews should be grateful for? What about the splitting of the Red Sea, the manna, the various wars miraculously won, etc., etc.? And why these two events in particular? The first, the exodus from Egypt, is an obvious pick. But the frustration of Balak’s plan to curse the Jews is certainly not.
Yet perhaps Michah is telling us that one way to avoid the need for Egypt’s great miracles, which must perforce be preceded by all of its hardship and suffering, is to internalize God’s great kindness in protecting us even when the lack of hardship and suffering makes it harder to fully notice. In short, we have an especially useful obligation not to take the good times for granted. They are just as much a part of God’s favor as are the deliverances from bad times. More to the point, they are a great deal more pleasant. The only problem is that it takes more effort on our part.
Indeed, the rabbis speak about a dor deah, a generation imbued with knowledge, as the one that will merit the messianic age. Perhaps this is precisely what they had in mind, a generation that can be just as mindful of God when times are good and “we don’t need His help,” as when times are bad and “we do.” May we only be that generation!
