Like Cedars by the Water

(Numbers 24:6)
Tammuz 16, 5775/July 3, 2015

After the surrounding nations failed to subdue Israel militarily, the international community of the ancient Middle East, still intent on keeping the young nation of Israel out of its land, had to come up with something, and employing a master spell-caster seemed as good an idea as any. Of course, we are referring to this week's Torah reading of Balak.My, how things have not changed! From the 1940's through the 1970's, the nations surrounding Israel failed to subdue her militarily, and eliminate her, so they adopted a new/old tactic: to curse Israel. To deligitimize and dehumanize Israel, to isolate and humiliate Israel, to transform Israel into a pariah state, and evil entity. The campaign today has reached a fever pitch, and under the paternal eye of Israel's erstwhile "peace" partner, the ill-conceived "Palestinian Authority," the battle is on, once again, to eliminate "this assembly," this "people" Israel. (Numbers 22:4-5)

What inspired the nations of Moav, (under the rule of Balak), and Midian, (under the spiritual leadership of Bilaam), arch enemies with a long history of enmity, to team up against "A people that has come out of Egypt," (ibid) the liberated slave nation of Israel? For that matter, what inspires President of the United States Barack Obama to team up with Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? What inspires the European radical left to team up with international Islamic jihad? What inspires liberal, mulitcultural, multigenderal Americans to team up with misogynous, gay-killing, execution-happy Shiite Islam, and what inspires middle class, educated, social media-saturated European kids to trash it all and join up with beheading-happy Sunni ISIS?

"A people has come out of Egypt, and behold, they have covered the 'eye' of the land, and they are stationed opposite me." (ibid) My, how things have not changed! The people of Israel, (known alternatively as "the Jews"), have always found themselves in the wrong place and heading in the wrong direction. Anyplace on the face of the earth seems to be the wrong place as far as the likes of Balak and Bilaam, (then and now), are concerned, and coming out of Egypt, out of the bondage with which the world longs to enslave her, is definitely the wrong direction for Israel.

Midrash tells us that Balak sought out Bilaam, not just because he was the world's greatest curse caster, but also because he had formerly served as adviser to Pharaoh, and it was he who had advised Pharaoh, first, to slaughter the Hebrew newborns, and later to enslave the Hebrew adults. Ultimately, it was Bilaam's failed program of genocide that was at fault for Israel's current location opposite Moav. Cast this same scenario in our modern setting and it is clear who is at fault for the past century's failed genocide of the Jewish people. Today, one of the Bilaams that the current Balaks turn to is the United Nations, that same august body which, in 1948, recognized the newly declared independent state of Israel. Little wonder that today's UN is working day and night to turn back the clock and undo the act of recognizing Israel.

Today, back in the land of Israel, and back in the city of Jerusalem, the nation of Israel, newly emerged from the 2000 year exile, is more in the face of her adversaries than ever. And this is the plain meaning of Balak's lament, "they are stationed opposite me:"because they (Israel) exists, and I can't ignore them, I am being driven to genocidal madness. But how does the expression, "they have covered the 'eye' of the land"translate into today's reality? Certainly, the complaint cannot be that the children of Israel are so numerous? Barely seven million Jews in Israel live amidst hundreds of millions of hostile Muslims. One understanding of Balak's words, offered by our sages, is that he felt vulnerable: Israel, "stationed opposite me" can see into my cities, but Israel, engulfed in the clouds of glory, have effectively "covered the 'eye' of the land." I can't see them clearly, and that is what frightens me.

This terror of Balak, the twin lament that Israel is in my face, ("opposite me"), yet I can't see them, ("they have covered the 'eye' of the land"), best describes the situation on the Temple Mount today, and clearly reveals the ultimate fear of Israel's enemies worldwide, and why anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, (call it what you may), fever has reached new heights. Not only are the Jewish worshipers who ascend the Temple Mount in the face of the Muslims who long ago decided that the place of the Holy Temple is the exclusive property, (physical and spiritual) of Islam, the Muslims, (and their allies in the west), are blinded to the reason why the Jews have returned to the Temple Mount. The clouds of glory of Jewish faith and attachment to G-d's Holy Place where theShechinah - His Presence - dwells, is something that Israel's detractors can't see, because it is conceptually beyond their means to see.

And it drives them wild.

We see this in the violent opposition that Jewish worshipers confront on the Temple Mount on a daily basis. Like Bilaam, the Muslim forces arrayed against Israel on the Temple Mount, both daily photograph the Jewish worshipers, ("Come with me to another place from where you will see them; however, you will see only a part of them, not all of them and curse them for me from there," ibid 23:13) and wildly curse the Jews.

But there is another meaning to the expression "the 'eye' of the land," and this is the true source and secret of today's international fear and antipathy toward Israel: the Hebrew word for "eye," (ayin), also means "water spring," where underground water naturally finds its way to the earth's surface. Jews on the Temple Mount are covering, (by their physical presence), the very well-spring of G-d's Presence and His Torah on earth! On the Temple Mount the Jews have truly alighted upon the "eye of the earth,"the place from which the "eye of G-d " perceives His world, and this is troubling, indeed, to all those hell-bent on imposing their satanic paradise on earth, unencumbered by the presence of G-d , or His watchful eye.

Bilaam foresaw this: "They extend like streams, like gardens by the river, like aloes which HaShem planted, like cedars by the water. Water will flow from his wells, and his seed shall have abundant water." (ibid 24:6) But nobody said it better than the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, and this is truly the final word: "They shall neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mount, for the land shall be full of knowledge of HaShem as water covers the sea bed." (Isaiah 11:9)

- The Temple Intitute