By Rebbetzin Lauren Levin
Parshat Balak, the second of the double portion we read this shabbat, is intriguing. A neighbouring nation, afraid of war with the Israelites believes they can be vanquished through curses instead. A prophet, carrying the word of God is too obtuse to perceive an angel, rendering a donkey more perceptive to experiencing the Divine than a man of God. And of course, we cannot forget the talking donkey, appearing here a good few thousand years before Disney thought up Shrek.
At the heart of the drama, we are presented with a striking image. The angel that the donkey sees is brandishing its sword. Such a depiction of an angel is unusual. There are only two other occasions we read about sword brandishing angels in the Bible. Understanding its significance is critical to understanding Gods message to Bilam.
Angels of destruction are not new to us. An angel of destruction was sent to overturn Sedom, the angel of death came to afflict Pharaoh’s household with the fatal tenth plague, and Jacob wrestled with an angel and sustained injuries from it. Yet is this an angel of destruction? If it is an angel of protection then why is it brandishing a sword?
Scholars over the centuries have attributed great significance to the sword brandishing angel. First and foremost there is a message being conveyed not to Bilam the leader, but to Bilam the individual. It is a message of the centrality of care, compassion and empathy. Bilam represents power where his donkey represents the underdog. As Bilam’s frustration with the donkey increases he exclaims, “if only I had a sword I would have killed you”. He is oblivious that there is a sword right opposite him, and he would have been killed had his donkey not moved. When the actions of the donkey appear to delay his all-important mission, there is no time, thought or flexibility to adjust or absorb the deviation. The angel’s sword thus paralleled Bilam’s threatening rhetoric, “If only I had a sword in my hand…”. It serves as a reminder that ‘unnoticed’ abuse of anyone, is noticed by God.
Then there is a message to Bilam the leader. Bilam has been tasked to outsmart the Jewish people through their own strength, the spoken word. The image presented to him is an angel with a sword, indicating that God will eventually bring about his own death through the sword, his nation’s strength. He was not the first anti-Semite to rely on creative methods to destroy the Jews. The Egyptians sought to drown the Israelite baby boys, following advice from the royal astrologers. The astrologers had foreseen a terrible prediction that the Jewish saviour was about to be born. They could not change what they had read in the stars. But they had also seen that the leader would ultimately be stricken by water. They could utilise this in their favour, by drowning every new born male.
King Balak uses the same strategy in recruiting Bilam. The Jewish people cannot be vanquished by the sword, and so he tries to think more creatively of how he may be able to overcome them. He is given counsel that Moses’ advice is in his mouth, and resorts to overcome them through curse, the strength of the mouth. The anti-Semitic tropes of Pharoah and Balak were identical. They both complained that the Israelites “are too powerful” , and they both looked to bypass the traditional system to solve their ‘Jew problem’. The angel brandishing a sword reminds the anti-Semite that however manipulative and creative they may try to be, the relationship between God and the Jewish people runs deep. He has their back.
Finally, there is a message for the Jewish people themselves. It is a message about identity and purpose. Balak was mistaken in saying that the Jews were people of the word. We are proud of being the people of the book, and learning and prayer have always been central to Judaism, but it is the way we maintain this together with our engagement in the world that epitomises us.
When Jacob came before Isaac to receive the birthright blessings, Isaac uttered the famous words “this is the voice of Jacob and the hands of Esau”. This was in fact prophetic – no longer would one nation represent hunting and physical prowess while the other represented wisdom. They would now be fused together. Jacob’s descendants would, generation upon generation, have to apply their wisdom in the world. They would have to elevate physicality through spirituality. This is not an easy task, and over time there will be many moments of losing the delicate balance. The sword bearing angel appears as a symbol of recalibrating to find equilibrium.
Both other occasions this angel appears in the Bible remind us of this careful balance. In the book of Joshua, having just arrived in the land of Israel as they are about to embark on their first battle, a man appears before Joshua:
“And it was when Joshua was in Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and saw, and, behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand; and Joshua went to him, and said to him, Are you for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, No, but I am the captain of the host of the Lord; I have now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and prostrated himself, and said to him, what does my lord say to his servant?”
The angel appeared at a critical juncture in time. The Jewish people’s lives are rapidly changing from a nation who lived off miracles to a nation must work the land and fight battles whilst still believing in God. The Talmud asserts that they were struggling with this transition and had already neglected their religious responsibilities as they prepared for war. The angel comes to readdress the balance.
So too during the tenure of King David, Judaism and Israel flourished. Constantly oscillating between physical need and spiritual aspirations, King David led the Jewish people like no other. Yet he too struggled to always maintain this delicate balance and in a moment of poor judgment ordered for a census to be taken. Common for monarchs and nation states, counting people is not acceptable in Judaism. An awful plague erupted. King David prayed and the cessation of fatalities was represented by an angel with a sword dangling between heaven and earth. King David continued in the mission of leading his nation to connect heaven and earth, but from this time lived in constant fear ‘of the angel’s sword’.
Connecting heaven and earth is like walking a tight rope. It is not always easy to have the hands of Esau and the voice of Jacob, but with focus, confidence and faith we can support each other and keep climbing.