Parashat Balak: Choosing blessings over curses

Negative campaigning has always bothered me.

Some people may be turned away from voting for a particular candidate because of negative statements written about them. However, I have always found myself disappointed with the person who created the negative ad in the first place. Doesn’t it say more about this person’s character than the person targeted in the ad? Did they really need to resort to putting someone else down to win their own campaign?

In this week’s Torah portion, we learn how Balak, King of Moab, attempts to cause harm to the Israelites. He does so by hiring Balaam to put a curse upon the Israelite people, who are too numerous for Balak to handle. The Torah quotes Balak saying to Balaam: “For I know that he whom you bless is blessed indeed, and he whom you curse is cursed.” (Numbers 22:6)

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If it is true that Balaam had equal power to both bless and curse, then some commentators ask the very important questions: “Why didn’t Balak just ask Balaam to bless his own people? Why did he instead focus on cursing the Israelites?”

The fact that Balak asked Balaam to pursue the path of negative campaigning over the alternative, a path of blessings, is enough to cause some commentators to reinterpret the verse above. Seforno, for example, was so puzzled by Balak’s choice to focus on curses instead of blessings, that he thought Balaam must have had only the power to curse people. Otherwise, according to Seforno, if Balaam did have the power to bless, Balak obviously would have chosen this path. Therefore, says Seforno, the only reason Balak mentions in the Torah that Balaam has the power to bless others is to flatter Balaam. By giving Balaam this compliment, Balak was intentionally “buttering him up,” if you will.

But some commentators believe that Balak’s choice was less intentional and instead guided by his visceral emotions. Beit Ramah shares that Balak was so consumed by his hatred toward the Israelites that he could focus on nothing but cursing them. His anger and animosity directed at the Israelites overpowered his own ability to focus on lifting up and blessing his own people. According to this opinion, Balaam did have the power to both bless and curse. However, it was Balak who specifically requested one response and not the other — all because his hatred towards others was so intense.

When our hatred toward others is greater than our self-respect or love toward those in our midst, we, like Balak, are destined to have our plan go awry. We might not win the campaign because of negative advertising. But perhaps more importantly, aside from winning, the statement we make says that something is flawed about our character when we care more about cursing others than we do about blessing ourselves.

I realize for many people, it may be tempting to publicize all the junk we dig up about people in order to advance our cause. Social media makes it so easy to do that as we may hastily share hateful articles about our adversaries. But are we willing to advance our cause through any means?

There is a reason why we chant the tochecha section of curses in the Torah in a subdued voice. We don’t want to amplify the hate any more than necessary. We recite them quietly because we are a people who strives to focus on the blessings, not the curses. We recite the curses softly because it hurts our hearts to hear them. As much hate as there may be toward the Jewish people, ideally we are a people who respond to that hate with words of blessing, healing, and hope.

Our world is full of deep and tremendous pain. We find ourselves more divided than ever. We shout into our own echo chambers and hear back voices very much like our own. But in the process, we still find ourselves feeling lonely, like no one is listening. I say all of this to point out the obvious: we need not make life any more difficult than it already is.

In the end of the story about Balaam’s task of cursing the Israelites, God would call the shots. At the pivotal moment, when Balaam is supposed to curse them, what comes out of his mouth instead are blessings, remarking on the beauty of Jacob’s tents through what has become the Mah Tovu prayer.

In a world full of Balaks, people who attempt to amplify the hate, let us instead shout out blessings to the heavens. During a campaign season when candidates will smear across billboards negativity about others in an effort to lift-up their own causes, let us try to focus on the worthy objectives that highlight each candidate’s platform.

May it be God’s will for us to meet this moment not with hate and animosity, but rather with light, hope, grace, and love.