Balak, Favorite Poems and Enemy's Prayers

A few poems.

Pablo Neruda, a 20th century Chilean poet, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, writes:

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or dry prison cell:
to him I come, and without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea's lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn’s castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through the windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying “How can I reach the sea?”
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, though me, freedom and the sea
will call in answer to the shuttered heart.

Deshan Xuanjian, a ninth century Chinese Zen Buddhist monk, teaches:

However deep your
Knowledge of the scriptures,
It is no more than a strand of hair
In the vastness of space;
However important appears
Your worldly experience,
It is but a drop of water in a deep ravine.

Taha Muhammad Ali, a 20th century Palestinian poet, offers:

At times ... I wish I could meet in a duel the man who killed my father and razed our home, expelling me into a narrow country. And if he killed me, I’d rest at last, and if I were ready— I would take my revenge!

But if it came to light, when my rival appeared, that he had a mother waiting for him, or a father who’d put his right hand over the heart’s place in his chest whenever his son was late even by just a quarter-hour for a meeting they’d set— then I would not kill him, even if I could.

Likewise ... I would not murder him if it were soon made clear that he had a brother or sisters who loved him and constantly longed to see him. Or if he had a wife to greet him and children who couldn’t bear his absence and whom his gifts would thrill. Or if he had friends or companions, neighbors he knew or allies from prison or a hospital room, or classmates from his school … asking about him and sending him regards.

But if he turned out to be on his own — cut off like a branch from a tree — without a mother or father, with neither a brother nor sister, wifeless, without a child, and without kin or neighbors or friends, colleagues or companions, then I’d add not a thing to his pain within that aloneness —  not the torment of death, and not the sorrow of passing away. Instead I’d be content to ignore him when I passed him by on the street—as I convinced myself that paying him no attention in itself was a kind of revenge.

And then in this week’s portion we discover these verses:

How fair are you tents, O Jacob,

Your dwellings, O Israel!

Like palm-groves that stretch out,

Like gardens beside a river,

Like aloes planted by the Lord,

Like cedars beside the water…

They crouch, they lie down like a lion,

Like the king of beasts; who dare rouse them?

Blessed are they who bless you,

Accursed they who curse you! (Numbers 24)

So said Balaam, the foreign prophet sent by Israel’s sworn enemy, the Moabites.  King Balak instructs Balaam to curse the Jewish people.  Instead the prophet provides us with a prayer.

Mah tovu ohalecha, Yaakov…  With these words we begin our morning prayers.

So records our Torah. 

And so we are reminded: Torah is about more than just listening to our own voice.