It is fascinating that some of the most splendid prose in the Hebrew Bible emerges from the mouth of Balaam, a brilliant poet, a prophet, and an archenemy of the Jewish people, who, summoned by the Moabite king to curse Israel, ends up delivering the most poignant poetry ever uttered about the history and destiny of the Jewish people (1). To them, we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person; of the individual conscience and so of personal redemption; of the collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind. The very existence of the Jewish people is suggestive of another dimension of reality and meaning in which the main preoccupation of the man of "power history" is adjudged futile and futureless in the long run… As long as the Jew is around, he is a witness that G-d is around.
Author: Rabbi YY Jacobson
Published at: 2025-07-12 20:28:14
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