The great Shakespearian scholar, Stephen Greenblatt enrolled in Yale University in 1961. The grandson of East European Jewish immigrants he was immediately aware that Yale was a community built by people very much unlike himself and for people very much unlike himself. This was the era of the “Gentleman’s C” – where overzealous studiousness was frowned upon by the scions of American’s regnant WASP aristocracy. Greenblatt did not share that “amused indifference” of his classmates to study and, in as he wrote in a recent New Yorker article, he “seized upon the opportunity I’d been granted to learn with an energy that seemed slightly foreign.”
He particularly excelled in his freshman English Literature course and, in due time, was asked by the professor if he would serve as a research assistant. Greenblatt was ecstatic to receive this honor and quickly turned to the University office of financial-aid which was responsible for allocating research-assistant jobs.
“Greenblatt is a Jewish name, isn’t it?” he was asked. Greenblatt conceded the point. “Frankly we are sick and tired of the number of Jews who come into this office after they’re admitted and try to wheedle money out of Yale University.” Greenblatt was stunned. He couldn’t understand how the administrator could make such crude generalizations. “We could people this whole school with graduates of the Bronx High School of Science but we choose not to so do” and Yale was wary of Jewish students become research assistants at a disproportionate level and were taking too much money from the university.
Greenblatt was stunned to encounter genteel anti semitism at university, not least because it confirmed his parents in their own sense of isolation as Jews from the rest of humanity. That very same semester, T.S. Eliot, the Nobel prize laureate and perhaps the greatest living poet in the English language at the time came to speak at Yale and Greenblatt dove into his work, appreciating his genius and being stung by his blatant and explicit antisemitism. And his freshman year was when Greenblatt read The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare’s troubling tale of a Jewish moneylender in Renaissance Venice. Greenblatt struggled to understand his place at Yale, he struggled to understand his place as an inheritor of the English canon that unquestionably includes T.S. Elliot and the Merchant of Venice.
Greenblatt came to embrace a perspective that each one of us has a culture that sets us apart from other human beings, that makes us subject to the hatred and prejudice of others and puts us at risk of victimizing others too. This is what it means to be a human being. In his words:
“We arrive in the world only partially formed; a culture that has been in the making for hundreds of thousands of years will form the rest. And that culture will inevitably contain much that is noxious as well as beneficent. …Our species cultural birthright is a mixed blessing. It’s what makes us fully human, but being fully human is a difficult work in progress. Though xenophobia is part of our complex inheritance…this inheritance is not our ineluctable fate. “
Bilaam’s prophetic blessings speak to this dynamic. The first time Bilaam tries to curse the Israelites, a profound blessing comes forth from his lips instead:
כִֽי־מֵר֤אש צֻרים֙ אֶראֶ֔נו ומִגְבָע֖ות אֲשור֑נו הֶן־עָם֙ לְבָד֣ד יִשְכֹ֔ן ובַגויִ֖ם ל֥א יִתְחַשָֽב׃
“As I see them from the mountain tops, Gaze on them from the heights, There is a people that dwells apart, Not reckoned among the nations.”
This blessing – הֶןָ־עם֙ לְבָד֣ד יִשְכֹ֔ן – a nation that dwells apart, can be seen as a statement of existential difference, or ontological definitional otherness. Jews are separate from the human race.
The Indian prime minister visited Israel this week and in light of his visit I was remined of a story about an Israeli educator whom I know and who spent time studying in India. At the end of his stay in India he was asked how many Israelis there are. He said about 7 million. The person responded, “I know there are seven million Israelis living and traveling in India, but how many are there in Israel.”
And yet – even though we know how few Jews there are, we still divide humanity between “Jews” and “non Jews” which is, from an objective numerical perspective simply preposterous.
Bilaam’s very next phrase is:
מִ֤י מָנָה֙ עֲפַ֣ר יַעֲק֔ב ומִסְפָ֖ר אֶת־ר֣בַע יִשְראֵ֑ל
That makes no sense on a literal straightforward way. Whatever makes us special, it is not because of our numbers. The world population of Jews is within the margin of error of the Chinese census. Or the Indian census. Or the United States census for that matter.
I think this blessing is saying something different. We need to be authentic and true to ourselves in order to be of benefit to humanity. We have something to contribute to the world as Jews, with our unique lifestyle and our distinct values, and with our culture shaped by our history. We have to preserve our identity in order to do so. We can’t be counted because our contributions can’t be reduced to our numbers alone, and because we are so small in number we have to be tenacious in preserving our identity, in strengthening Judaism as a force in our own lives and then transmitting it to the next generation – so that we can have the impact we are meant to have on the world.
Billaam’s next blessing echoes and amplifies this theme:
א-ֵ֖ל מוצִיאָ֣ם מִמִצְר֑יִם כְתועֲפֹ֥ת ראֵ֖ם לֽו׃ כִ֤י לא־נַ֙חַש֙ בְיַעֲק֔ב וְלא־ק֖סֶם בְיִשְראֵ֑ל כָעֵ֗ת יֵאָמֵ֤ר לְיַעֲקב֙ ולְיִשְראֵ֔ל מַה־פָ֖עַל אֵֽל׃ הֶן־עָם֙ כְלָבִ֣יא יָק֔ום וְכַאֲר֖י יִתְנַשָ֑א ל֤א יִשְכַב֙ עַד־יֹ֣אכַל טֶ֔רף וְדם־חֲלָלִ֖ים יִשְתֶֽה׃
“God who freed them from Egypt Is for them like the horns of the wild ox. Lo, there is no augury in Jacob, No divining in Israel: Jacob is told at once, Yea Israel, what God has planned. Lo, a people that rises like a lion, Leaps up like the king of beasts, Rests not till it has feasted on prey And drunk the blood of the slain.”
Our vigor and our success comes not from magical superstitious forces, but from our being the people whom God took out of Egypt. Because we were brought out of Egypt for a purpose, so long as we are true to that purpose, we will triumph over our adversaries. Not because of augury, divination, sorcery, or blind luck. It comes from being faithful to our purpose.
And Bilaam’s final blessing, brings this theme home – literally to our homes:
מַה־טֹ֥בו אֹהָלֶ֖יָ יַעֲק֑ב מִשְכְנֹתֶ֖יָ יִשְראֵֽל׃
What was so special about our tents?
Rashi says: מה טבו אהליך. עַל שֶראָה פִתְחֵיהֶם שֶאֵינָן מְכֻוָנִין זֶה מול זֶה
As we were settled in the desert, our tent openings were arranged to maximize privacy and modesty. People were not able to peer into one another’s tents and to peer into their private affairs.
Modesty is also about integrity. Modesty is about authenticity. To be modest is to make room for others to exist in the world in dignity, without coopting the physical or emotional space they need to exist. Modesty is about the integrity to live an internal life of intimacy and authenticity, sharing of myself in ways that create intimacy, and withholding aspects of myself to preserve room for others to exist with their own integrity.
An encampment where tent openings allow for modesty and privacy, can form a nation that has the fortitude to persevere in its mission, and such a nation dwells apart from humanity – preserving its own identity, but also being part and parcel of the family of nations.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 