Rabbi Moshe Haueris OU Executive Vice President
I recently attended the 20th annual summit of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the organization founded by Pastor John and Diana Hagee to support Israel and the Jewish people. I have had the privilege to get to know the Hagees and to tangibly feel their unconditional commitment to support Jews as Jews and Israel as the Jewish state. The Pastor explicitly rejects missionizing and attempting to convert Jews as he recognizes the eternal covenant between G-d and the Jewish people and the need for all people - especially Christians - to support and protect His Chosen People.
Their feelings are eminently clear when you are with them and their followers (CUFI has more than 10 million members). As a visibly Orthodox Jew, I am used to walking in public spaces with some degree of self-consciousness; at the CUFI summit all I get is admiration and warm greetings. A summit attendee from Mississippi, unaccustomed to being around observant Jews, asked with humble excitement if she could pose for a picture with me. I was not there as a speaker or as a public personality; I sat in the crowd as a grateful Jew, but to her an observant Jew is a celebrity. What says it all is the huge banner that hangs over the entrance to the huge meeting hall declaring: “Israel You Are Not Alone.”
But wait a minute - could that be? Did not Bilaam describe us (Bamidbar 22:9) as the “am l’vadad yishkon, the people that dwells alone”? Aren’t we, the Jewish people, doomed to hatred, isolation, and perpetual loneliness?
Though it often feels that way, we need to recall how the first Jew, Avraham, was promised by Hashem (Bereishit 12:3) that “I will bless those who bless you and those who curse you I will curse,” a phrase that every one of the thousands of Christians in that hall could cite chapter and verse. Avraham was told that there would be those amongst the nations of the world who would not isolate and hate him but love and bless him and his offspring. Avraham was privileged to experience that in his lifetime as he was recognized and blessed by the nations as their divine prince, nesi Elokim (Bereishit 14:17-20, 23:6).
When we do things right, dwelling alone expresses itself in our commitment to our unique mission as Klal Yisrael rather than in our isolation. Bilaam’s words - meant to curse us - are reframed as a blessing. That is why as he came to realize that he could not effectively curse the Jews with irremediable hostile isolation, he chose instead to undermine us by drawing the Jews into relationships that would shatter our distinctiveness. Our sacred separateness is what we must preserve to stay true to our mission and to maintain and build the strength of our community and our Torah values, enabling us to serve as a true source of blessing to the entire world.
President Carter - who described himself as being infatuated with the Holy Land due to his lifetime of bible study - was the creator of the horrible libel accusing the Jewish state of apartheid, the cruelest form of living alone. In the book that launched that canard, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, he recounts an exchange he had with Prime Minister Golda Meir during his first visit to Israel in 1973:
“I said that I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures and that a common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of G-d. I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of her Labor government. She seemed surprised at my temerity and dismissed my comments with a shrug and a laugh. She lit one cigarette from another and then said that “Orthodox” Jews still existed and could assume that portion of the nation’s responsibility.”
It is fair to say that is the book’s only appropriate reference to Jews living apart.
While Bilaam tried to utilize his power to bless and curse to enforce his replacement theology and turn G-d against the Jews and the Jews away from G-d, there are others amongst the nations whose interest is not to replace G-d’s people but to support them, to identify those whom G-d had chosen and to gain blessing by supporting and protecting them.
This past Wednesday night at the Blair House, at a gathering including Jewish and Evangelical leaders convened by Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Prime Minister invoked this week’s parsha’s depiction (Bamidbar 23:24) of the Jewish people as “am k’lavi yakum, a nation that rises like a lioness,” the phrase that was used to name Israel’s operation against Iran. He was introduced by Pastor Paula White, the senior advisor to the White House Faith Office, who - perhaps unintentionally but very poignantly - also referenced the parsha by saying, “Israel, you are never, never alone,” pledging that evangelicals “will always stand with Israel.”
The commitment of people of faith to support and protect Jews as Jews and Israel as a Jewish state is a gift and a blessing for our people, reversing the schemes of Bilaam and making them profoundly deserving of Hashem’s blessing in return.