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The Haftorah for Parshat Balak comes from the Prophet Micha who articulates God’s searing indictment against the Jewish people, calling upon nature to bear witness to His charge, as it says, “Contend with the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice” (Micha 6:1). According to Rashi, the mountains symbolize the Patriarchs and the hills symbolize the Matriarchs. Meaning, the accusation God levels against the people is like a child being called to task by his parents. Thus, the Jewish people, like a wayward child, has disgraced the good name of his parents. What greater frustration could there be?
With this image in mind, God explains His profound disappointment in His people’s behavior, saying, “O, My people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you?” (Ibid., 6:3). God, like a longsuffering parent who has cared for, loved and sacrificed for his or her child, wants to understand how that child could repay such kindness with such ingratitude, coldness and carelessness. God reminds the people of all He has done for them, saying, “When I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, I sent before you Moshe, Aharon and Miriam” (Ibid., 6:4). The Targum explains that each one of these three prophets was sent to the people to help improve their character and their actions through moral and religious instruction. But then, suddenly, God exclaims, “O, My people, remember now what Balak king of Moav plotted and what Bilam son of Beor answered him at Shittim” (Ibid., 6:5)! This is the connection between our parsha and our Haftorah. Micha mentions Balak and Bilam. So, the question is, what happened at Shittim, and why does Micha need the people, and us, to remember it?
Well, as our Parsha explains, “Israel settled in Shittim and the people began to act promiscuously with the daughters of Moav…Israel became attached to Baal Peor, and the wrath of the Lord flared up against Israel” (Bamidbar 25:1,3). Now, the worship of Baal Peor was the worst, lowest, most debased, hedonistic cult ever to ensnare the Jewish people. But what’s interesting is that nowhere in our parsha does it ever say that Bilam or Balak were involved in enticing the Jews to join that cult. Micha makes that connection! Why? Why in this week’s parsha is Bilam’s name not associated with this terrible cult, but Micha needs us to know that he was directly involved? And the answer is, that if God had said back in Parshat Balak that Bilam was to blame for the people’s actions in getting involved with Baal Peor, it would have removed any semblance of the people’s responsibility for their own actions. God did not want the people to blame Bilam for their moral failings by naming him as the culprit. God wanted the people to scrutinize their own actions, reflect upon the way they used their free-will, and understand that they are the ones who are ultimately responsible for their own decisions. And this is the lesson Micha is teaching all of us today: We must use of free-will to do what is right, to do what is good, what is honest and moral. And this is why our Haftorah concludes with these immortal words from Micha, “God has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord seeks from you; only the performance of justice, the love of kindness, and walking humbly with your God” (Micha 6:8).
According to the Talmud in Tractate Makkot, all of the six hundred and thirteen mitzvot can be summed up by these three principles: Justice, Kindness, and Humility. What does this mean? How can we say that? What about Shabbat? What about kashrut? What about tefillin or tefillah? How can these three things encapsulate the whole Torah? According to the Maharsha, in his Chiddushei Aggadot, what this means is that whenever we do a mitzvah, we have to be sure not to breach any one of these three things, because every mitzvah, whether it’s Shabbat, or Yom Tov, whether its honoring one’s parents or returning a lost object, has one of these three principles embedded in it. That is why Micha tells us, “Shall I approach God with burnt-offerings, with calves in their first year? Will God find favor in thousands of rams, in tens of thousands of streams of oil?” (Ibid., 6:6-7). The answer is no. Because, to paraphrase Heschel, ritualism without spiritualism is dead, and spiritualism without ritualism is wild. In every ritual we do, we need to use our free-will to express its greater, moral point, and in every moral action we take, we need to use of free-will to draw out its larger, Jewish implications.
The Prophet Micha is often over-shadowed by his contemporary Yeshayahu. He was a Minor Prophet, after all. But the lesson Micha is teaching all of us in anything but minor, it is a lesson which teaches us to take responsibility for our own actions, to find the moral hidden within the ritual, and the ritual within the moral. It is in this way that we can serve God and each other, elevating us all as true partners in perfecting Creation, repairing a world which moves as one.
Shabbat Shalom!
-Rabbi Dan
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