Balaam and Dostoevsky
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Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb
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Parashat Balak – Numbers 22:2-25:9
Frustration. Disillusionment. But also insight and a lifelong intellectual perspective. That is how I would describe the experience I am about to share with you, dear reader.
It all started with Fyodor Dostoevsky, the famous 19th-century Russian novelist, author of “Crime and Punishment” and “The Brothers Karamazov,” and much more. His works were strangely not part of the curriculum of the high school I attended. I came to his writing on my own.
Then, I learned a bit about Dostoevsky’s background. I was stunned to discover that this perceptive, sensitive and gifted man was ... a vicious anti-Semite. I had great difficulty in reconciling the discrepancy between the art – sophisticated and empathic – and the author – full of primitive hatred, which I experienced as aimed at me. After all, my ancestors lived in the towns and villages he describes – and not long ago!
I experienced this disillusionment time and time again in subsequent years. In college, I became enamored with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, who often was acclaimed as the greatest thinker of the 20th century. Then, I learned of his support for the Nazi regime, and I no longer could bring myself even to open his books.
This experience was repeated later in my education when I became familiar with the psychology of Carl Jung, only to discover his complicated relationship with Jews and Judaism, and his pro-Nazi sentiments.
What an exhaustive list of gifted men who possessed such talent when it came to humanity, yet who were so absurdly tainted by their active aversion to our people. It extends back to Martin Luther, persists through the music of Wagner and the history of Toynbee, and is not lacking for contemporary examples.
The list goes back even further, to this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Balak, and the extraordinary and fascinating man named Balaam. If there is one lesson to learn from this week’s narrative of Balaam and his encounter with the Jewish people, it is this: A person can be a universally acclaimed spiritual leader, and a gifted poet and orator with prophetic powers almost identical to those of Moses, and simultaneously be a vile anti-Semite, capable of genocidal schemes.
Read this week’s parashah very carefully, for there is an essential message in it. The message is that we dare not assume that we need only fear anti-Semitism at the hands of maniacs, fanatics or ignoramuses. Quite the contrary! Sophisticated, educated and highly cultured individuals also can detest us and conspire to destroy us.
This is the lesson of the Holocaust. True, Adolf Hitler hardly was an intellectual or artistic giant. But, his evil genius lay in his ability to realize that the most advanced civilization in the history of the world eagerly would abide by his murderous vision. He knew how this was just the veneer of German art, literature, philosophy and, yes, religion.
In terms of this week’s Torah portion, he knew what Balak knew: That there are individuals with:
• Strong religious commitments: “I cannot go beyond the word of the L-rd my G-d to do anything small, or great” (Numbers 22:18).
•6A direct spiritual channel to the Divine: “And G-d came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him ...” (ibid. verse 20).
•6Inventive skills sufficient to create a phrase which we ourselves adopted to preface our daily prayers: “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob ...” (Numbers 24:5).
But, in actuality, they are no more than “hired guns,” and beneath the façade of the “gentleman” lies the “agreement” to discriminate, persecute, murder and exterminate an entire people.
It is a difficult lesson to accept. But, our history long has established its deep-rooted veracity and its urgency, clearly based upon the story we read this Shabbat.
To read more articles and essays by Rabbi Weinreb, visit his blog at www.ou.org/rabbi_weinreb.
Frustration. Disillusionment. But also insight and a lifelong intellectual perspective. That is how I would describe the experience I am about to share with you, dear reader.
It all started with Fyodor Dostoevsky, the famous 19th-century Russian novelist, author of “Crime and Punishment” and “The Brothers Karamazov,” and much more. His works were strangely not part of the curriculum of the high school I attended. I came to his writing on my own.
Then, I learned a bit about Dostoevsky’s background. I was stunned to discover that this perceptive, sensitive and gifted man was ... a vicious anti-Semite. I had great difficulty in reconciling the discrepancy between the art – sophisticated and empathic – and the author – full of primitive hatred, which I experienced as aimed at me. After all, my ancestors lived in the towns and villages he describes – and not long ago!
I experienced this disillusionment time and time again in subsequent years. In college, I became enamored with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, who often was acclaimed as the greatest thinker of the 20th century. Then, I learned of his support for the Nazi regime, and I no longer could bring myself even to open his books.
This experience was repeated later in my education when I became familiar with the psychology of Carl Jung, only to discover his complicated relationship with Jews and Judaism, and his pro-Nazi sentiments.
What an exhaustive list of gifted men who possessed such talent when it came to humanity, yet who were so absurdly tainted by their active aversion to our people. It extends back to Martin Luther, persists through the music of Wagner and the history of Toynbee, and is not lacking for contemporary examples.
The list goes back even further, to this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Balak, and the extraordinary and fascinating man named Balaam. If there is one lesson to learn from this week’s narrative of Balaam and his encounter with the Jewish people, it is this: A person can be a universally acclaimed spiritual leader, and a gifted poet and orator with prophetic powers almost identical to those of Moses, and simultaneously be a vile anti-Semite, capable of genocidal schemes.
Read this week’s parashah very carefully, for there is an essential message in it. The message is that we dare not assume that we need only fear anti-Semitism at the hands of maniacs, fanatics or ignoramuses. Quite the contrary! Sophisticated, educated and highly cultured individuals also can detest us and conspire to destroy us.
This is the lesson of the Holocaust. True, Adolf Hitler hardly was an intellectual or artistic giant. But, his evil genius lay in his ability to realize that the most advanced civilization in the history of the world eagerly would abide by his murderous vision. He knew how this was just the veneer of German art, literature, philosophy and, yes, religion.
In terms of this week’s Torah portion, he knew what Balak knew: That there are individuals with:
• Strong religious commitments: “I cannot go beyond the word of the L-rd my G-d to do anything small, or great” (Numbers 22:18).
•6A direct spiritual channel to the Divine: “And G-d came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him ...” (ibid. verse 20).
•6Inventive skills sufficient to create a phrase which we ourselves adopted to preface our daily prayers: “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob ...” (Numbers 24:5).
But, in actuality, they are no more than “hired guns,” and beneath the façade of the “gentleman” lies the “agreement” to discriminate, persecute, murder and exterminate an entire people.
It is a difficult lesson to accept. But, our history long has established its deep-rooted veracity and its urgency, clearly based upon the story we read this Shabbat.
To read more articles and essays by Rabbi Weinreb, visit his blog at www.ou.org/rabbi_weinreb.