Parashat Balak: Seeing the Whole

It seems that cursing works better if done while having in sight a part of the curse’s object, but not its entirety. The Torah emphasizes that Balaam, in his first two attempts to curse the Israelites from a mountain top above them, did not view the whole nation, but only a small portion of them, from the side. This incomplete, side view seems somehow important to the attempt to curse, as King Balak, frustrated by the results of the first attempt, tells Balaam before the second attempt that he will take him to a different place from which he “will only see a small portion of it [the nation],” and “not the whole” (Num 23:13). What is it about not seeing “the whole” that Balak thought would help Balaam to damn the nation?

The nation as a whole, as a unified entity, a kelal, cannot be cursed, says the Netivot Shalom. When the people come together as Balaam finally viewed them on his third attempt – “He saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe” – then curses, judgments, all forms of evil have no power over them. The power of a unified nation is the power to thwart curses, to turn evil intent into blessing. Evil can only rest on the individual if he is unattached to the whole, the source of life, the tree trunk of connection to others. The individual’s job is to learn to cultivate this kind of attachment to the whole.

In many meditative practices, there is the concept of interdependence; the goal is to learn to step beyond the false barriers that separate us as individuals and to see how interdependent and interrelated everyone and everything in the world is. I think this may be what Balaam learned, according to the Netivot Shalom – to view things not piecemeal, but as a whole.

Partly this view comes from being up high (Balaam viewed the Israelites from atop various high points). We went hiking this week and climbed a mountain. From the top, the world does look more integrated – you can see whole fields and whole mountains, whole roads and towns; the trees suddenly form themselves into forests. The world makes more sense, seems more of a single piece from up there, and you can feel how you, as a little person amidst it all, are a part of this whole. This is the view that leads to blessings and to goodness, because it is the way of connection. The way of cursing relies on the disjointed view that separates us all, the illusion that we are separate. Balak was right to suggest that cursing required the view of only a small portion of the people, but it is ultimately the Balaam eye view – a view of the whole – that we are after.