Blessings of Change
Blessings of Change Shabbat Balak 5775 Rabbi Keren Gorban
Has anyone ever had the pleasure of moving? Okay, maybe “pleasure” is the wrong word. Even moves under the best of circumstances are generally not enjoyable. There’s even research that shows that moving is one of the most stressful experiences a person can go through. (I apparently enjoy that stress, because I calculated that this is my fourth city and my sixth move in eight years.) Certainly some of the stress of moving comes from having to figure out how to get all your stuff from one place to another. And, even when boxes are well labeled, half the time you don’t know where anything is. And of course you always realize that you need something that’s been packed up already. And on and on. But the most stressful part of moving is the change, no matter how good or important or necessary it is. We see that clearly in the Torah.
Much of the books of Exodus and Numbers, along with bits of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, tells the story of one of the biggest moves in the narrative of the Jewish people. We all know the gist of the story—the Israelites are enslaved in Egypt and God sends Moses to lead the people out of slavery, through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. Obviously this is a good move, with the promise of wonderful things to come. Only things don’t quite happen that way.
From the start, some of the Israelites were hesitant to leave Egypt. By the time they got to the Sea of Reeds, some people wanted to surrender to the approaching Egyptian army and go back home. A month or so later, they rebel against God by building a golden calf to worship. Over the next two years, they whine and complain repeatedly about a lack of water, bad-tasting water, not having enough food, and not having any meat to eat. They even go so far as to wish that they could go back to Egypt, where they had comfortable homes and plenty to eat, especially meat, leeks, and cucumbers. They continue to rebel against God and Moses and Aaron by worshiping idols, by challenging authority, or even by trying to usurp positions of leadership. And finally, when the Israelites are close enough to the Promised Land that they can almost see it, their fear of the unknown leads them to sabotage their future in the Promised Land—the Israelites that were brought out of Egypt are sentenced to die in the wilderness, so that only their children have that opportunity.
Even Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, the leaders of the community, don’t get to enter the Promised Land.
Which brings us to this week’s parashah, Balak. The Israelites are encamped just beyond the borders of the land of Moav. The Moabite king, Balak, fears the size of the Israelite community and decides that a well-placed curse will allow him to destroy them without much effort. So he hires the famous prophet and magician Bilaam to curse the Israelites. Bilaam realizes the danger of what Balak wants him to do, so he refuses. But Balak is persistent, and Bilaam accepts the assignment with a warning that he is simply an instrument of God—whatever he says is what God wants him to say.
When Bilaam arrives at a mountain overlooking the Israelite encampment, he opens his mouth to curse the Israelites and, instead, speaks words of blessing and promise. A few days later, he tries to curse the Israelites again but, again, blesses them. Days later, he tries a third time to fulfill his task and, again, fails to curse the Israelites. Instead part of his blessing becomes the verse that Jews traditionally say whenever we enter a sanctuary: Mah tovu ohalekha Yaakov, misk’notekha Yisrael—How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob; your dwelling-places, O Israel.
Change is not easy. It makes us nostalgic and romantic about what used to be, until the problems and challenges we faced seem unimportant and minor, outweighed by all the good memories. Like the Israelites who longed to return to Egypt, we wish we could go back. Change also makes us fearful about what’s to come. The unknown, even an unknown that holds infinite promise, is terrifying because we have little to no context for what we might experience. Who knows whether it will be better or worse than what we had, who knows if we will succeed in reaching our goals or if we will fail miserably? Sometimes it feels like “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” Change is uncomfortable and stressful, and it forces us to confront parts of ourselves that we’ve been able to ignore.
Despite all of these “curses,” however, change can be vital to our growth as individuals and as a community. It’s up to us to be instruments of blessing.
I know that there is a lot of change happening at Temple Sinai. We are, for all intents and purposes, in the wilderness between two places—what-has-been and what-will-be.
Luckily for this community, what-has-been has been a wonderful place. You have fond memories of the various people who have served this community—not just Rabbi Symons, Sara, and Jackie, but also the staff and clergy that came before them or who are still here.
They and you have built a terrific community, one that I’m excited to join because of what has come before me. In some ways, though, that makes change even harder. You’re not moving from something terrible to something better, you’re moving from great to, hopefully, at least as great.
My hope is that you keep those memories of all of the great people and experiences close and keep your hearts and minds open to what will come. I know that all of the changes that are happening will bring blessing with them, but I also know that there will be challenges. I hope that we all will respond to those challenges with compassion and respect and grace, rather than complaints and anger. I hope that together we can turn the curses of change into blessings by being, ourselves, instruments of blessing. And I hope that we will walk together, hand in hand, toward the Promised Land. Kein y’hi ratzon.
