Do You Believe in Magic or Mircles

Tuesday night in anticipation of the moon rise I set the dinner table so I could watch it, much to my disappointment a cloud bank blocked my view. To my surprise a little after dark I caught a glimpse of it rising above the cloud bank, so I opened my window and settled in for the show. As I was watching it rise in and out of swirling pink and orange clouds suddenly off to my right down the valley a fireworks show started. It was as if it was vying for my attention. The material verses the spiritual. The glimmer and glitz that quickly fades against the slow steady rise of the divine. At times there was darkness on both sides. I never knew if there would be another burst from the light show but I knew with certainly that even if I couldn't see it HaShem's picture of renewal was there.

 I grew up on magic. In my day who didn't dream of  folding their arms and blinking their eyes like Jeanie to clean up their room or take out the trash. Who didn't want to have a few spells up their sleeve like Samantha to bewitch our parents or to turn one of our sibs into a toad. With the blink of an eye, the twitch of a nose or a few choice words and we could have things just the way we thought they should be. It was not HaShem's way for us then and as we will see in this weeks parsha it was not for Balak either.


In this week's torah portion we see Balaam who was sent by the Moabite king, Balak to curse Israel. Balak had a deep understanding and knowledge of the spiritual system and he knew what needed to be done in order to eliminate the growth of the Israelites and the threat to his position. Balaam was on the same level as Moses because he was the token prophet to the nations so that they could not later say "we too could have been great if we had had a prophet among us". Balaam was  from the negative side with the ability given to him by HaShem to bless or curse the Jewish people. Balak  knew that Balaam was the only one who could separate the connection of Moses and the Israelites from the Divine protective connection to HaShem.  The weapon of choice, the power of words. Not well equipped armies and not sophisticated weapons of mass destruction, but a few well selected words by the right person could do the job.

Not much has changed in all these years beloved. The world is still trying to destroy us by separating us from our divine connection. Our connection to HaShem, our connection to our land and our connection to each other. Divide and conquer. The weapon of choice, you guessed it, words. Words from the media, words from fellow Jews, words from our very own president congratulating the new president of Egypt, a member of the Muslem Brotherhood. Take heart beloved, what HaShem did then by way of a miracle, He will do again. He will turn the curses being woven against us into blessings. Make no mistake, as in the time of Balak there will be causalities. The line has been drawn in the proverbial sand. When all the dust settles the question is whose side will we be on. Will we be on the side of blessing or on the side of cursing Israel and her people. As we see from our parsha words have power, let us chose our words well.
Below is a link to a study entitled Who is the Erev Rav. It is deep but very interesting.
May you all have a restful Shabbos and a meaningful fast~
Elisheva
http://neshamaart.com/Newsletter/ErevRav.htm