Balaam Is Watching: The Jewish Response to Black Lives Matter

Sources from essay by Rabbi Ken Chasen in The Social Justice Torah Commentary

This famous verse is the culmination of a biblical story in which our Israelite ancestors are being watched, observed by a non-Jewish prophet by the name of Balaam, sent by a foreign king to curse them. Balaam is ready to pronounce his curse until he carefully observes the Israelites-their habits, their lived values-after which he opens his mouth to speak and famous words of blessing spontaneously come forth!

Whatever Balaam, an outsider to the Israelite community, sees in our biblical forebears, it possesses the power to transform curse into blessing. Might we possess that same power today?

-Rabbi Ken Chasen

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Jews of European descent still weren't fully accepted as white by white America. Today they and their descendants are generally viewed as white or at least white- passing -except by white supremacists, who continue to see them (like all Jews) as an even greater threat than Black people.? This transformation has played an undeniable role in millions of American Jewish family stories like my own, in which the current generation has successfully penetrated so many corners of American life that had not been open or were only beginning to open to our parents and grandparents. They could never have dreamed of the possibilities that would be extended to us-careers, universities, neighborhoods, and country clubs that had been largely or entirely closed to them, back when "No Blacks, No Jews, No Dogs" signs could be found, and not only in the South.

But Balaam is always watching us. In the decades since the heyday of the Black-Jewish relationship, Black people saw European American Jews become white while they remained Black. And of course, being Black was always harder in America than being Jewish was, even when being Jewish was at its most difficult. After all, no Jews arrived in the United States on slave ships. While the biblical narrative of rising from slavery in Egypt once united our two peoples, today it is far more likely to cause a disconnect in the eyes of most Black Americans, for whom white Jews are indistinguishable from white "everybody else." Thus ended the presumption among Black folks that Jews are by default allies. When Balaam looks upon the American Jewish community today, the decades-old words of blessing upon his tongue feel tired and played out, and words of curse begin to form in their place.

-Rabbi Ken Chasen

"How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, and your dwelling places, O Israel' . . .

'Your tents'-your external appearance must be that of Jacob, a lower level, while 'your dwelling places'-your interior-must be of the level of Israel"

-Ba'al Shem Tov, as quoted in Torah Gems, vol. 3

Now, though, the rebirth of the Black-Jewish bond could be upon us, but only if white Jews are ready to be true allies, which means wanting for our Black partners what they want for themselves and what we would demand for ourselves. If we Jews were under siege from the police and decided on a particular policy path for addressing our mass endangerment, none of us would be all that interested in a purported "ally" politely explaining to us why our demands aren't the right ones, or the pragmatic ones, or the achievable ones. We would only think, "Easy for you to say . . . they're not killing you." Being in relationship is hard. The kind of trust that the Jewish and Black communities enjoyed in the middle part of the twentieth century can only be re-earned through full investment in one another's fate. The degree to which today's Jewish community will surrender the impulse to refashion the Black community's aspirations on police reform will play an enormous role in determining the degree to which the break between the two communities will heal. What will Balaam see in us? And what words will he speak?

-Rabbi Ken Chasen

Discussion Questions by Ariel Tovlev

1. What is the biblical story of Balaam that is found in this week’s parashah? How does Rabbi Chasen relate the story of Balaam to contemporary life?

2. Rabbi Chasen provides examples of strong bonds between the Black and Jewish communities in the early Civil Rights era. Why did these bonds weaken? How does Rabbi Chasen suggest we rebuild them?

3. Rabbi Chasen uses “Defund the Police” as an example of an issue that has challenged racial alliances. What is your view of this policy goal? Have your own encounters with law enforcement shaped this view?