Balak. What Real Magic is about

Parashat Balak is full of magic- a donkey that speaks, a prophet who can’t prevent his mouth from blessing, an angel with a sword,…

Yet playing with the surnatural is something that, quite explicitly, Judaism is wary of. 

Towards the end of this almost psychedelic story, as the second of his blessings to the People he was meant to curse, the prophet Bilaam hears himself say:

כי לא נחש ביעקב ולא קסם בישראל. 

“For there is no divination in Jacob and no magic in Israel (Bamidbar, 23:23)

What is divination and what is magic? 

Although they are sometimes used interchangeably, for the Mei Ha Shiloach, Divination and Magic differ in what they say about the way we meet the world. To him:

• Divination can be seen as the attempt to control- the future. 

• Magic, describes what happens by itself, outside of human volition. 

These terms, he will remind us, really describe opposite stances in life.

To the Mei Ha Shiloach, Nachash, divination, means not wanting to let go.

In that sense it is a form of control: in order to impact reality, and for the future to become different than a Present one wants to change, one shows stubborness/perseverence.

And just as the other side of the same coin, Qesem, magic, is the art of letting be.

Choosing the side of magic means seeing how things happen m’atsmaam “by themselves” and then deciding to “go with the flow.”  

It doesn’t get more Daoist than that.

But then the question begs: when do we know what to do, and when?

The Mei ha shiloach offers a teaching that is a true Hasidic version of the Buddhist-derived Mindfulness Teaching of “skillful means:”

It is not, he says, that magic or divination are forbidden in the Jewish tradition.

The question is whether they are appropriate to a specific situation.

שניהם אסורים שלא במקומם הראוי להם,

Both are forbidden when not used in their proper place. 

By saying this, the Ishbitzer rebbe translates these supernal notions into ethical stances: to him, what we are really talking about here, is ways to deal with reality. 

There is no one fixed response that fits all the constantly changing context of the way things are.

Each of these stances has its own place. 

The determining factor then, to know when to do what, stands in one word: clarity.

Clarity (birur בירור), is a concept that, if you have been studying with “Torah Insights”  since the beginning of the year, is already familiar to you.

In fact it is the leitmotif of the Mei Ha Shiloach, and the core midah (quality) of the inner work he invites us to do in his reading of the Chumash, parasha after parasha: 

Clarity is the ethos that helps us see what is, so that we can choose how to act.

Clear perception leads to clean action.

And this, for the Ishbiter rebbe, is what will give us the courage to act strongly when required:

דהיינו באם ידע האדם בברור את רצון הש"י אסור לו לחשות בדבר ולעזוב הדבר כפי שיתנהג מעצמו, רק צריך להתגבר כארי ולעשות בתקופות, 

Because at a time when one knows God’s will with clarity, it is forbidden for them to remain silent and leave the thing happen of their own accord, 

Rather one must strengthen oneself like a lion and act with strength. 

To the contrary, when we are lacking clarity the skillful action is to take a step back, to not make a move, and for a while, to simply observe.

This is how he explains the verse “there is no nachash (divination) in Yaakov”: 

At a time when a soul in Israel is uncertain about something, not to act stubbornly, 

but rather remove all negiot (personal motive, partiality) from oneself

And then one will see that however God acts, that is how the thing will behave 

 בשעה שהנפש מישראל מסופק בדבר לא ילך בעקשות כלל

רק יסלק כל נגיעה מעליו 

ויראה כמו שיתנהג הש"י כך יעשה הדבר הזה

When we are unsure, the invitation is to be humble enough to pause, and instead of acting out, look deeply at the way things behave.

From there God will show us through Nature. This is the Mei Ha Shiloach's definition of Magic, choosing as his prooftext this Talmudic story (Chullin, 95a) about Rav seeing a boat coming to him, and seeing in it a sign of God wanting him to embark on a journey.

The Hasidic Master teaches us, with the Gemara, that through the behavior of things, we can get to hear what God wants, and therefore what to do.

Connecting to Magic is seeing signs in the world around us.

It is noticing Divine eloquence- Divine guidance through Nature.

Today, the last erev Shabbat of this Summer lightness before we start falling down into the Three Weeks of mourning leading to Tisha b’Av, as Humans are keeping building up their dark dance of a global war, I so wish we would all pause to look at nature. Yet instead of that I see a lot of acting out without consciousness, a lot of certainty without clarity. I see Leaders, no matter whether in Gaza or in Jerusalem, in Paris or in New York, willing to sacrifice the well-being of their own People so they can stay in Power.

Just like Balak.

Today when I look around I see so much tekifut- so much strong action.

The former President of the United States, Donald Trump, survived an assassination attempt. The Israeli Army targeted yet again one of the Masterminds of October 7th, Mohammed Deif,.

This morning for the first time there was an intrusion in the aerial space of Israel, and a Houthi drone fell on a building and killed a man. 

He won’t get to say “shabbat shalom” tonight.

And here we are, getting ready to read Parashat Balak tomorrow in synagogues around the world: The story of a king afraid of Israel’s power who delegates a Proxi to curse them and get them killed.

And here we are, reading the timeless wisdom of Hasidut, “loving kindness”, who comes once again, not only to console us, but also to invite us to wake up.

What if real magic wasn’t what it seems?

What if real magic was the victory of Love over Hatred?

This week I just got back to Jerusalem after a couple of months in France.

I arrived just in time for the “week of goodness” organized by Rachel and Jon Goldberg Polin, the parents of one of the American- Israeli hostages taken from a Peace Festival in the South of Israel, on October 7th.

This is how they explain their initiative:

“We have decided to dedicate one week to surge goodness into the world.”

They believe that as others are busy fighting or talking at the negotiation table, there is one thing that we, civilians can do: 

“Redeeming our hostages through good deeds.”

Perhaps this is real magic.

The magic of daring to believe, even amidst unbelievable pain, even amidst war and fighting when necessary, that still, chessed, loving-kindness, is what will heal the world.

This is the message of Hasidut. And it starts with each of us.