Readings for Saturday, July 12, 2025 and The Fast of the 17th of Tammuz

Readings for Saturday, July 12, 2025

Balak

22:2-25:9 Bamidbar (Numbers)

Balak is the seventh sedrah in Bamidbar.  It takes its name from the first word in the sedrah, “Balak, son of Zippor, saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.” (22:2).  Balak is the name of the King of the Moabites.  Balak divides into two parts.  Most of the sedrah (22:2-24:25) is taken up with the Story of Balaam.  Some commentators contend that this section of Bamidbar was originally a separate book of the Torah, which would have meant that the Torah would have consisted of seven books.  The last nine verses of the sedrah start the story of Pinchas, the grandson of Aaron.

The Story of Balaam (22:2-24:25).  I have always found this story to be a mystery, especially when you get to the part about the talking ass.  There appear to be several differing views about its importance.  Plaut talks about this portion with almost reverential awe while the editors of Etz Hayim refer to it as containing “what may be the only comic passage in the Torah.”  In Torah Studies, a compilation of Rabbi Schneerson’s talks on the weekly readings, the editors do not mention the Story of Balaam, focusing instead on the episode involving Pinchas, which comes at the end of the sedrah.  I have relied heavily on the Plaut Chumash and the writings of Rabbi Telushkin in preparing this section.  The sedrah opens with the Israelites camped “on the steppes of Moab.”  Balak, the King of Moab, is frightened by this mass of intruders and sends for the prophet Balaam to help him fend off the invaders.  According to tradition, those who Balaam blesses remain blessed and those who he curses are cursed forever.  Balak does not ask Balaam to bless Moab.  Rather he wants him to come and curse the Israelites.  Balaam hears the voice of God, and turns down Balak’s first offer.  This is not the first time that we have seen God revealing himself to non-Jews.  After all, He is the God of the entire Universe.  But the second time, God relents and lets Balaam accept Balak’s offer.  Balak saddles his ass and heads for Moab.  But the donkey balks at her mission.  (Yes, this wise, talking animal is a female.  Is this a continuation of the feminist theme we saw when God told Abraham to listen to Sarah?)  The ass sees an armed angel standing in the road and tries to turn aside.  This angers Balaam who begins beating the animal.  Then the ass speaks, reminding Balaam of her loyalty, at which point God reveals the angel to Balaam.  The angel admonishes Balaam for beating his ass, telling him that if it had not been for her, Balaam would have been slain right there on the road.  For those of you who are bothered by super-natural events like this, relax.  According to Midrash, this talking ass was one of the things created on the evening of the Sixth Day of Creation.  In other words, the talking donkey does not violate the laws of nature; it was pre-programmed to appear at this moment.  Balaam arrives at Ir-Moab, the capital city of Balak’s kingdom.  Balak has to be one of the most disappointed employers in history.  He is paying for curses on his enemies and instead he hears blessings on the Israelites.  Balaam views the Israelite camp from three vantage points and each time he utters blessings upon them.  In his own defense, Balaam tells Balak that he can only utter the words that God puts in his mouth.  The angered Balak sends Balaam packing without paying him.  At this point, as if to add insult to injury, the departing Balaam speaks for a fourth and final time.  This time he predicts that Israel will eventually triumph over Moab.  There are obvious messages in the story.  In allowing Balaam to go to Balak when he is asked for a second time, God is allowing man to exercise free will.  The fact that God puts the blessings in Balaam’s mouth is a reminder that while men may speak words of blessing all blessings come from God.  Balaam’s willingness to sell his prophetic powers for material gain shows the difference between a real and false prophet.  To paraphrase the Mishnah, he who profits from the crown of the Torah shall surely perish.

Pinchas (25:1-9).  Pinchas is the name of next week’s sedrah.  However, we meet him for the first time at the end of Balak.  The events in these last nine sentences of the sedrah provide the antecedents to the events we will be reading about next week.  Having failed to defeat the Israelites with curses, the Moabites send their women to the Israelites in an attempt to seduce them.  God orders Moshe to have the “ringleaders impaled.”  Moshe then calls upon the leaders of the Israelites to carry out God’s command.  Just at this moment an unnamed Israelite (we will find out who he is next week) approaches Moshe with his “woman” and heads for his tent to enjoy her pleasures.  Pinchas, the son of Eleazar the Kohein Gadol and grandson of Aaron, is so outraged that he grabs a spear, enters the tent and stabs them both in the belly.  The sedrah ends by telling us that this stopped the plague that had broken out.  The plague had claimed the lives of 24,000 Israelites.  We must wait until we read Pinchas next week to fully understand the import of these events.

Themes

Commandments

There are none in this sedrah.

Prayer

As we have seen before, the Torah is a source for many of our prayers.  The Mah Tovu, the prayer recited when entering the synagogue for morning prayers, comes from the mouth of Balaam (24:5).  You may recognize the traditional English translation for its opening verse, “How goodly are your tents O Jacob, your dwelling places O House of Israel.”

Separate and Apart

One of the recurring themes of the Torah is the special role of the Jew in the world.  We are the people of the Covenant.  We are the people of whom God has said, I will make you a holy (separate) people.  I will make you a nation of priests.  Now the words of Balaam drive this point home again, “There is a people that dwells apart, not reckoned among the nations.”  There are those who seek the walls of the Ghetto to keep us apart from other nations because they are afraid that we will assimilate and lose our identity.  There are those who would place us behind Ghetto walls to keep us from “contaminating” other nations.  There are those Jews who bridle at this concept of separateness for a variety of reasons and reject this as anachronistic chauvinism.  And then there are those who would say that the challenge for modern Jews is to live in the world while maintaining a strong, positive sense of our own identity. 

Genesis Connection

This sedrah contains at least two connections to Bereshit.  First, they both contain talking animals - the snake in Bereshit and the donkey in Balak.  Secondly, we see God asking questions for which He should have known the answer.  In Bereshit He asks Cain, “Where is your brother, Abel?”  In Balak He asks Balaam, “Who are the people who came to you?”  Since God obviously knew the answers, why ask the questions?  Because, according to some commentators, this is so we will know that confession is the beginning of repentance. 

The Power of Words

Jews and Judaism are all about words and language.  After all, we are known as The People of the Book.  This sedrah is filled with reminders of the power of speech.  Balak knew that he could not defeat the Israelites with armed might so he tried to use the power of negative speech (curses) to destroy us.  The donkey spoke in an attempt to save her master.  This proves that we should listen even to the humblest of creatures because they might have a message worth hearing.

What’s in a Name?

Balak is one of only six weekly portions that takes its appellation from a person’s name.  The others are Noah, Cha’Yay Sarah, Yitro, Korach, and Pinchas.  What do “a righteous man in his time,” Abraham’s wife, Moses’ father-in-law, a rebel leader, the King of the Moabites and a killer turned High Priest have in common?  Why are these six people memorialized for all times?  Why do their names appear every year on Jewish calendars around the world?  Is this one of those questions that “Rashi’s five year old could answer” or one of those that would elicit commentary from those engaged in Torah study?  Since nothing is placed in the Torah for no reason, there must be one.  The question is what is the reason?

The Universal God

There are those who contend that the God of the Israelites was essentially a tribal or a national deity.  Many of them believe that the concept of the God of the Israelites as a Universal God is a later manifestation formulated in the time of the literary prophets and the Babylonian Exile.  The sedrah of Balak challenges that assumption.  The God of the Israelites speaks to both Balak, King of the Moabites and Balaam.  Balaam says, “What the Lord says, that I must say.”  Balak tells him, “I was going to reward you richly, but the Lord has denied you the reward.”  At the beginning of the Torah, God spoke with all people i.e., Adam, Eve, Cain, Noah.  As the tale progresses, He establishes a special relationship with the Israelites, but that does not mean He is not the God of all the World.  As the narrative of the Torah is coming to a close with these chapters of Bamidbar, it is almost as if the author, in this sedrah, is reminding us that God does indeed speak to all people, not just the Jewish people.

Balak and the 17^th of Tammuz

Balak reminds us of the importance of words. In America, whether it is bullying or the coarsening of our public discourse, we are painfully aware of the harm that speech can do. Since most American Jews do not refrain from food and drink on the 17^th of Tammuz maybe we could refrain from Lashon Hara on this minor fast day.  To paraphrase the old Chasidic tale, we will show as much concern for what comes out of our mouths as we show for what we put in our mouths.  

Haftarah

5:6-6:8 Micah

The Man:  The name Micah is actually an abbreviation of the name “Micaiah” which means “who is like unto God.”  Micah is one of the Twelve Minor Prophets.  While he may be minor in terms of length (fifteen pages in the Jewish Publication Society’s English translation, The Prophets) he is certainly a major figure when it comes to the complexity of his preachings, the boldness of his teachings and the majesty of his language.  Consider the following famous statements, all of which are found in this slender work.  “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (4:2).  “And they shall beat their swords in plowshares, And their spears into pruninghooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more” (4:3).  “They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree; And none shall make them afraid”(4:4).  “It hath been told thee, O man what is good, And what the Lord doth require of thee:  Only to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God” (6:8).

 Based on information in the text, we know that Micah preached during the reign of three Judean Kings, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah.  This means he lived at the end of the eighth century B.C.E. and the beginning of the seventh century B.C.E.  He lived during the last days of the Northern Kingdom and a period in which the Southern Kingdom was threatened with foreign conquest.  He was a younger contemporary of Isaiah.  Some statements including one cited above are found in the writings of both men.  Nobody is sure if one is quoting the other or they are both referencing an even older source that has been lost to us.  Micah lived at a time of wealth and social upheaval.  Judean society was moving away from an agrarian egalitarianism model to a more urban model with increasing gaps between the rich and the poor.  He decried the abuse of power by the wealthy and their exploitation of the masses.  He warned the people that this behavior would bring exile and destruction.  He told them that possessing the holy city of Jerusalem would not protect them.  He mixed this harsh message of immediate punishment with a message of ultimate redemption.  God would not forget us.  He would forgive us and redeem us.  “Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth the iniquity, And passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?  He retaineth not His anger forever, Because He delighteth in mercy.  He will again have compassion upon his; He will subdue our iniquities; And Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.  Thou wilt show faithfulness to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, As Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old”(7:18-20).

The Message:  As Goldman points out in his commentary on this prophet, the Book of Micah can be divided into three parts.  Micah opens with a message devoted almost exclusively to denouncing sin and proclaiming impending punishment.  He then shifts to a message almost totally devoted to “words of hope and cheer.”  The haftarah is taken from the third section where he mixes the two elements.  He opens by addressing the “remnant of Jacob”, an obvious reference to punishment and exile.  But then he reminds the people of God’s past beneficence.  Surely, God who has been good to us in the past will be good to us in the future.  As the editors of Etz Hayim point out, this leads the people to ask in what manner they should approach the Lord.  Should they approach with mounds of sacrifices?  No, not with sacrifices alone should they approach God.  Instead the prophet tells them to approach Him in the way they already know is proper - with justice, mercy and humility (6:8).  The classical English version of verse eight loses some of its meaning in the translation.  As the notes in the Soncino edition point out, the prophet uses the word “justly” first because it is the lack of justice both in the legal and social sense of that term which will lead to the destruction of the nation.  But justice is not enough.  The people must love mercy.  In Hebrew the word used is “chesed” which actually means acts of loving-kindness.  “Chesed” is to be the basis of interaction with all human beings, regardless of their social station.  Finally, the English reads “walk humbly” but in Hebrew the word “v-hah-tznayah” which though translated here as humbly actually has the connotation of “modesty or decency.”  And of course modesty and decency have a multiplicity of meanings far beyond just being humble.  There are those who have praised Micah for reducing the commandments to three items.  But in following this list of three, the Israelites will be led to follow all 613 commandments.

Theme-Link:  There are at least two connections between the sedrah and the haftarah.  The sedrah tells the story of Balak and Balaam.  In reminding the people of “God’s gracious acts”, Micah reminds his contemporaries of this episode.  Furthermore, Balaam speaks the words “mah tovu” as in the famous “Goodly are your tents O Jacob?”  Micah uses the same term “mah tov” in the famous words of 6:8.

Readings for Sunday, July 13, 2025

Shiva Asar Be-Tammuz (Seventeenth of Tammuz)

This minor fast day commemorates the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. by the Babylonians and again in 70 C.E. by the Romans.  It marks the start of a three week period of national tragedy that culminates with the destruction of the First and Second Temples on Tisha B'Av.  Since this is a minor fast, it is observed only during the daylight hours.  This little known and little observed fast day carries a message for us in this summer when those whose self-proclaimed religious purity and zeal would pit Jew against Jew.    In the summer of 70 an earlier generation of Zealots was willing to kill their fellow Jews in Jerusalem as they bid to maintain control even as the Romans stood ready to storm the ancient capital.  According to some sages, the Second Temple fell because of the lack of love and community spirit among the Jewish people.  Even if we do not observe the Fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz, we would do well to heed the lessons of this memorial to a national tragedy that happened two thousand years ago. 

Secular Seventeenth of Tammuz

In 1776, July 4, Independence Day, fell on the 17^th of Tammuz, 5536.  For American Jews, this certainly is a day of celebration. The challenge is how to combine the combine the sorrow of 70 with the joy of 1776.  Is this a modern version of combining the bitterness of Maror with the sweetness of Charoset? 

Torah

32:11-14; 34:1-10 Shemot (Exodus)

As part of the observance, the Torah is read at both the Morning and the Afternoon Service.  The Torah portion is the same for both services.  It is a short reading with only three aliyot i.e., only three people are called to the Torah.  In the Afternoon Service, the Torah reading is followed by a Haftarah chosen especially for this day.  The first part of the reading (chapter 32) portrays God’s anger at the Israelites for the Golden Calf.  The second and third parts of the reading (chapter 34) describe Moshe’s return to the mountaintop to receive the Ten Commandments for the second time.  As Rabbi Kolatch points out, this is a fitting reading for a minor fast day since it contains the reminder that “sin leads to tragedy and expressions of remorse lead to forgiveness.”

Haftarah

55:6-56-8 Isaiah

This is the same haftarah read with Vayeilech, the ninth sedrah in Devarim.  In the haftarah, Isaiah calls upon the people to “Maintain justice and do what is right.”  The term for “right” in Hebrew is Tzedakah.  On fast days, it is even more important than on other days, to provide contributions for the poor (Tzedakah).  Two reasons are given for reading the haftarah in the afternoon instead of the morning.  One is that by reading it in the afternoon, people will have had all morning to perform acts of Tzedakah.  A second reason is that on three of the more minor fast days, people are allowed to go to work.  Reading the haftarah in the morning would extend the service to the point where it could become burdensome.  Since Mincha is relatively short, it would be less burdensome on the community to read the haftarah at the Afternoon Service.

Copyright; July, 2025; Mitchell A. Levin