A People That Dwells Alone: Distinct, Not Isolated

Parashat Balak (Numbers 22:2–25:9)

These ideas grew out of reading and meditating on Rabbi Sacks's 10 to 15 weekly essays on the parasha, and on his books and worldview.

Balak, king of Moab, feared the Israelites and hired the prophet Bilaam to curse them. Despite his intentions, Bilaam could only speak the words God placed in his mouth, and his curses were transformed into blessings.

In the course of blessing the Jewish people, Bilaam uttered words that have come to seem to many to encapsulate Jewish history:

How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced? From the tops of rocks see them, From the hills I gaze down: A people that dwells alone, Not reckoned among nations. (Numbers 23:8–9)

That is how it seemed during the persecutions and pogroms in Europe. It is how it seemed during the Holocaust. It is how it sometimes seems to Israel and its defenders today. We find ourselves alone. But how should we understand this fact? How should we interpret this verse?

The trouble is that if a people defines itself as a nation that dwells alone, it may eventually find itself alone, and that is not a safe place to be. Besides which, levadad, being alone, is that good or bad?

The first appearance of the words "not good" in the Torah occurs when God says:

"Lo tov heyot ha'adam levado", "It is not good for man to be alone." (Genesis 2:18) Similarly, when describing the leper, the Torah commands that he must live alone:

"Badad yeshev mechutz lamachane moshavo", "He is bound to live outside the camp." (Leviticus 13:46)

And most famously, the word vadad, lonely, appears in the opening verse of Eichah (Lamentations):

"Eichah yashva vadad ha'ir rabati am", "How lonely, how deserted is the city that was once full of people." (Lamentations 1:1)

So, except when the word "alone" appears in connection with God, being alone in Tanach is usually not a blessing. It is a curse. This changes the way we understand Bilaam's words.

The Sages noted that all of Bilaam's blessings eventually turned into curses, with one exception: "How goodly are your tents, O Jacob," referring to the Jewish home, synagogue, and house of study.

The implication is that Bilaam's words contained an ambiguity. They could appear to be blessings, but they also carried the possibility of being understood negatively. What then do Bilaam's words mean? "It is a nation dwelling alone, not reckoned among the nations."

The traditional commentators understood this phrase not as a prediction of Jewish isolation, but as a statement about Jewish distinctiveness. Rashi explains that the phrase means the Jewish people are indestructible.

Ibn Ezra understands it to mean that unlike other nations, Jews, even when living as a minority within another culture, will not assimilate completely.

Ramban explains that their culture and creed will remain distinct, not simply absorbed into the traditions and values of surrounding peoples.

The Netziv gives an especially sharp interpretation: if Jews live with confidence in their own identity and remain distinctive, they will dwell safely; but if they seek to imitate "the nations" and abandon what makes them unique, they will no longer be recognized for anything special.

The phrase "a nation dwelling alone" therefore does not mean that Jews are destined to be isolated, friendless, hated, or abandoned. There is nothing inevitable about antisemitism.

None of the Prophets taught that Jewish destiny was permanent rejection by the nations. To the contrary, they envisioned a future in which the nations would recognize the God of Israel and come to Jerusalem. Zechariah (8:23) describes a time when:

"Ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, 'Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.'" Antisemitism is not written into the script of history.

The Sages continued this great tradition when they taught that the righteous of the nations of the world have a share in the world to come. Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, contains the names of more than 28,000 righteous gentiles who saved lives during the Holocaust years. The friends and allies of the Jewish people are not a hope; they are a historical fact.

If antisemitism is not the destiny of the Jews, neither is it something Jews can cure. Only antisemites can do that, together with the society to which they belong. The reason is that Jews are not the cause of antisemitism. They are the objects of it, but that is something different. The cause is a profound malaise in the cultures in which it appears. It happens whenever a society feels that something is badly amiss, when there is a deep dissonance between the way things are and the way people think they ought to be. People are then faced with two possibilities. They can ask, "What did we do wrong?" and begin to put it right, or they can ask, "Who did this to us?" and search for a scapegoat. In century after century Jews have been made the scapegoat for events that had nothing to do with them. Antisemitism is a sickness, and it cannot be cured by Jews. It is also evil, and those who tolerate it when they could have protested are accomplices to evil.

So what does it mean that Israel is "a nation dwelling alone"? The answer may be found in the distinction between being separate and being isolated. Our ancestors were called to be: "Mamlechet kohanim vegoy kadosh", a holy nation and a kingdom of priests. The word kadosh means set apart. But to be set apart is one thing. To be alone is another.

Leaders are set apart, but they are not alone. If they were alone, they could not lead. They would have nobody to lead.

Artists, musicians, and athletes also live apart. They practise. They prepare. They dedicate themselves to their craft.

But their separation has a purpose. It allows them to focus their energies, refine their abilities, and contribute something to the world. Being apart is not an existential condition. It is not inevitable isolation. There is no suggestion in the Torah that Jews are destined to live alone. God says to Abraham: "Through you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

Abraham was different from his neighbours, but he prayed for them. He fought battles on their behalf. He was different, but he was not alone. This has always been the Jewish calling.

The Jewish people have often occupied the position of the "other." In ancient times, Israel was a small nation surrounded by great empires. In later generations, Jews were often a minority within larger cultures. But this difference was not a punishment. It was a mission.

The Jewish people exist not only for themselves, but also for humanity: to remind the world that there is such a thing as the dignity of dissent.

Judaism has always challenged the idea that power alone determines truth. It has questioned empires, resisted the pressure to disappear into the majority, and insisted that difference itself can be a source of blessing. That is what Jews do. They challenge. They argue. They question. They stand apart from the crowd when necessary. They are apart. But they are not destined to be alone.

The struggle for Jewish freedom is therefore not only a Jewish struggle. It is the struggle of every minority that seeks the right to exist, every small people surrounded by larger powers, and every individual who seeks the freedom to challenge the dominant culture or prevailing belief.

Jews fight for the right to live as Jews, not only for their own sake but because the world itself depends on the dignity of difference. It is therefore essential to remember two things. First, this struggle is not being fought only for Jews. Second, Jewish destiny is not isolation. There will be friends and allies, but they must be found, built, and maintained.

If we believe that we are destined to be alone, we may eventually create that reality. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There is one fundamental difference between antisemitism today and its precursors in the past. Today we have a State of Israel. We need no longer fear what Jews discovered after the Evian Conference in 1938, when the nations of the world closed their doors and Jews knew that they had not one square inch on earth they could call home, a place where "when you have to go there, they have to let you in." Today we have such a home. And every assault on Jews and Israel only serves, in the end, to make Jews and Israel stronger. That is why antisemitism is not only evil but self-destructive. Hate destroys the hater.

The phrase "a nation dwelling alone" does not mean a people abandoned by the world.

It means that Jewish nationhood is not simply a matter of geography, politics, or ethnicity.

It is a religious vocation: to be God's covenant partners, a nation among nations, made distinctive by faith and way of life.

Lose that distinctiveness and we lose the very thing that has been our contribution to humanity.

In our uniqueness lies our universality.

By being what only we are, we contribute what only we can give.