In this week’s Torah portion, the Moabite king Balak sends Bilam
to curse the Israelites. Bilam finds he is unable to do so and he instead issues
blessings, including the well known opening to the contemporary worship service:
Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishkenotecha Yisrael – How goodly are your
tents, Yaakov (Jacob); your dwelling places, Israel.
Rashi explains that Bilam sees that in the Israelite encampment
the tent openings do not face one another, affording each tent privacy from the
prying eyes of others. Writes Chana Bracha Siegelbaum in Women at the Crossroads
(p. 148), “The woman personifies the tent, which served as the home for the
Jewish people during their wandering in the wilderness. Likewise, the name
Yaakov refers to the Jewish women (see Rashi on Shemot/Exodus 19:3).”
The Rebbetzin continues: “[The tent] protects the Jewish
people from every negative influence. As long as the Jewish men were under the
faithful shield of their Jewish women – the guardians of the goodly tents of Yaakov
– no evil could befall them. However, as soon as they left their tents, to go astray
after strange [Moabite and Midianite] women, they made themselves vulnerable to
every sin conceivable, including idol worship.”
The shrewd Bilam understands that the
holiness of privacy and modesty ensures Jewish survival. Talmud (Sanhedrin
106a) relates that Bilam advises Balak: “Hashem hates harlotry and the men of
Israel love linen garments. Make curtains, have elderly harlots selling linens
outside and young ones selling inside…Israel ate, drank and were merry. The old
harlots offered the curtains for their true value; the young ones sold them for
less.” The men enter the tents to consort
with the young harlots and the women refuse to have relations with them until
the Jewish men engage in idolatry.
Normally, the Moabite women would
not venture outside their tents. Talmud (Yevamot 77a) notes that the Moabite
women do not come out to offer food and drink to the Israelites when the
Israelites leave Egypt since “it is not the way of women to go out towards wayfarers.”
The Moabite men, however, are faulted for not offering refreshments. Torah therefore
prohibits Moabite men from converting to Judaism (Devarim/Deuteronomy
23:4-5), while it allows Moabite women to convert “because of their notion of
modesty.” (Siegelbaum)
The Haftorah for Balak (Michah 5:6-6:8)
ends with instructions for serving G-d: “He has told you, O man, what is good (mah
tov) and what the L-rd requires of you: only to do justice, love kindness
and walk modestly with your G-d.” Concludes the Rebbetzin: “If we Jewish women
learn to excel in tzniut (modesty) and model exemplary modest behavior,
in spite of the immodest spirit prevailing in our current western society, we will
b’ezrat Hashem (With G-d’s help), walk with Hashem on the path of our
final redemption.”
Published in honor of the opening of the Mei Tova Mikvah in Dix Hills, New York. May its holy waters bring down many blessings.
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