Said to Myself

In Balak, this week’s Torah portion, we read various stories regarding animals talking.   Long before we get to the climax of this story where Bilaam’s donkey talks to him, we meet Balak the son of Zippor  ( bird). Balak the king of Moav was afraid of the Israelites and  he sent messengers to Balaam. We wants this prophet to curse the Israelites.  And of course this story of a talking animal fits into the larger context of the book of Numbers where the people of Israel are acting like animals. We saw this last week from when they were being struck down by snakes and at the end of this week’s Torah portion when they succumb to animal-like sexual promiscuity.

In this context I have been thinking about Tove Lo‘s explicit earworm Talking Body. She sings:

I am not offended, by the lyrics ( the rest is even more explicit). In general I would argue that Judaism has a sex positive worldview. But still I would say that sex cannot be instead of other forms of communication. Rather, I would say sex should be the climax ( pun intended) of other forms of communication.  Similar to Bilaam being depicted as an ass by a talking donkey, we stand to regress to debase animals when we see sex as a stand alone form of communication. Talking bodies can have profound meaning in a broader conversation.