I hate the word “hate”. How do I respond what I hear someone say, “I hate someone”? It is such a strong word to use so freely. But if we pause, as I think we need to, we might realize that we do not actually mean it. What would it mean genuinely to hate someone? What would someone need to do for us to hate them? While I know that camp is a bubble filled with love, it is hard to ignore all of the hate that is in the world right now.
I was thinking about this while reading Balak, this week’s Torah portion. While much of the portion deals with the prophet Balaam, his errand to curse the Jews, and his talking donkey, we often just gloss over the role of Balak who sent him on this errand. Why does Balak hate the Israelites? There we read:
And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. And Moav became very frightened of the people, because they were many; and Moav was disgusted because of the children of Israel. And Moav said to the elders of Midian: ‘Now will this multitude lick up all that is round about us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field.’–And Balak the son of Zippor was king of Moav at that time. ( Numbers 22:2-4)
It all started when Balak saw the Israelites’ success over the Amorites. From there it seems that he quickly moves from fright, to disgust, to teaming up against the Israelites, to dehumanizing the Israelites calling them oxen, to enacting a plan to bring them down. I am sure we can all relate to this cycle. How often do we respond well to the success of our friends and friends let alone the success of strangers or even enemies? We are often stuck in a fixed mindset. For some reason it is hard for us to use these experiences to inspire ourselves to work harder. Hating them seems easier than dealing with our own deficiencies. But in the end as we curse other people’s success we ourselves miss out on the blessing of growth.
Jewish ethics are founded on the ideal that everyone is created in the Divine image. There is a part of every person that is a mystery of what potential goodness and Godliness may be hidden within them. To hate someone is to deny the unique nature of their creation. In trying to curse them some part of ourselves is diminished in not maintaining the search for the hidden goodness within them. It is our job to explore this mystery in everyone, maybe even more so for the people we hate or claim to hate us.
– I encourage you to read Mindset by Carol Dweck
Said to Myself 