I have been on a journey for the last few months. I started packing to leave my home of the last three years in Santa Fe around Passover, and then spent some time staying with a friend. On my last day in Santa Fe, I went to the hot springs with my friends and drove through windy mountain roads to Denver. Then, I spent some time in Rochester and New York City, and, after traveling a cumulative total of over 3,000 miles by car and train this summer, I finally arrived in Chicagoland in late June.
All this traveling has made me think a lot about all the preparation that it takes: packing everything, buying snacks, making sure to have emergency supplies in the trunk, and planning the route. Journeying takes work!
This week’s Torah portion, Balak, also features a journey, as well as the steps that lead up to that journey. The Moabite king, Balak, hires the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites. When Balaam finally accepts the job, he must prepare for the journey that will enable him to do the work. The first thing he does is wake up and saddle his donkey. This image directly parallels the actions of Abraham, who wakes up and saddles his donkey before heading out for the Akedah, the binding of Isaac.
The word that’s used for the act of saddling in both of those narratives is vayachabosh, which occurs only four times in the Torah – when Abraham and Bilaam saddle their donkeys, and also when the priests tie on their turbans before performing Temple service. This word refers to an act of tying on and getting ready to perform some kind of holy work. For Abraham, the holy work that he’s about to do is to sacrifice his son, as God asked him to; and for Balaam, the work that he’s about to do is to go and speak to the Israelites. He’s been hired to curse them, but the whole time he keeps saying, “Whatever God says is what I’m going to do.” Even though he’s planning to curse them, by the time he gets there the only thing that comes out of his mouth is blessings. In B’reishit Rabbah 55:8, Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai says “Love upsets one’s usual practice and hatred upsets one’s usual practice.” High status men at the time would not usually have saddled their own donkeys. Abraham and Balaam both saddle their own donkeys because they’re so anxious about the journey that they’re about to take and so zealous about performing their task.
I think it’s interesting that saddling, this kind of preparation, happens before these two very different journeys where they’re setting out to do a particular task, but it doesn’t end the way that either of them expects. Abraham prepares himself to sacrifice his son, and the angel stops him, so he sacrifices a ram instead. Bilaam sets out, planning to curse the Israelites but God causes him to only say blessings instead. Even as we prepare for journeys, we don’t know how they’re going to end. But what’s important is that we prepare in a way that sets ourselves up for success along the way.
Shimon ben Yohai continues the midrash by saying, “Let one saddling come and counteract the other saddling.” Let love counteract hate, and let good intent counteract bad intent. We can go into a journey planning for the best outcome, or planning for the worst. We may not be able to control how the journey turns out, but we can control the energy that we put into how we start it out.
As one journey draws to a close, my new journey with the Temple Jeremiah community is just beginning. And while I hope that I have prepared well and thoughtfully, I know there will be twists and turns along the way. I can’t wait to discover how this journey unfolds, together with all of you