They are the first words of the morning service.
“Ma tovu oholecha Yaakov mishkenotecha Yisrael - How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!” (Bamidbar 24:5)
We all know the story. Balak asks Balaam to curse the Jews. While Balaam may have wanted to curse them, he was beholden to God’s will and had to bless them instead.
Why would we start our davening with the coerced blessing of someone who hates us? The Talmud (Sanhedrin 105b) makes Balaam’s intentions pretty clear:
“Rabbi Yocḥanan says: From the blessing of that wicked person, Balaam, you can ascertain what was in his heart. God transformed the curses that he planned into blessings. He sought to say that they should not have synagogues and study halls, and he said instead: “How goodly are your tents, Jacob.”
The words of Ma tovu may sound nice, but there is plenty of malice aforethought.
In fact, Rabbi Shlomo Luria (Reponsa Maharshal #64) explains that his practice was to omit the “Ma tovu…” sentence when he prayed. He began with the second sentence of that passage invoking God’s kindness in allowing us to come to Shul to daven.
The Minhag Yisrael (widespread Jewish practice), however, is to begin our prayers with Ma tovu. Why aren’t we concerned with it originating as a curse with hateful intentions? Isn’t there a better sentiment with which to start?
The Balaam episode is a lesson in transforming kelalah (curses) into berachah (blessings). We may not be able to control the statements or sentiments said toward or against us. We can control how we internalize and act upon those words.
Rabbi Norman Lamm, in a 1954 sermon, explained:
“We say ‘Ma tovu’ not despite the fact that it was intended to harm us, but because of that very fact. It is Jewish to find the benediction in the malediction, the good in the evil, the opportunity in the catastrophe. It is Jewish to make the best of the worst, to squeeze holiness out of profanity…There is some good in everything bad. The greatness of humanity consists of our ability to rescue that good and build upon it.”
Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) was one of the greatest Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. An assimilated Jew who had decided to convert to Christianity, he changed his mind after being inspired by the Yom Kippur service in the Orthodox shul he attended to give Judaism one last chance. Rosenzweig was a Jew on a journey, and he was a fabulous speaker, writer, and teacher, who inspired many other Jews to explore their heritage more deeply.
In 1922, Rosenzweig became afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (later known as Lou Gehrig's disease). Towards the end of his life, he had to write with the help of his wife, Edith, who would recite letters of the alphabet until he indicated for her to stop, continuing until she could guess the word or phrase he intended. At other times, Rosenzweig would point to the letter on the plate of his typewriter. They also developed a communication system based on him blinking his eyes.
Shortly after the onset of illness, Franz Rosenzweig wrote: “If I must be ill, I want to enjoy it. In a sense, these two months have been quite pleasant. For one thing, after a long spell, I got back to reading books.” Just before his death, he dictated: “I read, carry on business…and, all in all, enjoy life…”
In a meaningful coincidence, Lou Gehrig, who was afflicted with the same disease as Rosenzweig, had a similar ability to find the blessing within the curse. On July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, the longtime Yankee first baseman uttered those immortal words: “For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
We invoke Ma tovu to remind ourselves that there is blessing within curse and light within darkness. We may go through life thinking this isn’t the case. Balaam’s “blessings,” as well as those heroes of the spirit who have themselves found this to be true, provide us with this important lesson.
The whole Balaam story is strange and unique in that the Jews had no idea of what was going on around them. They didn’t know Balaam was trying to curse them but couldn’t. They had no idea of what he experienced or said. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around, does it make a sound? Why include this episode on the Torah?
We need to be sensitive to the blessings around us. It is a deep and complicated lesson. It isn’t easy to find light in the darkness or a blessing within a curse. Not everyone can be a Rosenzweig or Gehrig.
“Ma tovu!” We begin our day striving to appreciate all the blessings we have and trying to inculcate within ourselves that we can face whatever comes our way that day and every day.
That’s pretty good.
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