What He Saw

On Wednesday evening, a group of teens sat around Cheryl Dorchinsky's dining table in Atlanta, hot-gluing tiny kippot onto rubber ducks.

This requires some explanation. The ducks are kosher — or at least as kosher as a rubber duck gets, which is to say they've been decorated with Stars of David and hamsas and sent into the world as tiny ambassadors for this website's parent project.

These particular ducks are headed to Israel. The plan is to hide them on IDF bases and in hospitals and wherever else our volunteer group ends up— tucked into care packages for soldiers and families to find.

The dining table was also covered in spreadsheets, packing lists, donation receipts, and a plate of half-eaten hummus.

In two days, our group from the Atlanta Israel Coalition flies to Israel.

Eleven days on the ground. Every dollar raised through the Hearts United campaign going directly to people who need it. Duffel bags full of socks, first aid kits, coloring books, toys for hospitalized children. All of it hand-delivered.

My husband and I have been sorting supplies all week. The logistics of love turn out to be remarkably similar to the logistics of anything else: spreadsheets, deadlines, someone asking if the toiletries bag will fit in the overhead bin.

The parsha this Shabbat is Balak — named not for a prophet or a patriarch but for a Moabite king who was terrified of Israel and decided to do something about it.

Balak sees what the Israelites have done to the surrounding nations and panics. He hires Balaam — a non-Israelite prophet with a reputation for effective curses — to climb a mountain, look down at the Israelite camp, and destroy them with words.

Three times Balak positions Balaam on a height overlooking the camp.

Three times Balaam opens his mouth to curse.

Three times, blessings come out instead.

Before the third attempt, something shifts. Balaam stops seeking omens. He turns toward the wilderness, lifts his eyes, and actually looks:

וַיִּשָּׂ֨א בִלְעָ֜ם אֶת־עֵינָ֗יו וַיַּרְא֙ אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל שֹׁכֵ֖ן לִשְׁבָטָ֑יו וַתְּהִ֥י עָלָ֖יו ר֥וּחַ אֱלֹהִֽים׃

As Balaam looked up and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the spirit of God came upon him.

— Bamidbar 24:2

And then the line that changed everything:

מַה־טֹּ֥בוּ אֹהָלֶ֖יךָ יַעֲקֹ֑ב מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶ֖יךָ יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!

— Bamidbar 24:5

Mah tovu — how good. The words of a man paid to curse became the first words many Jews say when they walk into synagogue each morning. For centuries. Every day. The opening of the liturgy is the language of an enemy who couldn't go through with it.

Rashi asks what Balaam actually saw that moved him. His answer is small and specific: Balaam noticed that the entrances of the Israelites' tents were not aligned to face each other (Rashi on Bamidbar 24:5, citing Bava Batra 60a).

Each family had arranged their home so that nobody could see into their neighbor's dwelling. Privacy. Dignity. The quiet, unglamorous architecture of people who care how they live next to each other.

From the top of a mountain, a hired prophet looked down at a camp of former slaves in the wilderness and saw — not military formations, not fortifications, not power — the way they had set up their tents. And it broke him open.

Mah tovu. The praise of the tents. That blessing has long endured. The synagogues and study halls are still here. The everyday goodness was the one thing the curse couldn't reach.

This week, while we packed boxes, the ceasefire negotiations lurched forward in Doha. Hamas submitted what was called a positive response, then attached reservations. The talks continue. The hostages are still in Gaza. Their families are still counting days.

I have no idea (well, I have some ideas, but no definitive information anyway) how this will shake out. What I do have? I have a living room floor covered in packing tape and a flight on Sunday.

But I keep thinking about what Balaam saw — and what he didn't see. He was positioned on mountaintops. Balak chose the vantage points carefully, hoping the right angle would help the curse land. And from that height, looking down at a nation he was hired to destroy, the prophet saw tents. Homes. The ordinary infrastructure of people living next to each other with care.

From a certain height, a living room full of volunteers sorting donated gear doesn't look like much. A woman hot-gluing a felt kippah onto a rubber duck is not at first glance a strategic asset. A stack of coloring books for kids in hospitals is not a policy position. But from the angle Balaam accidentally found — the angle where you stop looking for what's wrong and just see what's there — it's exactly the thing that can't be cursed.

Earlier in the parsha, Balaam's donkey sees the angel blocking the road before the great prophet does. The simplest creature in the story perceives what the professional visionary misses. Sometimes the clearest sight belongs to whoever is closest to the ground.

This week, from the ground in Atlanta, I watched as people made plans. Paid their own way to fly across an ocean. To clear rubble. To cook food. To hand-deliver socks. Spend our evenings preparing to give.

Mah tovu ohalekha Yaakov. How good are your tents.

Soon we will land—back in Eretz Yisrael. Eleven days, duffel bags and duct tape and whatever we can carry. The real cargo is the same thing Balaam saw from the mountain: people arranged around each other with care, doing the ordinary things that hold a community in place. No curse ever figured out how to reach it. The tents are still standing.

Shabbat shalom.

— Uriel ben Avraham