By Rabbi Aaron Goldstein

No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted into the congregation of GOD; no descendants of such, even in the tenth generation, shall ever be admitted into the congregation of GOD, because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey after you left Egypt, and because they hired Balaam son of Beor, from Pethor of Aram-naharaim, to curse you.

But the ETERNAL your God refused to heed Balaam; instead, the ETERNAL your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, for the ETERNAL your God loves you.

You shall never concern yourself with their welfare or benefit as long as you live.

As a Rabbi who wants to welcome people in friendship unless proven otherwise, I find this a troubling portion. Whilst we appreciate that particularism and enmity, often with neighbours, is (ironically) a universal human trait, the idea that conflict between people and peoples is hardwired through generations is odious.

In the lists of exclusion from the Israelite People we encounter our ancient ancestor’s expression of particularism. The human nature of the rejection of the Moabites, is evidenced in other more permissive accounts, in Deuteronomy 2:29 and Ruth being a Moabite woman. For us it is troubling when told as a Divine instruction, contradicting the notion of a universal God that created humanity in the likeness of God, all equally loved in a way that human love cannot fathom.

Perhaps a key to a Liberal Jewish understanding of this parasha is the word vayahafokh that can mean contradictory. The vayahafokh in this context is God turned or overturned the curse of Bilam into a blessing upon the Israelites – Bilam in Deuteronomy being seen not as controlled by others but as a wicked person. Vayahafokh is used in the particular way of the redactors of the Torah, to indicate God’s support of the Israelites against another. The human rule abstracted from this is to exclude those who ordered the curse ad olam, forever.

However, the action of vayahafokh of turning is ignored by the commentators I have read who rather focus on the wicked Bilam, or the abstraction of the ancient redactors, the end that they deduced from the act. The act itself was to turn a curse into a blessing. When one communicates a curse how does one react? All too often it is to return a curse or to cut oneself off from communicating with the origin of the curse. That may be sensible short term but not for generations and certainly not ad olam, forever. The act of God here was to turn the curse into a blessing.

In this month of Elul, our focus is on turning. We usually use the word teshuva as in returning. Perhaps it might also be interesting for us to use this root hey-fay-khaf. In Ivrit, modern Hebrew, it can mean fickle as in changeable. However it is most usually used in terms of contrariness, thinking in the opposite. To invert or reverse. I find this an interesting concept for a Liberal Jew.

One of the basics of learning any language is opposites. Up and down, hot and cold, crying and laughing, good and bad, curse and blessing. Ha’eyfekh – the opposite.

If others are trapped in a certain way of thinking, let us when appropriate be the voice of contrariness, by which I mean, thinking differently. Can we turn a curse put upon us by others into a blessing of reconciliation. The Divine act illustrated in our passage was to turn the curse into a blessing.

In contradicting the understanding of our ancient ancestors and countless generations of humanity, to just thank God for the particular and turn our backs on the universal of humanity; we might find love. Perhaps our task is to act a little more like God and a little less towards our primal impulse. Civilised, western, progressive, liberal. Perhaps to be so is to be a little more contrary, to consider the opposite and to act upon that.

Vayahafokh Adonai Eloheykha l’kha et haklalah livrakhah ki ahayv’kha Adonai Eloheykha.

The Eternal One, your God, turned the curse into a blessing for you, for the Eternal, your God loves you.

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