Torah Portion for July 12, 2025
Shalom Aleichem,
Greetings and well wishes to you this week. Torah portions, or “told ya” portions, is the subject theme is this weeks Torah portion. Ancient Hebrew culture, was like a lot of others back then, and even now, that wanted to stay clean and pure, after their own kind. There was different theories behind it, such as preserving a lineage from Adamic times, to David times of the Christ. The Torah was forbidden mixing of animals and seeds into hybrid things that wasnt in the natural form God made things. With humans, it wasn’t about it wasn’t about a race or ethnicity being better than another, ….as Nephillims and other beings had been intermarrying trying to destroy the seedline that Christ would come through. The laws and codes of like kinds with like kinds were strict. It wasn’t about racialism, but some form of attempt to also realize, that the God of Israel created, and came through a certain people and resulted in a religion and worship by a certain people, to mark them as God’s chosen by their keeping the covenants.
Balak in Hebrew means a “destroyer” or a “devastator”….one who destroys, or “one who lays to waste”. Balak is a Moabite King who hired Balaam to curse Israel.
It’s not racist thing, as it is keeping a people corralled to worship God, and avoid people that worship other Gods. People of other Gods, cultures, skin colors, ethnicities and religions were not supposed to marry and breed. And really, we do not know all God’s reasonings, and some argue that was true then, but not any more. It was strict enough a code then, that if Hebrew men were caught sleeping with the females of other cultures in their tents, they were put to death. In more recent times, these views got adopted by the KKK in a reverse way, and was part of Hitlers T-4 and “race laws”. Over time, it has somehow reversed itself and people are confused who is who, while some say those are evil policies. Somehow it got reversed, and used by various cultures since then where each culture felt it has the best race/ethnicity and religion. Yet, it is the Hebrew over time, that has stayed consistent. The different tribes over time has different colors and ethnicities of course. Yet, it remains clear, it is about what God do you worship? And not falling into worship of other people’s Gods. Today…Islam has another God that is not the God of Jews and Christians. Not about skin color. It’s about true, versus false Gods.
Balak tells us the story of the Moabite king Balak, who hires Balaam to curse the Israelites. Balaam’s donkey speaks along the way…, and Balaam ends up blessing the Israelites. The Torah portion ends with a story about Israelite men sinning with Moabite women and the stabbing of an Israelite and a Midianite while they were together inside of a tent
Torah Portion: Numbers 22:2-25:9
Don’t fear who is walking around outside your tent these days, …rather, fear who you are inside the tent with for if they are not of your same God and laws you will not share the same outcomes and destiny. Tribes of Israel encompasses nearly all skin colors and ethnicities, spread across many lands. Yet, only one true God, and only those who keep the covenant will make it.
B’Shalom,
Asst.rabbi@mountinmajestyministries.com