They Called Us Monsters - But We Are Lions©
- Rabbi David Baum
- 5 hours ago
- 7 min read
Parashat Hukat-Balak
Rabbi David Baum
A couple of months ago, my son came to me and said, “Abba, can you buy me a book?” My answer was, I thought that's what Amazon was for. But he said, “No, I think I’m going to need your permission on this one. The book is Mein Kampf. I was shocked to say the least. It wasn’t on the reading list for a rabbi’s kid.
Of course, I asked, “Why?”
And he answered: “Because I have to know our enemy. I want to know why they hate us.”
I felt I had to read it first, even though these words and the author literally murdered most of my family - my great-grandparents, great-uncles, and cousins. The book is difficult to get through, and I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it.
But I got to see the ending of Mein Kampf - when we visited Yad Vashem.
In an exhibit in the picture in front of you, you will see a pipe shaped like a bald man with a long hooked nose; an ashtray with a stereotyped Jewish face; two figurines whispering to each other about the money they stole from the non-Jews. They are obvious Jewish stereotypes.
I thought to myself, where have I seen these before? I opened up my Instagram account and saw the comments on my Israel posts. Kill yourself; what part of a child do you find to be most delicious? You look like a piece of crap Jew, and a picture of a rat on the Israeli flag with the words, the real plague.
It was fascinating to see these items take on new forms as online memes, and it should be deeply scary for all of us.
When we returned to America, we were greeted by the following quote from Mayor Zohran Mamdani:
"These monsters take many forms, including AIPAC, for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and Netanyahu’s wars. He went on to say, “I used the term to describe all those who are preventing the birth of a new world.”
Mamdani defended naming AIPAC among the “monsters who move dark money,” maintaining that he was quoting 20th-century Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s comment, a thinker I’m sure very few have heard of, about living in a “time of monsters.”
You can explain the term monster all you want, but everyone knows what a monster is. That’s when I remembered a line from Hitler’s disgusting manifesto:
"These exploited subjects find themselves driven down the road to poverty faster and faster. Each court has its “Court Jews”, as the monsters are called, who torture the people to the point of hopelessness and arrange the endless pleasures of the princes. How can anyone be surprised that these “assets” of the human race receive official honors and climb into the upper class by joining their families, they not only make nobility look ridiculous, but they actually contaminate it from the inside."
I was struck by the line, "Court Jews," but then he calls Jews by their real name, according to him: monsters. How we 'contaminate' society from the inside with our money. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And yet, I am still mystified and confused by the oldest hatred in the world.
It remains a mystery to me.
This week, we have a double parashah, Hukkat-Balak. Hukkat is most known for the story of the Red Heifer, the mysterious animal that purified Israel. The commentators do not understand this law and conclude that the true meaning is a mystery we may never understand.
So too is the mystery of why we are hated throughout history; why are the same tropes used, but just a little bit differently? Swap Jew out for Israel, and you can seemingly say anything that would have gotten you canceled five years ago. You can also call out the bad Jews, the Zionists, and its ok, because you support the true Jews, the small number of anti-Zionist Jews in America.
I am sorry to say to my son and all of you that the mystery of why we have been hated throughout the ages will likely also never be solved. But that’s what brings me to the second half of the parashah: Balak.
Here’s a quote from the King of Moab, after he becomes alarmed by this group of freed slaves. He becomes alarmed because they are so numerous to him. The Torah adds: Ki Rav hu - that he dreaded the Israelites:
וַיֹּאמֶר מוֹאָב אֶל־זִקְנֵי מִדְיָן עַתָּה יְלַחֲכוּ הַקָּהָל אֶת־כׇּל־סְבִיבֹתֵינוּ כִּלְחֹךְ הַשּׁוֹר אֵת יֶרֶק הַשָּׂדֶה וּבָלָק בֶּן־צִפּוֹר מֶלֶךְ לְמוֹאָב בָּעֵת הַהִוא׃
and Moab said to the elders of Midian, “Now this horde will lick clean all that is about us as an ox licks up the grass of the field.”
Balak son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time,
וַיִּשְׁלַח מַלְאָכִים אֶל־בִּלְעָם בֶּן־בְּעֹר פְּתוֹרָה אֲשֶׁר עַל־הַנָּהָר אֶרֶץ בְּנֵי־עַמּוֹ לִקְרֹא־לוֹ לֵאמֹר הִנֵּה עַם יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם הִנֵּה כִסָּה אֶת־עֵין הָאָרֶץ וְהוּא יֹשֵׁב מִמֻּלִי׃
sent messengers to Balaam son of Beor in Pethor, which is by the Euphrates, in the land of his kinsfolk, to invite him, saying, “There is a people that came out of Egypt; it hides the earth from view, and it is settled next to me.
וְעַתָּה לְכָה־נָּא אָרָה־לִּי אֶת־הָעָם הַזֶּה כִּי־עָצוּם הוּא מִמֶּנִּי אוּלַי אוּכַל נַכֶּה־בּוֹ וַאֲגָרְשֶׁנּוּ מִן־הָאָרֶץ כִּי יָדַעְתִּי אֵת אֲשֶׁר־תְּבָרֵךְ מְבֹרָךְ וַאֲשֶׁר תָּאֹר יוּאָר׃
Come then, put a curse upon this people for me, since they are too numerous for me; perhaps I can thus defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that whomever you bless is blessed indeed, and whomever you curse is cursed.”
We see something very interesting here. Balak, the king of the Moabites, is scared of the Israelites. The language he uses is similar to Pharaoh’s in Exodus chapter 1:
הִנֵּ֗ה עַ֚ם בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל רַ֥ב וְעָצ֖וּם מִמֶּֽנּוּ׃
Here, (this) people of the Children of Israel are many more and mightier [in number] than we!
Pharaoh’s tactic was to enslave the people and make them the enemy within. Balak takes a different tactic: he doesn’t subjugate them with physical force; rather, he is going to take a different tactic: let’s curse them with words, and that will lead to their defeat because words create realities.
That’s how a genocide begins: dehumanize your enemy. They are not individuals but a swarm of darkness.
But the problem was that whenever the Gentile prophet tried to curse the Israelites, Bilaam blessed them instead, numerous times.
I wanted to focus on just one of those blessings:
הֶן־עָם֙ כְּלָבִ֣יא יָק֔וּם וְכַאֲרִ֖י יִתְנַשָּׂ֑א לֹ֤א יִשְׁכַּב֙ עַד־יֹ֣אכַל טֶ֔רֶף וְדַם־חֲלָלִ֖ים יִשְׁתֶּֽה׃
Here, a people arises like a king-of-beasts,
like a lion it lifts itself up:
it does not lie down till it eats [its] prey,
and the blood of the slain it drinks.
Ok, so a bit extreme, and maybe not the greatest of compliments for such a peace-loving people like us, but no worries, because the Midrash (Tanchuma) expands on the idea.
Noticing a connection between Bilam’s prophecy and the Shema, the words rise and lie down, the midrash tells the story of the lion from an internal perspective. The lion metaphor represents a kind of spiritual power that arises from Israel’s zeal in declaring God’s sovereignty. Midrash Tanhuma teaches:
When they arise from their sleep, they stand like lions, eagerly seizing the recitation of the Shema and declaring the sovereignty of the Holy Blessed One; they become lions and set out for worldly affairs, for commerce. If one encounters any obstacle, or if destructive forces come to harm one of them, they declare the sovereignty of the Holy Blessed One, “It shall not lie down until it eats prey”—when it says, “God is One,” the destructive forces are consumed before them; they whisper after them, “Blessed be the name of God’s glorious kingdom forever and ever,” and flee. And they are supported by the merit of the recitation of the Shema, from the guardians of the day to the guardians of the night…Therefore Bilaam says, “There is no nation like this.”
According to this midrash, reciting the Shema daily gives us the lion-like spiritual might to scare away the forces of darkness. The plain meaning of the text is clear: Israel is physically strong, but our true strength lies in our resilience, our dedication and loyalty to God, which manifests in our words of blessing, the Shema, which we say twice daily, once in the morning and once at night.
The Israel we visited just last week is physically diminished, but the number of lions we saw, the 18 - 21 year olds serving, or the reservists who are in their 40’s leaving their families for hundreds of days, some for years, were everywhere.
But the true miracle I saw was in Tel Aviv. I had never seen that many people wearing kippot in the famously secular city, and I had never seen so many kosher restaurants.
There is a reason for that; Israelis have undergone a spiritual revival. They are returning to the words of our tradition; they are putting on talit and tefillin and saying the words of the Shema daily.
We will never know why we are hated in this world; honestly, that’s not our problem to fix. We cannot control how we are viewed by others, but we can control how we see ourselves.
We are not monsters; we are lions.
My son hasn’t read Mein Kampf yet, but when he does, and he asks me, “why do they still hate us?” I think I know what I'll say.
“My son, I do not know why, and actually, it doesn’t matter. But we can do something about it. We can fight back with our words and make our voices heard. And, we must also listen. Say these words daily if you do not already: Shema Israel, Hashem Eloheinu, Hashem Echad. Remind yourself that you are a lion, every day.”
They cursed us then. They curse us now. And still: we rise.
Say the Shema with pride. Be a lion.
Am Yisrael Chai.
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