This morning, I sat at the park and tried to learn while my daughter walked
around. She cooed at the cats and demonstrated
her latest trick- climbing ladders. But,
for a moment I was engrossed in my learning and didn’t notice when she ran up
and started to claw at my legs desperate to get up. I hadn’t seen anyone else in the park so I
was a bit confused. My daughter tends to
be audacious, running up to dogs and meowing at cats. What scared her? A few second later, the
source of the terror appeared. A
mentally ill twenty four year old was walking around with a volunteer
caretaker. The caretaker mused that a girl less than two years old can sense when something is a bit off.
We are built with sensitive
radars that detect when things are off kilter.
And while they are not meant to be used towards benevolent mentally ill
people, they are meant to be used around people who claim to be spiritually
uplifted. How do we know if it is real?
Well, since we are not always in tune with our internal radars as we are when we are kids, we have to rely on
the mind. One of the hints to a person’s
real intentions is to deeply listen to their world views and how they
prioritize. Subconscious tendencies will
tell us a lot about where a person is at spiritually.
This is the lesson of the rogue seer
Bilaam. He had tremendous spiritual gifts,
some of them prophet like. Despite this,
there are several hints that his spiritual prowess was rooted in
lowliness. This is hinted at the
difference between how Isaac organized his blessing versus how Bilaam ordered his
blessing for Israel. [1] It says in Genesis that
Isaac tells Yakov, ‘those who curse you be cursed, and those who bless you be
blessed’. Rashi comments that by Bilaam
it was the opposite. He tells Israel, ‘those
who bless you be blessed, those who curse you be cursed.’ The righteous, their outset is suffering and
their end is tranquility…the wicked, their outset is tranquility and their end
is suffering.
This slight nuance depicts a
deep difference in world view, and consequently, a testimony on their
character. A person rooted in lowliness sees life where the best years are the early
years, the now. When a person is physically
strong and capable life is at its peak. Therefore,
his later years are ones of suffering and debilitation. A person rooted in spirituality realizes that
the present is hard work and difficulty.
The best life is the growing life and he will reap the rewards
later. It is no surprise that in Hebrew a reference to youth is חרפה, which means
shame or winter, and that old age is קץ, which means summer. That is also why wine plays an integral role
in Jewish life- it gets better with age.
This trick can also be used on ourselves
to know the true intentions of our hearts.
How do we speak about things and how do we prioritize? We may subconsciously reveal what is in our
hearts.
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