Bamidbar (Numbers) 22:2-4
Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 105b-106a, Steinsaltz translation

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Do We Still Believe in the Jewish State? Transcript

Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Elana: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to TEXTing IRL: Ideas for Real Life, where we wrestle with the big dilemmas of our time through the lens of classical and modern Torah texts. I’m your host, Elana Stein Hain. We’re recording on June 11th, 2026.

Just a few years ago, the hot topic for Jewish educators was talking about how to ensure Jewish particularism, because Jews are so integrated into the majority culture. But today, I’m seeing just how lonely and alienated so many Jews are feeling from the majority culture. It’s like a whiplash. 

And part of this week’s Torah portion, the prophet Balaam states that the Jews are a people who dwell alone, Am levadad yishkon. Is this a blessing as it appears to be, or is it somewhat of a curse?

For some people, this is such a blessing because we’re insulated from the outside world. I would say we can go it alone. But for others, it really feels like a curse, being cut off, being ostracized from others. Not surprisingly, I like to stay away from the extremes myself and have a bit of each. Open to the world, but comfortably particularistic.

Whatever your take on this is, many Jews are really feeling that ostracization right now, and it’s easy to turn that from a necessity into a value. But I don’t think we should, even if it feels compelling or kind of impossible not to. 

My chavruta today is Rabbah Rori Picker Neiss. She knows something about trying to break the impression of and the realities of loneliness in the Jewish community. She’s the Senior Vice President and Rabbi in Residence at the JCPA, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Prior to that, she was executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis. 

Welcome, Rori. I’m so glad you’re here.  

Rori: Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to study together.  

Elana: Oh, of course. Of course. Of course. So, you know, we do have a double portion this week. It’s both Chukat and Balak, but I wanna start with Balak because it’s already going to pull us back to some of the things that happen in Chukat. And we’re gonna start with why a king named Balak decides to hire a prophet to curse the Jewish people, and it goes something like this, okay? 

“Vayar Balak ben Tzippor et kol asher asah Yisrael el Ha-Emori.” Balak saw all that the Israelites had done to the Amorites, and we’ll talk about that in a second. “Vayagar Moav mipnei ha’am me’od.” And Moav, his tribe, was really worried because “ki rav hu,” that there were a lot of them. “Vayakatz Moav mipnei Bnei Yisrael,” and they were sort of dreading the Israelites. 

“Vayomer Moav el ziknei Midyan,” so what did they do? They called a caucus. They called over the Midianites, and they said, “ayah yilachachu hakahal et kol svivoteinu,” these Israelites are gonna lap us up, “kilchoch hasor et yerek hasadeh,” the same way an ox will lap up a piece of grass, right? “U-Balak ben Tzippor melech le-Moav ba’et hahi,” and Balak was the king at that time.

So basically, this is a foreign king who sees that the Israelites have been able to declare victory over the Amorites and is worried about that. So let’s talk a little bit about that before we get into anything that Balaam blesses the people with and whether it’s a blessing or a curse.

Rori: So we, we have to talk about power in this story, and what’s kind of amazing to me about this story is that it’s really a great example of where somebody can hold power and still feel powerless, and people can also be weak and still hold power in a variety of different ways.

So we start off with this person, Balak, who we’re told is a king. He’s a king over a nation. They’re, they’re not a nobody people. They have a land. The Israelites at this time are a nomadic people. They don’t have a land. Right, we even see earlier, just a few paragraphs ago, also in this week’s double portion, they, they need a place to be—

Elana: It’s got everything.

Rori: It’s got everything, right? They need to be able to go through, it seems they don’t necessarily reach out to Moab, but it’s kind of implied maybe also they’re trying to go through Moab, right? This is why they end up going to war with some of the other nations is because they’re not given safe passage. 

And so on the one hand, Balak is feeling scared of this people that he sees having this military victory, even as he also himself is an incredibly powerful person.

And we have the Jews who have significantly less resources than what Moav has, and yet they’ve just had military victories. So who actually is powerful in this story, and who is powerless? And who’s actually scared of whom? 

Elana: Well, so I wanna add another layer to it, because if you think specifically that he was worried about the Amorites, let’s actually talk about what happened in the Amorites. The Israelites didn’t start that war. Sihon, the king of the Amorites, in the first part of this double parsha, right, this double portion, in Chukat, he started that war. He came out against them, and as a result, he got decimated, right? 

So you look at that and you say, oh, well, who’s the bad guy? Who’s the good guy? These poor nomadic Israelites are just, you know, they’re ragtag. They’re children of slaves, right? ‘Cause this is really the next generation. They’re children of slaves, and, you know, how could you attack them? And at the same time, he’s attacking them ’cause he doesn’t want them to go through his lands in order to get to the land of Canaan, where they’re going to conquer that land, right? 

Meaning, it’s, it’s even, it’s even sort of—I would call it, in Hebrew I would call it hafoch al hafoch, meaning it’s like something ruled over something else. There are layers to the question of power and powerlessness. 

And to be honest, in some ways the Israelites are doing what they need to do, and presumably the Moabites are doing what they need to do, but the Bible is saying, Guess what? God wants the Israelites to win, right? Meaning, it’s a very, like a, like a teasing kind of text because it’s making you take sides. 

Rori: It is, and I think you have to really wrestle with it in so many ways. So absolutely, Sihon starts the war, but the Jews are victorious in it. So there’s a different conversation of kind of who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy from who has power, right? And being the good guy and being the bad guy, and being the powerful and being the powerless don’t all sync together. 

Elana: Correct. And it’s not black and white.

Rori: It’s not black and white. And I think in this story we have two peoples who actually are both, right? I don’t, I don’t mean both good and bad. I think, I think the Torah’s really clear about who they want us rooting for in this story. 

Elana: Correct. Correct.  

Rori: But, but I think, I think we kind of feel the powerlessness of the Jews in this story, and yet we sometimes forget that the story is happening because they’ve just had a really huge military victory.  

Elana: Yeah. I think there was a question embedded here in if the Jews, I’m gonna move from Israelite to Jews, because I think anybody who can hear us can hear that we’re also talking about today, right? 

Meaning, if the Jews are gonna do what they need to do in order to secure themselves- you know, their safe passage to their sacred land, it is definitely going to ruffle some feathers, and I think it’s okay to say rightly so it’s gonna ruffle some feathers. And then you start questions about, well, if it’s gonna ruffle some feathers rightly so, so what’s, what’s actually the right thing for Moab to do, for the Moabites to do? 

And I think actually the message of the Sihon situation is the Israelites offered Sihon, “Let’s make peace. We’ll make peace with you. Just let us pass through your land.” He wouldn’t, and so he came out to war against them instead, and that’s what ensued. I think what could’ve been a different route for Moab here is, “Oh, if you’ll make peace with us, we’ll make peace with you.”

Rori: Right. So we don’t, we don’t fully know, but I, I think what makes this story so rich is that we have what feels like a much clearer story with Sihon, and then Moab is, like, an unintended consequence, right? And that’s sometimes what we end up dealing with is that we think about the direct situation. 

So I have a relationship with you, Elana, and I’m thinking about, what are the potential consequences? Am I going to inadvertently hurt you if I ask you for this thing or if I do something you asked me to do but I couldn’t do? W- whatever, right? And relationships are complicated. And I’m thinking about you because you’re where the relationship is, but what I don’t always think about is that somebody else might know about or hear about something that maybe even we worked out or maybe, maybe we didn’t work out. 

Elana: Right. Third party. Third party. 

Rori: Right, my issues with you—but now there’s somebody else who sees it, and they’re having a reaction to it. And there’s a way in which I, like, I have some sympathy for Moab in this story when I really break it down.

Elana: Fascinating

Rori: Of, they’re seeing this, this nation that was just incredibly powerful. I mean, we kind of don’t really know, like, where does, where does Egypt loom in this story also, right? It’s a generation ago—

Elana: Correct. Correct 

Rori: But, like—how much are they are we sort of remembering, right? Like, Mitzrayim is a major story for us still. Is it still something that they’re talking about? 

Elana: Right, the fact that they took down an empire, basically.

Rori: Right. Yeah. And it’s evocative to me, right? When they say like, “These people are too numerous,” it’s evocative to me of that’s exactly what Pharaoh says at the beginning of, of when we start to get into our Egypt story. 

Elana: So I would say there’s, there’s, like, two routes here that we’re, that we’re mapping out. You’re mapping out the route of—I kind of get it, even though I side with the Israelites, but I get it. And I’m mapping out the route of—the Israelites offered, offered Sihon peace. He should’ve taken it. You should take it, Moab. 

But I wanna jump into what the rabbis do for a minute, okay? There’s so much that we can do here, but there is an incredible text that continues in this conversation of, like we’re saying, this question of what’s black and what’s white. Is it very clear what’s going on? 

And there’s this Talmudic passage in Sanhedrin 105B to 106A. Obviously, as always, I urge people to check out the show notes to, like, really look at it and even open the Talmud yourself and look at it. That’s even better in my book. 

“Amar Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmeni amar Rabbi Yonatan.” So Rabbi Shmuel son of Nachmeni says in the name of Rabbi Yonatan, “Mai dichtiv?” What is this verse in Proverbs? There’s a verse in Proverbs for everything. The verse says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are trouble.” 

So the Talmud says, well, I’ll tell you what that is. “Tova klalah shekilal Achiya ha-Shiloni et Yisrael.” The curse that Achiya the Shilonite, which I’m gonna leave that to you to tell everybody who that was, “yoter mibracha shebercham Bilam harasha,” was better than the blessing that Bilam, the evil one, gave them. 

So the rabbis are actually saying even in this narrative, in Balak, Balak hires Bilam to curse the Israelites, and he doesn’t succeed, and instead he blesses them. Still, watch out for a blessing from somebody who really doesn’t like you, and understand where a curse from somebody who likes you is coming from. So can you just tell everybody who Achiya the Shilonite is so we get a little context?

Rori: Yeah, so Achiya is a prophet. He’s lives during the time of King Yeravam, which is a story that appears in Melachim Alef in the First Book of Kings. Yeravam, his son becomes sick, and he sends his wife in disguise to Achiya to try to see if he could get some prediction for what’s going to happen, if his son is going to heal or if his son is going to die. And Achiya gives Yeravam… He recognizes Yeravam’s wife, and he immediately gives her a really harsh message, which is that because of the sins of Yeravam, because he has turned away from God and towards idolatry, his dynasty—

Elana: And by the way, he’s turned the people to idolatry as well, right? He put up his own golden calves for people to worship. It’s bad news.

Rori: I mean, spoiler, most kings are bad news But yeah, Yeravam’s particularly bad. And so his dynasty is gonna be cut off with the death of his son. Basically, his descendants will not continue. But also continues further to say that the people themselves, because they’ve also turned aside, are going to suffer. 

Elana: So it’s really a curse. This is a curse. 

Rori: Yeah. 

Elana: But Achiya loves the people, cares about the people, but he’s cursing the people. And so what we have here is the Talmud is saying, “Better a curse from Achiya who loves you than a blessing from Bilam who hates you,” right? So you tell me, let’s talk about somebody who’s in the world of building alliances between Jews and others. Who do you want blessing you, and who don’t you mind cursing you, or is there no such thing? 

Rori: Look, I, I wish, I wish that everybody came with a label that said loves you or hates you or good for you or bad for you. I wish that it was really as clear-cut, because most of the time when we’re talking about relationships with people, we’re talking about a really, a, a mixture. We’re talking about people who might love some of the things that we love and hate some of the things that we love or be indifferent to some of the things that we feel really passionate about. And we’re constantly wrestling with, how do we encounter people? How do we encounter somebody who says the things that we wanna hear on one subject, but says things that we deplore on another subject?

We’re seeing this constantly. People who are vehemently supportive of the state of Israel and support for the state of Israel, and who say the most horrific things about the queer community. We have to wrestle with, when somebody talks about fighting anti-Semitism and standing with the Jewish community, but is critical of maybe things that the Israeli government does, maybe is critical of arms sales to Israel. Where do we, where do we put all of these different pieces?  

Elana: I think it’s important to hear what you’re saying. The, the fact is that this Gemara, this passage, is trying not to be black and white about the curses and the blessings, because it’s saying a curse could also have a blessing and a blessing could also have a curse. 

But it is being very black and white about the people, meaning I know who likes the Jews and I know who doesn’t like the Jews, and I’m curious about that in your… Meaning, I understand you might have somebody who says something that you don’t like that is like a curse here but a blessing there, but are there people… 

And you can be totally honest here, and if you don’t wanna answer, you could also be honest about that. Are there people where you’re like, oh, I would basically say this person is like a stay away because I don’t really think they like us even when they say nice things to us? But maybe for political purposes we still—you know what I mean? Like, give us a little of that if, if it’s okay.  

Rori: Sure. Sure. Look, I mean, I’m not gonna start naming names here, because—

Elana: No, definitely, please don’t.  

Rori: That will, that will get us into a different kind of trouble.  

Elana: Please don’t.  

Rori: No, but there, there are certainly… In general, I have a very small list of people that would be people that I would say never. 

Elana: No go.

Rori: Like really, really limited ’cause, ’cause I just think the world is just more complicated and bigger. And again, people… And, and by the way, I think I’m more complicated and you’re more complicated. I don’t want anyone here—

Elana: Sure, sure.

Rori: To think, like, we’re all good or all bad.

Elana: 100%.

Rori: But I think, look, I think that there are people who talk about fighting anti-Semitism and standing with Jews who then, maybe ignorantly, like who, who kind of perpetuate anti-Semitic stereotypes in the ways that they talk about standing with the Jewish community. And I think that those are really dangerous people.

Elana: Interesting.

Rori: Now, do I still think that there’s a conversation to be had? I, I think there’s a process with every one of these people. So that’s a situation that makes me really uncomfortable. Now, that doesn’t mean that I necessarily think—

Elana: But that’s very interesting. There’s a process, meaning, you, maybe because you work in the political space or the co- the, the relationship space, your move is, I have to figure out what a process might be able to yield here, and there might be two steps forward, one step back. It might be a little zig-zaggy, but you’re willing to embrace the process. 

Can I push us a little bit more in this Gemara ’cause it gets even more interesting? Absolutely. Because it’s not just, oh, this comes from Achiyah, and so it’s fine, and this comes from Balaam so it’s not. They actually look at the actual, you know, curses and blessings that they offer, right?

So for Achiya, what he actually said is the Jewish people would be like a reed that’s shaken in water, right? Whereas Balaam uses cedar as his metaphor, erez, like a cedar tree. And even though Balaam is using a cedar tree as strength and Achiya is using a reed as weakness, the Gemara says, no, no, no, no, no. We’re, we’re the Talmud. We can read it backwards. Watch, right? 

So they said, well, actually, “mah kaneh zeh omed bimkom mayim,” if you have a reed in water, “vegizo machlif ve-sharashav merubin,” it will actually take deep root. “Ve-afilu kol ruchot she-ba’olam baot ve-noshvot bo,” and even if there’s so much wind that comes, “ein mizizot oto mimkomo,” it won’t move. There’s a stability to it, ironically. 

Whereas, what about a cedar? Well, here’s a big problem. A cedar, “eino omed bimkom mayim,” it doesn’t stand in a place that’s near water. It’s “shorashav,” its roots are “muatin,” very little actually. And “ein gizmo machlif,” its trunk doesn’t replenish itself. And so when there’s a southern wind, guess what? Your cedar trees are gonna fall. 

So he calls them a cedar, which seems so strong. So there’s more than what meets the eye, and my impression is that that’s kind of where you live, in the, there’s more than what meets the eye. Is that fair?

Rori: Yeah, it is fair. And, and I think it’s interesting in this text, I think there’s sort of this question of are, are Achiya and Bilam doing this on purpose, right? Is there something, like, subconscious within them, that, like, Amchiya, like, his love is still showing through, that this reed is what comes up, and for Bilam, like, this, this hatred is still coming through—

Elana: His hate is still—

Rori: And so he knows that the cedar is still somewhat of a curse. Or, or are we kind of just reading into it? Is that not their intentions, but that’s how we hear it? It, it makes me think of, years ago, I was doing a, a Jewish Catholic dialogue, and I’ll, I’ll never forget, it still sits with me, that the person… It was a group of emerging leaders. We were all kind of in our 20s and early 30s, and the person who was facilitating it from the Catholic community said to the group, “But Pope John Paul II called the Jews our elder brother.” And he said it with, like, this, like, we have this love. 

And one of the Jewish participants, without missing a beat, said, “Father, we have a long tradition of the younger brothers overthrowing the older brothers.”

Elana: Woo-ee. Oh my gosh.

Rori: And he said it with this love, and this person, and, and, like, the Jewish participant was like, actually, like, that, that’s, that’s not what we… Like, we don’t wanna be an older brother. Like, we, like, for us, older brother is, is not a compliment. It’s kind of an insult, right? Like, we don’t wanna be Esav in the story. We don’t wanna be Ishmael in the story, right? Like, and so it, like, that’s an example for me of where he didn’t mean it to sound mean, right? 

So to what extent is sometimes somebody saying something ’cause actually there’s, like, a true nature coming through, and where is it that, in the end, we, we heard something different, but it actually wasn’t what the person meant to say. 

And that’s, I think, where that process comes in of, what does it look like to have a dialogue? What does it look like to try to actually unpack? But there’s a vulnerability that comes with it. 

You, you said at the beginning, Elana, you said, like, Moab could have just said, we want the same peace that you offered Sihon. And when you said that, I’m thinking to myself, does Moab know that they offered Sihon peace? Does Moab assume that because they offered it to Sihon they’re gonna offer it to Moab? If Moab is scared, is that their… Right? Like, whose responsibility is it? 

Elana: Right. 

Rori: Is it Moab’s responsibility to go to the Jews and say, “We heard you’re offering peace. We want it.” Or is it the Jews’ responsibility to go and say, “Listen, we just had one war, but we really don’t want more. We wanna be abundantly clear that peace is an offering for everyone.”

Elana: Yeah.

Rori: And I, I don’t know the answer to that.

Elana: I, I think that’s very wise, and my pushback, of course, is gonna be, and when people heard Bilam call us a cedar, they heard what they wanted to hear, which is, oh, he called us a cedar. He likes us. He cares about us. When really there’s something more nefarious going on, right? So the, the, the complicated aspect goes both ways.

Rori:  Or, or, or vice versa. But, but, but the reverse also, right? Somebody could have heard cedar and said, “Oh, he’s cursing us subtly,” when actually, like Bilam doesn’t, like, Bilam thinks he’s giving a compliment ’cause he’s saying the biggest tree he could possibly think of.

Elana: Right. 

Rori: And in fact, like, so, we don’t know, right? It doesn’t give us into the head specifically, but there’s certainly been times where I’ve said something to somebody thinking I was giving them a compliment and not knowing that I actually was insulting them, and I want someone to be able to give me the benefit of the doubt or to engage me or to say to me, “You know, that actually really hurt when you said that even though you thought you were doing something kind.”

And so I would rather, I would rather assume a better intention from somebody, or give them the chance to confirm their negative intention, than go through the world deciding that a, that a person or group of people hates me based on evidence that may or may not actually support it when, when really broken down.

Elana: Well, it’s interesting because one of the things that you’re pushing on is the actual direct communication, meaning the issue with Sihon to begin with is they had direct communication. The Israelites asked, “We want peace. Just let us pass through.” He said, “No, I don’t want that.” So it was very clear what was going on there.

But who’s hearing it as a third party? Balak. And what does he decide? The Israelites don’t want peace with anybody, or I don’t want peace with that, whatever it is. But the actual engagement with doesn’t happen, right? And so part of what you’re pushing on, I think, is it’s very easy to make the decision without having to actually verify anything and have a conversation about what do you understand, what do I understand And sometimes you end up getting it wrong. I hear that.

Rori: You do. You can, you can get it wrong. We often act out of fear, and I think it’s really important to also note that there’s sometimes other people and other systems of power that benefit from trying to push people into this narrative. 

So I think with, with Balak, it’s also a question, right? Like, to what extent, like, Balak is afraid, or to what extent Balak also sort of says like, “I can, I can get my people motivated,” right? My people. So maybe Balak has a different story. Maybe Balak knows. But certainly the people wouldn’t know. Why would the people… You know, so even if Balak had heard that Sihon had gotten this message for peace and Sihon rejected it, Balak still gets to go to his people and say, “Look at this violent, warmongering, powerful, great…” I’m putting, I’m obviously putting words into, into the peshat. Right?

Elana: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just, yeah. 

Rori:. But, but, like, people in power sometimes use these stories. And so I, I talk to so many people who will say to me, “The Jews are so alone right now. Nobody wants to talk to us.” And, and listen, there’s, there’s some specific examples that we can get into, but whenever I talk to someone and I say to them, “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Who did you reach out to that rejected you? Or what space did you go into that you were kicked out of?” Almost always the person has responded to me and say, “Oh, no, I didn’t even bother to try ’cause everyone else told me that nobody wants me.” And so now I start to really wonder who’s benefiting from us preemptively taking ourselves out of spaces, or believing ourselves to be alone. And where do we have a narrative of loneliness, and where do we actually have a reality of standing alone? 

Elana: I think that’s very powerful, and I think, you know, the way that I would end this is I, I would go to the famous words of Bilam that are supposed to be a blessing, that we are “Am levadad yishkon,” that the, we’re a nation who dwells alone, which it’s like, yeah, on the one hand, the idea is that we can make it on our own, right?

But on the other hand, you don’t, you don’t wanna be separate from everyone. And I think one of the things that’s powerful about what you do, whether we agree on everything or not, is that you’re basically saying, how can I not turn that concept of aloneness from something that feels like it’s being foisted upon us into something like, “No, no, no, we wanna be alone. Nobody likes us and we don’t…” Can we, can we do anything about it?” And I, I give you a lot of credit for the work that you do. I really do.

Rori: I appreciate that. And I, I think it’s really, I do wanna emphasize that I, I get to see it every day, and, and I feel, that, that to me is part of the blessing that I get to do. 

But I, I get to be in dialogue, in relationship, in work with so many different communities, and I’m not saying that it’s not messy, and it’s not hard, and we don’t have some really painful conversations along the way and in the process. But I’ve also seen ways in which people have shown up during some of our most painful moments, ways in which I have learned and grown, ways in which I have seen other people learn and grow, and ways in which we stay in disagreement with one another.

But that doesn’t mean that we’re not still in deep relationship and care. And that to me is also part of Achiya, right? Achiya gives a message that the Jews don’t wanna hear, but not because he hates them, but because he’s deeply in relationship, and that’s the reality he has to tell them. 

And so we’re, we’re sitting with so many different complications, and people saying things that we don’t always want them to say doesn’t mean that it necessarily comes from a place of hate. And people saying things that we wanna hear doesn’t mean that it always comes from a place of love. And the world is much bigger and more complicated, but the relationships exist, and they’re there, and they’re happening, and they’re evolving constantly.

Elana: I actually love that we disagree at certain points, and I love that we can learn Torah together and disagree with each other at certain points. Like, I would’ve loved the word danger to show up much more in this episode, right? But different vibes, different perspectives.

And I, I really think that that’s something that the Jewish community needs right now. We, we actually need to be able to believe in each other’s genuine charity, generosity of spirit. Like, it’s not that we need to believe in each other’s generosity of spirit. We need to have generosity of spirit to appreciate where other people are coming from, and the Torah is certainly not univocal the way we want our politics to be. 

So thank you so much, Rori. Appreciate you.

Rori: Thank you.