“How fair are your tents,
O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!”
Bamidbar / Numbers 24:5
Balaam’s praise of Jacob’s tents and Israel’s dwelling places is amongst the most famous of biblical passages. Over the centuries it has been understood in a variety of ways.
The BeSh’T(1) said a Jew’s “ohel/tent” is his ḥitzoniyut, his external appearance; it should reflect Jacob, modest; but his “sanctuary” within, should reflect the glory of Israel. The BeSh’T echoes the prophet Micah’s exhortation, “For what does Adonai demand of you – but to act justly, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Your God”. Manifesting these values and acting upon them become our external garb but should never become a cloak of grandeur. Serving God, being a source of blessing to others, enriches the very fiber of one’s being, infusing it with holiness.
Those who structured the morning prayer service made these words the first words Jews say upon entering synagogue. The Toldot Yakov Yosef(2) taught that the synagogues are only our “dwelling places” if we are constantly present, “dwelling” there. Being physically present is insufficient if our minds and our hearts are elsewhere if we are not in the moment of prayer. Sacred space is not the product of architecture and aesthetics, it is a construct formed by our intentionality in worship, our enthusiasm in prayer, our engagement in Jewish study, and our action on behalf of the congregation.
The Sha’erit Menachem3 viewed the verse as showing a progression. He writes, “As soon as one enters the synagogue one realizes that the essence of the synagogue, its praiseworthiness, is a reflection of the holiness that begins in the tent, the home. When your homes are good, O Jacob, then your dwelling places [your houses of worship, are too], O Israel.
Our teacher asserts that home is where the holiness is, it is there that it is created and then carried with us from home to synagogue, from home into the community. The sanctity of the synagogue starts in and is dependent on the sanctity of the home.
Shabbat Shalom –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
1 Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism, 17th C, Ukraine
2 Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonne, early student of the BeSh’T
3 Rabbi Samuel Jacob Rubinstein, 20th-century France
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