Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law (1659), by Rembrandt. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

There are two portions of the Torah that we, in the Diaspora, will read this Shabbat.

The first was the crisis initiated by the reports of the 12 scouts who were sent into Israel to prepare for invasion. The reports of 10 were discouraging (only Yehoshua and Kalev were optimistic). As a result, there was panic, a loss of confidence, and a call to return to Egypt. The punishment was that they would have to wait 40 years to enter the land of Israel.

The Torah then jumps forward 40 years, to Moshe’s preparation for invading the land of Canaan, and the Canaanites (and some say the Amalekites too) attacked the Israelites. Only this time the Israelites fought back and defeated them at the very same place Chorma (Bamidbar 21:3) as they had been defeated earlier.

Was the location of both events a coincidence? I think there’s a clear message. We may endure setbacks in life and history. Yet if we stand firm and follow through, even though it might take time, we may succeed.

In the second parsha, Balak, Israel is described as a nation that dwells alone. This must be understood to mean that we are not only alone but unique. This doesn’t mean we are inherently better — but it does mean that we have a unique mission, not of converting everyone else, but remaining true to ourselves.

In recent years it has been fashionable in certain quarters to understand these words differently. To emphasize the meaning as uniqueness and to replace the idea of alone. I think this is just apologetics. In the world in which we live at this moment, it is beyond any doubt that we are lonely, alone. But this is something we must embrace and not try to minimize or deflect.

When Bilam says that we are a nation that dwells (and will dwell) alone, he clearly means that there is something that differentiates and isolates us. Towards the end of the Torah in the last speeches and poem of Moshe, it’s used twice — once to say that we exist alone and then that we are led alone by God to be a special people. That journey is still ongoing.

The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.