Drasha
To those of you who have been following these sermons all year, you should already know that I’m a huge fan of Marvel Comics and its cinematic universe. Shoshana and I were watching the newest TV Series, Loki, when Marvel, as they always do, dropped a heavy theme in its first episode. Loki, the Norse god of mischief and Marvel villain, is made to confront the possibility that he is merely a “background character” whose only purpose is to further the plot and development of the Avengers, with no attention paid to his own development. It seems that the rest of the series will be struggling with that question of destiny and identity, as Loki struggles to find his meaning outside of defining himself as a foe of the Avengers.
This week’s Parshah seems, in many ways, to be the “Loki” of the Torah, as the background baddies are given their time in the spotlight. One can’t help but feel how unusual this week’s Parshah is, as Bilaam– the Canaanite prophet– is placed in the driver’s seat, and the otherwise background characters such as the Moabites become the drivers of the plot. Perhaps noting the peculiarity of this section, the Talmud in Bava Basra (14b) reveals a shocking bit of biblical background when it says that Moshe wrote his book– the Torah– and Parshat Bilaam, as if Bilaam’s story in this week’s Parshah had an independent existence outside of the Torah. It is perhaps fitting then that, even older than the earliest example of biblical text– the 7th century Ketef Hinnom scrolls housed in the Israel Museum– archaeologists have found ancient traces of Bilaam’s prophecy, independent from Jewish culture. The Deir Alla inscription is an eighth century BCE Canaanite artifact found in Jordan that relays a story of the great prophet Bilaam son of Beor who saved the world from the wrath of the gods.
On the one hand, this might be shocking insofar as it demonstrates the rare outside corroboration of evidence for a biblical story. We have notably little evidence corroborating the Egyptian slavery or the 40 years wandering in the desert, and it is affirming to see independent accounts of biblical events. But on the other hand, this archaeological find seems shocking in a sense that challenges faith, or at the very least demands a response from the faithful. Is the Torah really incorporating religious and prophetic texts of pagan cultures? Notably, the Deir Alla inscription references multiple gods, none of whom are the Jewish YKVK. More challenging than a mere implicit comparison between the prophecies of Moshe and Bilaam, this historical text seems to demand a more literal read of the aforementioned Gemara. Moshe wrote down his book, God’s Torah, as well as the independently extant pagan prophecies of Bilaam, which comprised the basis for the Torah’s account in Parshat Balak.... continued
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