After wandering in the desert on their way to the Promised Land, the Jews arrive at the edge of the land of the Moabites.  The king of Moab, Balak, who is scared of the Israelite’s potential power and influence, declares that the Israelites must be cursed.  He summons a well-known sorcerer, Balaam, and offers to pay him handsomely to place a curse on the people of Israel.  But Balaam refuses to curse the Jewish people.  Instead, he blesses them.  He states, “How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How do I denounce them when God has not denounced them?  As I see them from the mountain tops, gaze on them from the heights, there is a people that dwells alone…’ (Num. 23:8-9) 

A people…that dwells…alone.  A people not considered among the other nations.  

In Hebrew, am l’vadad yishkon.  Israel - blessed as a nation that dwells alone. The Torah seems to suggest that standing alone and being different from all other nations is a blessing.  

It sure hasn’t felt like a blessing since October 7th.  If anything, we have felt the profound sadness of being alone, misunderstood, and ignored as a people.  We have lost allies, colleagues, friends, co-workers, and college classmates.  We have been abandoned by the institutions that educated us or are educating our children and grandchildren.  Being a Jew in America this year has been frustrating, scary, troubling, and complicated.  It has not felt at all like a blessing to be a nation that dwells alone.  It has felt like the curse that the king of Moab hoped would be bestowed upon us thousands of years ago.