Pro-Life Torah Balak

The Torah portion, Balak: Numbers 22:2-25:9, examines two tactics used by anti-Semites to destroy Jewish culture. The portion opens with the Israelites encamped at the edge of the Promised Land, having recently vanquished several enemy tribes. Balak, the Moabite King, fears the Hebrews will next attack Moab. He consults with the Midianites to develop a strategy to stop the Jewish army. Learning that their military successes are divinely destined, Balak attempts to disrupt their divine protection by hiring an anti-Semitic soothsayer named Balaam to curse the Jews. God forbids Balaam to carry out the plan, ordering him to bless the Jews, instead. Balaam obeys, however, not giving up the desire to eradicate the Jews, Balak and Balaam implement Plan B - collapse the Hebrew culture from within by introducing hedonism, sexual sin, idolatry and lawless rebellion.

Unaware of the seduction, many vulnerable Jews fall pray to the intentional manipulation and propaganda of their enemies. Rampant violation of Torah law results, prompting God to send a devastating plague into their midst, and instructing Moses to order the execution of all 157,200 guilty Jews. Faced with imminent death, 24,000 offenders within the tribe of Simeon launch an insurrection against Moses, brought to an end when Pinchas slays the leader of the revolt and after the plague kills all 24,000 insurgents.

While outward threats to Jewish safety are closely monitored, sinister internal threats to our existence are overlooked. Today, contagious and insidious Jew hatred infects many Jews who consider abortion moral, acceptable, even virtuous. We're killing our own children in the womb, doing the work of the Nazis and the radical Islamists without realizing the significance of the slaughter. Jews see abortion as a civil liberty, personal empowerment or responsibility avoidance rather than a spiritual and demographic existential threat. The numbers are staggering. Over 790,000 Jewish lives lost in America since 1973, and over 2 million in israel. Each of these children is created by God to manifest His divine will on Earth, and His will is thwarted each time a Jew donates to Planned Parenthood, votes for a pro-abortion candidate, takes a friend or relative to a clinic for an abortion, pays for an abortion or God forbid, has an abortion. The spiritual implications of this ill-considered defiance are rarely mentioned in traditional Jewish scholarship, and the fatal attacks on Jewish life remain unmonitored by those who track anti-Semitism.

No doubt, widespread Jewish abortion advocacy and overrepresentation in the abortion industry as clinic owners, doctors, volunteers, and political activists incites anti-Semitism. By engaging in these activities, we evoke historical accusations of baby killing that justified much Jew hatred and tragedy in the past.

We believe that every Jew, no matter how influenced or corrupted by the death cult of abortion ideology, has a capacity for change because God included a Divine element in our nature, making psychic restoration possible. Change occurs when a Jew learns the evil truth about abortion and realizes how we’ve been abused, manipulated, and used in our own demise. The misguided determination to destroy life yields to a deep desire to love all human life at every stage of development, thus turning evil into goodness. The Haftorah portion this week, Micah 5:6 - 6:8, poignantly describes this transformation of the heart. When asked if we should sacrifice our children as atonement for our sins, the prophet replies, "It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, And what the Lord doth require of thee: Only to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God."

Cecily Routman

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.