BALAK 5779

Let’s sing together the words of blessing from this morning’s Torah portion: Ma Tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishknotecha Yisrael (How goodly are your tents, O’ Jacob, your dwelling places, O’ Israel). Yes, how wonderful is our spiritual home this morning with our new Aron Kodesh. Some 15 years ago, Israel Peljovich found a couple of ancient doors in a container from Spain that were about to be discarded and used for firewood. The artist in him immediately realized that there was something special about them. It turns out that these doors have the very same markings as some medieval synagogues in Spain from before the Inquisition of 1492, indicating that they are holy objects over 500 years old! Israel displayed the doors in our old shul for a while then took them to his shop to make a new Aron Kodesh from them.

It took some 15 years—mostly because he was waiting for them to have a permanent home—and today we see the fulfillment of Israel’s dream to create this new Aron Kodesh from these ancient holy doors. There are no words to tell you all the love and effort it took to make this happen. Some thought it may never happen. Baruch Hashem, thank Gd…it is here!

This is not too unlike the vision of President John Kennedy in 1961—when he refused to listen to the nay-sayers who said man would never travel to the moon—and declared before Congress that within the next 10 years, America will put a man on the moon. A short 8 years later, on July 20, 1969—exactly 50 years ago today—that promise came true as Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon declaring: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The whole world was awestruck. As president Richard Nixon told the astronauts on the moon: “For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one.” And they were.

50 years later, a lot has come out about this mission. Did you know that this project involved 400,000 engineers, scientists and technicians to build 5½ million parts? Many of the people involved didn’t work directly for NASA. They were private contractors, and sub-contractors who had never worked with anything involving aeronautics, let alone space travel.

The program manager of the Apollo project, George Muller —in order to make sure that everyone involved took the project seriously—took the astronauts around to the various factories so that the workers could meet them and understand that the lives of these astronauts were in their hands. One loose screw, one incorrect calculation could be the difference between life and death. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the faces of the mission…but ultimately, these 400,000 people are the unsung heroes of Apollo 11—including the 3 black women who played a major role in the mathematical calculations, as portrayed in the movie “Hidden Figures.”

Just before Passover this year, Israel went to the moon. Did you ever think in your wildest dreams that this could happen? This made Israel only the 4^th country in history to land a spacecraft on the moon. Ok, the unoccupied spacecraft crash-landed. But the accomplishment of getting that far is still amazing. I’m sure there are many unsung heroes to Israel’s story as well.

In this morning’s Torah portion there’s an elaborate story, the end of which is that Bilaam’s attempts at cursing the Jews were turned into blessings—as the blessing Ma tovu we just sang attests. The amazing thing about the story is that the Jewish people had absolutely no idea it was happening. The interaction between Balak—the king of Moav—and Bilam—the heathen prophet—and the attempted curses that turned into blessings…takes place on cliffs that oversee the Jewish camp. But the Jews had absolutely no idea—until they later read the story in the Torah—that Gd was shielding them from harm, turning the curses into blessings. It’s a great example of how Gd has our backs!

Were you or someone you know ever involved in a terrible accident and somehow, miraculously, just walked away, suffering little or no injury? That’s Gd having your back. Did you ever make a wrong turn or for no reason take a different path and couldn’t figure out why? That could be Gd protecting you from some misfortune that was awaiting you.

 My friends, Gd watches over us and protects us in hundreds of different ways every day—in ways we’ll never know. It’s the ultimate demonstration of His love for us, for we can’t even thank Him for His protection because we’ll never know the extent of what He does for us.

 The Ralbag comments that the reason this story was included in the Torah was to let us know that the Children of Israel were protected from the curses of Bilam because of their actions. Bilaam blessed them with the Ma tovu blessing—that their homes will be blessed—because when he gazed upon them he saw they treated each other with respect and dignity—especially respecting each other’s privacy (Rashi). The message is that Gd will bless us hundreds of ways we may never know…Gd will have our backs…if treat each other with respect and follow His Torah.

We often overlook the significance of our actions. The technician in the Apollo mission who connected the sleeve of the flight suit to the body may never get recognized for his/her accomplishment, even though he/she would have received all the blame had there been some sort of malfunction. Ultimately, Gd knows the important role that everyone plays in life and rewards each of us accordingly. When we’re aware of how impactful our actions can be, we can look beyond who gets the credit and focus on what we can contribute.

Is there any limit as to what mankind can achieve? Author and motivational speaker Les Brown is known for saying “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” While the accuracy of this statement might be up for debate, the idea that we can succeed if we aim higher is certainly true. We should be proud of our fellow Jews in Israel who shot for the moon. They may not have hit it (well literally, they did), but they still reached for the stars. And today the pride is back for America as we commemorate the impossible feat of reaching the moon 50 years ago today. And we are proud of Israel Peljovich for his vision and stick-to-it-ness as we see right here in the amazing work of his hands.

The Apollo mission united the imagination of the world as never before. Again, as Nixon put it, “For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one.” My friends, let’s not settle for one priceless moment; let’s always shoot for the moon. Amen!