30 | JULY 2 • 2020 

Spirit
torah portion

A 

few months before 
the pandemic, which 
now feels like another 
lifetime, I flew home for a visit 
with my parents and sisters, 
one of whom is pregnant with 
her first child. Unlike so many 
members of our com-
munity, I didn’
t grow 
up in Michigan — 
although I got here as 
fast as I could — and 
so these cross-country 
trips have become an 
essential part of our 
routine. 
During these visits, 
there is always great 
food and reminiscing, 
board games and shop-
ping; but in my family, 
the best conversations 
happen at night after 
half the house is sleeping. In 
the calm and the dark and the 
quiet, we talk about the things 
that really matter, and the 
things that are harder to say 
when we are running around or 
chasing kids or sitting down to 
eat. And given the circumstanc-
es, during this visit, we found 
ourselves ruminating on what it 
means to raise a family, to share 
your life so fully and uncondi-
tionally with someone else. 
We talked about moments of 
strength and weakness, about 
how challenging it is to live 
with intention, to raise children 
with a strong sense of right and 
wrong, negotiating the time 
and energy and input of fam-
ilies on both sides. We talked 
about change, and how children 
morph into completely differ-
ent humans 5, 10, 20, 50 years 
down the road. And, of course, 
we joked about the wonderful 
world of sleep deprivation. 
But as the words flowed, as 
we shared stories and compared 
experiences, it became clear that 

all the stories and all the advice 
came from a place of love.
This week’
s Torah portion 
features a king’
s attempt to 
curse the people of Israel. He 
sends Balaam, a prophet, to the 
Israelite camp; and instead of 
cursing them, out of his 
mouth comes a beautiful 
blessing: Ma Tovu O’
halecha 
Ya’
akov, mishkanotecha 
Yisrael. How lovely are your 
tents, O Jacob, your dwell-
ing places, O Israel.
Our tradition teaches 
that Balaam uttered these 
words of blessing after 
seeing that the Israelites 
arranged their homes in 
such a way that their doors 
and windows faced away 
from each other. They 
were private, a people 
that valued their family units 
— their chosen people — and 
they made the choice to share 
more deeply and trust harder 
and love deeper with the people 
with whom they shared their 
homes. 
There are things that we 
share with our partners and our 
children that we would never 
share with another soul. There 
are things we share with our 
families that leave us vulnerable 
and open, as we are lifted or 
shattered by those closest to us. 
This vulnerability is a bless-
ing. And as we prepare to wel-
come a new soul into our own 
family, I can’
t help but dream 
of her, sitting in the dark with 
us, legs crossed on the couch, 
laughing and crying, open and 
true. 
How lovely are our tents … 
how lovely, how sacred, to share 
ourselves fully with those we 
love. 

Rabbi Jennifer Lader is a rabbi at Temple 

Israel in West Bloomfield.

Parshat 

Chukat/

Balak: 

Numbers 

19:1-25:9; 

Micah

5:6-6:8.

Rabbi 
Jennifer 
Lader

Of Sharing And Love

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