Parshas Balak - Opening Our Minds
This Parsha contains the famous story of King Balak who hired the sorcerer Bilaam to curse the Jewish people. Bilaam was on his way to Moav to partner with Balak, when lo and behold his donkey spoke to him! How ironic! The greatest prophet of the nations, a man with a supernatural power of speech, was being spoken to by an animal. Clearly this was intended as a wake-up call from Hashem to Bilaam! Bilaam should have stopped in his tracks to reflect on the miracle of his donkey speaking to him. He should have wondered if perhaps this was a message to him about Who grants power of speech and a warning not to misuse his speech. Alas, Bilaam had no moment of insight, and seemed not to notice that his animal was the first one in history to address a human. Bilaam responded to the donkey as if they were having a completely normal conversation.
How is this possible? How can a wise person (and a prophet) not recognize when Hashem is so to speak knocking him on the head with an overt message! How could he have missed the point? We tend to think that if we were in that position and Hashem arranged a supernatural message specifically for us, we would recognize it. We would surely listen! However, the truth is that each of us has the natural human tendency to be blind to things that interfere with our personal motives. Our desires are so unconsciously compelling that we will often not see a reality staring us in the face if it contradicts our will. John Pierpont Morgan addressed this reality in his quote, "A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason."
When it comes to parenting, all of us are in danger of falling into this trap. We have powerful desires for our children and often aren’t even consciously aware of our dreams for them that are driving us. One of the common parenting pitfalls is to drive our children to be the people we want them to be instead of guiding them to be the people they were created to be. Parents want nachas from children which we incorrectly think means they should reflect our priorities. But that’s not right. Our deeper goal is that our children should bring Hashem nachas, and He created them differently than He did us, because He wants different things from them than He does from us.
When we are parenting, we need to recognize that precisely because of our immense love for our children and our deep desires for our children, we can potentially be the most blind to who they truly are and what they truly need. Just like Bilaam, a message can be blaring in loudspeakers over our heads, and we won’t hear it.
How can we open our minds to bigger truths and reject Bilaam’s blindness in our lives? One suggestion is to develop a close relationship with a mentor who can give another perspective into our lives. Find someone you respect and begin asking them for their insights on situations with your children. While ultimately you are your child’s parent and make the final decisions, it can be helpful to hear the perspective of someone more removed from your life. A mentor can open your eyes to questions or angles that you hadn’t considered on your own. Additionally, we can daven that Hashem should help each one of us be open to seeing our children as He does, and help us be open to the paths, people, and programs that may be just right for our children, especially those we wouldn’t have considered on our own..
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