Bilaam stood on a mountaintop overlooking the plains of Moav stunned. Divine lightning had struck his anti-Jewish heart and for one blazing instant it had shown him the meaning of Am Yisrael. He gazed down on the Jewish People in the valley below and he saw a panoramic vision of all the generations to come in the future history of this nation. He saw the scene unfolding and he got the message. 

Suddenly his strength left him. The curses he had prepared for the Jewish Nation were squelched within and in their stead arose a compulsion to bless them. He couldn’t help but sing their praises in the language of metaphor: “How can I curse whom Hashem has not cursed… For from their beginning I see them as mountain peaks and I behold them as hills; it is a nation that will dwell alone and will not be reckoned among the nations.” (Bamidbar 23:8-9) 

Here is how some of the classical mefarshim shed light on Bilaam’s words: 

“I [Bilaam] look upon the nation and see that it will dwell alone and no other nation will incorporate them in the way that many nations band together to form one entity. But these people all have one Torah and one Law and they are one nation that will dwell alone by the name of Yaakov and Yisrael… For as I see it now dwelling alone so will it forever dwell securely alone… and no nation will overcome it or absorb it into itself.” (Ramban) 

“They are not subject to the changing fortunes of the lowly world or its opinions.” (Malbim) 

“When [this nation] does not mingle with the people among whom it dwells it will dwell in peace and honor. But when it wants to blend in with them it will not be respected. It will not be considered [by the non-Jews] as partaking of their nation’s honor.” (Netziv) 

This is our unique place in history. It has caused much discomfort and suffering to many who have not understood it who have failed to comprehend this isolation as a blessing. But those who understand are well aware that the Jewish condition is unparalleled in the history of all other nations. So understood at least one modern thinker Dr. Yaakov Herzog. Herzog son of Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Herzog was a brilliant scholar and orator with a doctorate in international law who served as advisor to Ben-Gurion was Israel’s ambassador to Canada and was a candidate for chief rabbi of the British Empire. 

Two years after the 1967 Six Day War Herzog hosted a group of 15 Christian theologians who had been sent by the American government to the Middle East to report on the spiritual life of the various peoples of the region. 

“I asked them how they viewed the phenomenon of the Jews in Eretz Yisrael especially after the Six Day War” Herzog reported at the time. “They said that they honestly didn’t know how to define what they saw. It might be miraculous or it might be something else that they couldn’t define in theological terms. I said to them ‘Well I can’t convince you. I am a Jew you are Christians and our paths are separate. But let me ask you a question. We believe in the concept of “a people that will dwell alone.” We have it as a tradition we accept that it was said 3 300 years ago by Bilaam the greatest of the non-Jewish prophets of whom our Sages said: “In Israel no prophet has arisen like Moshe but in the nations one arose.” ’ 

“There were some Bible critics among them and I asked one of them ‘Tell me now about what other nation was such a prophecy ever said? In India Persia ancient Greece was there anyone who stood up and prophesied about the nation’s fate at the End of Days or even less far into the future?’ 

“The scholars consulted with one another and decided that no such prophecy had ever been heard of. I went on. ‘A second question: Was the prophecy regarding the Jews fulfilled or not? I will show you to what extent we are a nation that dwells alone. We have no family. Wherever you look we are alone. We aren’t members of NATO or of the Warsaw Pact nor of the Africa-Asia Organization or the Organization of Middle Eastern States nor of the Association of Developing Countries. We are received everywhere with a royal welcome but not as part of the family. As a state we seem to be in the same position as the Jew in the Diaspora. With all his money he is admired. They’ll make him the president of any organization. But invite him over to their house on a Sunday afternoon they won’t. He won’t be accepted into the family circle. ’ 

“It’s the same with us as a state interfacing with the other nations. If the State of Israel should ever fall there is no other nation that would feel it as the loss of a family member. There is no other people that has just one religion and no other religion that belongs to just one people. There’s no other people whose existence is something to wonder about not just what will be its fate in war but no less than this what will be its fate in peace. How will it fare in peace against tens of millions? Will it withstand assimilation? There is no other nation that depends on its people in exile for survival. If all Irish expatriates for example were to disappear from the world tomorrow Ireland would still remain. But what would happen to Israel if the Jews of the Diaspora were suddenly gone? How would we endure? 

“I explained this far-reaching idea of isolation to them. I told them there is a huge paradox here. Our society seems to be teetering on the brink when we look through the lens of security yet in fact we are the most permanent of all societies. We seem to be the most agnostic of societies always relying on kochi v’otzem yadi yet in fact we believe in miracles. The State of Israel with all its religious divisions believes in them more than any other nation. We always seem to be going blindly into the unknown yet in fact we are going toward our destiny. We are full of paradoxes yet when all is said and done we are ‘a people that will dwell alone ’ not as a paradox but perhaps as the only natural phenomenon in human history that succeeded in existing above time and therefore took its place above the accepted rules of history. 

“And therefore despite all the precariousness of our position all our lack of faith all our lack of security all our doubts and skepticism all the threats all the critiques regarding our right to be here — sometimes with strong arguments from logical points of view that continue to be debated in university halls around the world — despite all that the US State Department is preoccupied with the question: ‘What is the current state of the Jewish People in Israel in terms of faith?’ And the whole Arab world is busy complaining ‘What did they have to come disturbing us for?’ All those doubts and fears have a logical basis and there is even a place for them in 20th-century thought. Yet it is all shattered by the eternity of the Jewish People whose true reality is hashgachah and emunah.” (From his notebook Hen Am Levadad Yishkon) 

For Israeli diplomat Dr. Herzog who passed away in 1972 Bilaam’s words served as the standard of truth when navigating the intricate maze of international politics which ultimately pointed at isolating the Jewish State. And today in the hostile climate of BDS and other pressuring measures the gentile prophet’s vision — a veritable blessing for all generations — is clear as ever.