Parshat Balak offers us a unique view of the nascent Israelite nation. For the past several weeks we have been visitors inside the Israelite camp as they made their way from Sinai to the Promised Land. There were the complaints of the Israelites about their lack of food and water. We have seen jealousy spur Aaron and Miriam to make accusations against their brother Moses. Civil war threatened to erupt around the question of leadership of the nation. In the middle of their wanderings, a popular revolt arises around the ability to conquer the land and a large number of the Israelites want to return to Egypt. On the whole it is a discouraging picture that has been painted of our ancestors. Now, for the first time in Sefer Bamidbar, the Book of Numbers, we get a different perspective and a different view of our people.

With all that has happened, it is easy to forget that the dor ha-midbar, the generation of the desert, was a special, unique, holy generation. These were the people who cried out to God from Egyptian slavery. God heard and answered their prayers. They were the beneficiaries of the 10 plagues, they saw the miracle at the Red Sea, and they stood at Sinai. This was a generation that merited Divine salvation. For all their perceived shortcomings, the generation of the desert was lauded by our rabbis as a holy generation who merited Divine reward and Divine punishment. Our tradition tells us that no other generation in our people’s history could match them and no other generation is as meritorious as they.

In this week’s portion, Naso (Numbers 4:21–7:89), Aaron and his sons are instructed to bless the People of Israel and they are given a formulaic blessing that is still used in synagogue services, borrowed by parents to bless their children on Friday nights and offered to brides before their weddings. Perhaps this is the origin of offering God’s blessing, but it is far from the only instance.