Torah: Num. 22:2–25:9 Haftarah: Micah 5:6–6:8
"He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with God." (6:8)
This is the very last verse of today's haftarah. It is not the last verse of the sixth chapter of Micah, and the reference to Balak and Balaam that ties the haftarah to the Torah reading came at the beginning of Chapter 6. So why did the creators of our liturgical calendar choose to end with this verse?
Perhaps the story of the parsha, the story of the seer Balaam, has another connection to the haftarah in this verse.
Balak, the king of Moab, is frightened by the victories of the Israelites over some of his neighbors, and sends a mission of elders to summon the seer Balaam (a seer of the region who seems to have been a real person, and who is mentioned in non-Biblical sources as well) to curse them so that he will be able to defeat them in battle. Balaam refuses the first delegation, saying God doesn't curse them, so he cannot. He accepts a second summons with the caveat that he can only say God's words, not Balak's. Throughout this first section, Balaam is firm that he can only walk humbly with God and do God's will.
Next comes the story of Balaam and his ass. In this episode, Balaam, who can defy kings, shows arrogance over a beast that has served him for years, and whose vision is clearer than his own.
But the rest of the story shows four instances where Balak commands that he curse Israel, and each time he blesses them instead in four poems, one of which includes the Mah Tovu (how beautiful are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel) that is repeated by us on first entering a sanctuary for worship. Each time he demonstrates that Balak is powerless to oppose God's will.
In most of the story, Balaam completely submits to God, and he seems to practice his vocation by consulting God. In other places, Balaam is portrayed as having evil intent towards the Israelites, and being thwarted by God; in the story as told in this parsha, however, he consults God's wishes from the beginning, and keeps telling Balak that he cannot curse those whom God blesses.
So Micah 6:8 is very much connected to the story of Balaam and Balak. It is also a very appropriate verse to close the readings for the last Shabbat before the first haftarah of admonition next week; the cycle of haftarot of admonition and of consolation that lead up to the High Holidays, when we read the longer but similar message from Isaiah.
Shabbat shalom!