Today’s world seems to have ended privacy. Every special pronoun is an exercise in not only displaying a person’s sexual desires, but also forcing everyone else to recognize them, and applaud the deviant for their own special interests. We went from “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, to requiring public use of special pronouns that reflect internal desires. Somehow that which is supposed to be private is now unavoidably, endlessly, in your face, and in the public sphere.
That private/public divide is not a new issue. Bilaam praises the Jewish people: “How Goodly Are Your Tents” – the walls that surround a family, that provide privacy and discretion, separating the nuclear unit from society at large.
The walls of these tents are what make the Jewish people special. They in turn form the bricks that combine to make a good society.
When Balaam advises his client to send in their women to seduce Jewish men and lead them astray, he was demonstrating that breaching holy relationships also constitutes idolatry against G-d. But was he really doing much more than that?
In this case, a specific sinning couple decided to engage in view of the entire camp, in a fully public display. It was the very antithesis of the “Goodly Tents.” That couple moved what belongs in the privacy of an intimate relationship, behind the walls of a tent, and they brought it out as a public display.
Is the lesson of this story that the achilles heel of the Jewish people is the same thing as that which makes us strong? The exclusive marriage within a tent comprises the essential building block for the national relationship with G-d. If we eliminate the exclusivity of the marriage (by engaging in adultery/idolatry) and eliminate the tent altogether by bringing what is meant to be reserved for intimacy into the public square, then G-d realizes that man is irredeemable, and our society utterly fails?
When we are forced to embrace the pride someone has in their sexual choices, it feels to me as if every privacy screen has been removed, and we are being told to watch and cheer as people act like animals.
Does today’s culture represent the same threat to Judaism as the attack from the daughters of Moav?