Tanya White

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... I am blessed with four daughters. Each of them is stubbornly, audaciously her own person. And one of the hardest things I try to do as a parent, some days more successfully than others, is figure out how to raise human beings who are both courageously their own people and who are partners in one household — carrying real responsibility for something larger than themselves. That’s not only a parenting struggle.

This piece first ran on our Substack, Reading Jewish History in the Parsha. We’re pleased to share it here on our website. Lo, it is a people that shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. –Bamidbar 23:9 Bilam’s words above paint a picture in many of our minds of a fundamental aspect of the relationship between the Jewish People and the rest of humanity.