This week, I listened to a riveting episode of The Rest is History, the ever-excellent podcast hosted by Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland. This one was about the infamous Munich Conference of September 1938, which allowed Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland so that they wouldn’t go to war with Czechoslovakia, which would inevitably have drawn in France, and then Great Britain.

If you’ve spent any time dabbling in 20th-century history, you’ll know that the Munich Conference has become the gold standard for the failure of the diplomatic policy known as “appeasement.” British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain — umbrella in hand, and full of patrician optimism — famously emerged from negotiations with Adolf Hitler waving a piece of paper signed by the Nazi dictator and promising “peace for our time.” 

Less than a year later, Hitler invaded Poland, and the world was plunged into one of the most devastating wars in all of history. Chamberlain’s name has been synonymous with diplomatic naïveté ever since.

But here’s the kicker: what most people forget — or probably never knew to begin with — is that the country being discussed at Munich — Czechoslovakia — wasn’t even at the table. 

Britain, France, Germany, and Italy hashed out the fate of a sovereign nation without even bothering to invite any representatives from Czechoslovakia to participate. As Sandbrook and Holland dryly observed, it was a negotiation about Czechoslovakia, conducted without Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš was famously informed of what had happened at Munich while he was taking a bath. According to multiple historical accounts, he received the news from his aides or possibly a British envoy. 

His initial response, as reported in various memoirs and diplomatic recollections, was short and bitter: “We have been betrayed.” He later added, “We have been deceived by our friends and left at the mercy of our enemies.”

And if you think that sort of thing doesn’t happen anymore, well, think again. Jump forward to 2015. The JCPOA, otherwise known as Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal, was signed by Iran and the so-called P5+1 powers — China, France, Russia, the UK, the US, and Germany. 

Notably absent from the table was Israel. You know — the country Iran regularly threatens to wipe off the map. The country most likely to be targeted by an Iranian nuclear weapon if, heaven forbid, one were ever developed.

Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, recounts in his book Ally that President Obama consistently gave the impression — through word and deed — that he believed he knew what was best for Israel better than its own democratically elected leaders did. As Oren writes, it was a startling form of paternalism. And it’s hard not to hear echoes of Munich.

Which is why recent developments in the Middle East feel nothing short of miraculous. Conversations about the future of the region are taking place — often behind closed doors, sometimes without direct Israeli input, but increasingly with it. 

Just this week, there was direct contact between Israel and Lebanon. Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are reportedly engaged in serious discussions with the US — and with Israel — about expanding the Abraham Accords. 

On the surface, it might appear that Israel is still being sidelined. But in reality, the playing field has shifted dramatically. This time, instead of the United States arrogantly assuming it knows what’s best for Israel, something remarkable has happened: God intervened.

Somehow, against all odds, Israel’s enemies have been stymied. Iranian nuclear sites — long the subject of breathless speculation and veiled threats — were bombed into oblivion. Strategic alliances are forming that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. And much of it has happened without direct Israeli involvement. Which brings us to Parshat Balak. 

If you blink, you might miss it — but Parshat Balak is one of the most astonishing episodes in the entire Torah. Not because of what the Jewish people do, but because of what they don’t do. In fact, they do nothing at all. They are completely marginal to the main narrative.

While the Israelites are camped peacefully in the wilderness, a drama of international intrigue is unfolding just beyond their line of sight. Balak, king of Moav, is in a panic. The Israelites have emerged from Egypt, miraculously survived forty years in the desert, and now threaten his kingdom by sheer proximity. 

But Balak knows he can’t beat them militarily. After all, they had already obliterated the warrior nation of Amalek on the battlefield. Balak didn’t want Moav to suffer the same fate. So instead, he turns to spiritual warfare. Balak engages the enigmatic prophet-for-hire, Bilaam, to curse the Jewish people. He wants them destroyed — not through force of arms, but through words.

Like so many Torah narratives, this isn’t merely the tale of some ancient tribal conflict. It’s a blueprint for what antisemitism has often looked like throughout history: plots hatched in smoke-filled rooms by people with power, aiming to sabotage the Jewish future from afar. 

And just like at Munich, or in the JCPOA negotiations, or at any number of international diplomatic settings — there isn’t a single Jew in the room. And yet, everything turns out okay. Scratch that. It turns out better than okay.

Bilaam opens his mouth to curse the Israelites — and instead, out come blessings. God turns his words inside out. Every attempt at sabotage is divinely inverted. Which is why the verse (Num. 24:5) — “How goodly are your tents, Jacob” — has become a permanent fixture in Jewish liturgy. Balak’s scheme collapses in divine irony. The entire threat — real, sophisticated, and well-financed — evaporates without the Israelites ever knowing what was happening as it unfolded.

And that’s the lesson. Sometimes the most incredible miracles are the ones we don’t even know have happened until after they’ve happened. Sometimes the most profound divine interventions take place in a room where no one representing the Jewish people has a seat — because God Himself takes the seat on our behalf.

When we look at recent events through that lens, we stop being passive observers of history and begin to sense the Divine choreography at work. 

Iran, once untouchable, suddenly suffers catastrophic setbacks. Arab leaders, who once wouldn’t even acknowledge Israel’s existence, are now quietly exploring peace and cooperation. And America is doing what’s in Israel’s best interests — despite the noise from woke troublemakers and social media agitators.

It’s not because Israel was in the room. It’s because God was, just like in Parshat Balak. 

So, the next time someone points out how Israel is being left out of this or that negotiation, or how Jewish interests are being ignored in high-level diplomatic conversations, take a breath. 

Remember Balak. Remember Bilaam. Remember the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities by the United States. And remember this: we don’t always have to be in the room — so long as God is.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California. 

The post We Don’t Always Need to Be in the Room to Make a Difference first appeared on Algemeiner.com.