Balak

Balaam, a non-Israelite prophet, is paid to curse and pronounces the most beautiful blessing in the corpus: "How goodly are thy tents, Jacob" — the first phrase spoken upon entering the synagogue. An Aramaic inscription from Deir Alla, in the 8th century BCE, mentions a seer of the same name: a rare case of a minor biblical figure whose external echo has been found. The haftara asks what God demands: justice, kindness, humility.