Tosefta Yoma 4:12
Good things come about through good people.
(2) Balak son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. (3) Moab was alarmed because that people was so numerous. Moab dreaded the Israelites, (4) and Moab said to the elders of Midian, “Now this horde will lick clean all that is about us as an ox licks up the grass of the field.”
What induced Moab to take counsel of Midian? When they saw that Israel was victorious in a supernatural manner they said: the leader of these people grew up in Midian; let us ask them what is his chief characteristic. They replied to them; “His power lies only in his mouth.” Whereupon they said: “Then we must come against them with a man whose power lies in his mouth” (Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 3).
The Mishna teaches that four prominent commoners, Balaam, Doeg, Ahithophel, and Gehazi, have no share in the World-to-Come. The Gemara elaborates: The name Balaam is interpreted as a contraction of: Without a nation [belo am].
Let the mouth of another praise you, not yours; the lips of a stranger, not your own.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
There are, says Rabbi Soloveitchik, two ways in which people become a group – a community, society, or nation. The first is when they face a common enemy. They band together for mutual protection, knowing that only by so doing can they survive... Such a group is a machaneh – a camp, a defensive formation. An edah, congregation, is altogether different. Here people can come together because they share a vision, a goal, a set of ideals. Edah is related to the word ed, witness.
These are two different ways of existing and relating to the world. A camp is brought into being by what happens to it from the outside. A congregation comes into existence by internal decision. The first is reactive, the second proactive. The first is a response to what has happened to the group in the past. The second represents what the group seeks to achieve in the future.
מַה־טֹּ֥בוּ אֹהָלֶ֖יךָ יַעֲקֹ֑ב מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶ֖יךָ יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
How good are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!
(ח) הִגִּ֥יד לְךָ֛ אָדָ֖ם מַה־טּ֑וֹב וּמָֽה־ה' דּוֹרֵ֣שׁ מִמְּךָ֗ כִּ֣י אִם־עֲשׂ֤וֹת מִשְׁפָּט֙ וְאַ֣הֲבַת חֶ֔סֶד וְהַצְנֵ֥עַ לֶ֖כֶת עִם־אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃ (פ)
(8) He has told you, human, what is good, and what does the Eternal require of you: only to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk modestly with your God.
Excerpt from Still I Rise (1978)- Maya Angelou
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.