Does Parashat Balak teach that a person can be surrounded by enemies, and not know at all how much protection is over him from above?

Yes, but we have to be precise: the parasha does not say explicitly that Israel did not know what was unfolding above them. This is an idea read out of the structure of the story: almost all the drama takes place outside the camp of Israel. Balak sees, Moav fears, messengers travel to Bilam, Bilam climbs from place to place, and God blocks the curse. Israel themselves hardly take part in the plot. They are simply there, and above them an entire war is being waged.

And this is precisely the beauty of it.

Balak asks Bilam: “Ve’atah lechah na arah li et ha’am hazeh” (And now, please come, curse for me this people, Numbers 22:6). That is, there is here an attempt to harm Israel not by sword, but by speech, by a hidden spiritual force.

But even before Israel appears as those reacting, God already sets the boundary of the danger: “Lo telech imahem lo ta’or et ha’am ki varuch hu” (You shall not go with them; you shall not curse the people, for they are blessed, Numbers 22:12).

And this is the astonishing innovation. There are moments when a person thinks his day was ordinary. He got up, walked, ate, worked, prayed, came home. And he does not know that at that very time there were bad thoughts about him, evil eyes, harmful plans, and from Heaven it had already been arranged that the curse would not reach him.

Bilam himself admits that he has no ability to curse if God does not give room for it: “Mah ekov lo kavoh El” (How shall I curse whom God has not cursed, Numbers 23:8).

And further on, another layer is revealed: not only does the curse fail, but the mouth that was hired to curse becomes the mouth that reveals the blessing. Bilam looks at Israel and says: “Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov mishknotecha Yisrael” (How goodly are your tents, O Ya’akov, your dwellings, O Yisrael, Numbers 24:5).

So as a midrashic idea, Parashat Balak does teach something huge: a person can be surrounded by enemies, and not know that he is also surrounded by protection.

The parasha opens a window into two planes that exist at the same time, what a person sees, and what unfolds without him. Most of the protection is invisible, and precisely for that reason it is so easy to miss. There are wars a person does not know were fought over him, and there are decrees he does not know were stopped.

And sometimes the protection does something even more surprising: it takes what was sent to harm you, and turns it itself into a testimony about you. Balak sent a curse, and got back in return the greatest blessing ever spoken about Israel.

The point is that Israel did not win in this parasha because they conducted a battle. They won because they belonged to a blessing deeper than the curse of Bilam. Sometimes the greatest protection is exactly the one you did not see, did not hear, and did not know to give thanks for in real time.