In a stifled attempt to curse the Jewish people, Bilam was compelled instead to confer blessings upon them. He begrudgingly acknowledged their admirable tents and dwellings when he proclaimed, "How good are your tents, Yaakov, your dwelling places, Yisrael" (Bamidbar 24:5). In one place (Sanhedrin 105b), Chazal interpret the "tents" and "dwellings" as a reference to the beis hamedrash and beis haknesses. The Gemara states, "from the blessing of Bilam, you can ascertain what was in his heart, for Hashem transformed the curses that he planned into blessings. He intended to say that they should not have synagogues and study halls, and he said instead, 'How good are your tents, Yaakov' - a blessing on their synagogues ... He sought to say that the kingdom of Yisrael would not continue, and he said instead that it would continue." Bilam deliberately targeted the communal citadels of Torah and tefillah because he rightly understood that these institutional pillars are essential to the prospect of Jewish continuity.
However, on another occasion (Bava Basra 60a), Chazal attribute Bilam's coerced admiration of the Jewish "tents" and "dwellings" to their individual homes, whose entrance was obscured and uniquely designed in order to avoid attention and maximize privacy. Are these two perspectives proposed by Chazal at odds or perhaps related?
Rav Moshe Feinstein (Drash Moshe) suggests that Bilam sought to undermine the bedrock of Jewish survival by severing the connection between the Jewish home and the formal educational establishment, represented by the study hall and synagogue. Bilam maliciously accentuated the intensity and beauty of the Jewish home in an attempt to render the communal infrastructure superfluous. In thwarting this assault against the academy and converting Bilam's aggression against the study hall and synagogue into a resentful approbation, Hashem was teaching that successful and lasting chinuch demands a partnership between the home and the school. The individual Jewish home and the communal institutions of Torah learning are synonymous in the eyes of Chazal, because only when the two loci of education are aligned and operating in unison can Jewish continuity be ensured.
Similarly, prior to descending to Egypt, Yaakov dispatched Yehudah to prepare for their arrival in Goshen (Breishis 46:28). The Medrash offers two versions of the specific instructions given to Yehudah. Either he was charged with securing a neighborhood of private homes for domestic dwelling or, alternatively, he was tasked with consecrating a central location for communal learning and teaching Torah. Rav Mordechai Gifter (Pirkei Torah) proposes that these two objectives are in fact intertwined. Proper chinuch, which is the backbone of the community, requires that every individual home echo and reinforce the messages articulated by its educational system. The home must be a satellite and reflection of the house of study, as the Mishnah (Avos 1:4) advises, "your house should be a meeting place for the sages", and therefore the obligation to establish one is dependent and bound up with the other.
Learning and teaching Torah should not be an activity that is reserved for the beis hamedrash or local yeshiva. Rather the voice of Torah, and all that it implies, must reverberate in every Jewish home. The lasting impression created by regular Torah study in the home is irreplaceable and indispensable. All too often, we have grown accustomed to delegating and outsourcing critical aspects of chinuch to our communal institutions. Sometimes, we rely on the yeshivos to teach certain values and set difficult boundaries without taking the responsibility to embody and instill those same standards ourselves. Let us take the opportunity during the summer, when many children are not in school, to dispel any dissonance in the education of our precious children, because it is only through working in tandem with our yeshivos that we can safeguard the Jewish future.