Parshas
Balak
What
Do You Hear?
By:
Daniel Listhaus
“G-d
came to Billam and said, 'Who are these men with you?' Billam said to
G-d, 'Balak son of Tzippor, king of Moav sent to me: 'Behold! The
people coming out of Egypt has covered the eye of the land. Now go
and curse it for me; perhaps I will be able to make war against it
and I will drive it away.' G-d said to Billam, 'You shall not go with
them! You shall not invoke curse upon the people, for it is blessed!
”
-Balak
22:9-12
After
a series of internal issues and conflicts and the deaths of Miriam
and Aharon, the B'nei
Yisroel seem
to finally regain their prestige and instill a sense of fear into the
surrounding nations. After watching the battle during which the great
Sichon and Og were defeated by the B'nei
Yisroel,
Balak realized that in order to destroy them, a different strategy
would have to be used. Balak noticed that although some nations do
battle with chariots and others with horses, the B'nei
Yisroel come
to battle with nothing more than the Name of Hashem.1
Balak therefore had the idea to counter words with words and hire
Billam to curse the B'nei
Yisroel.
As
Billam started the journey with the messengers of Balak, the Torah
tells us that Hashem approached Billam and asked, “Who are these
men with you?” Rashi2
comments
that when Billam heard Hashem ask him this, he started doubting
Hashem's abilities. He said to himself that there are times when not
everything is revealed before Hashem and He is therefore not always
aware of what is going on. After all, if Hashem had to ask who these
people are, it must be because He does not know. Billim therefore
convinced himself that he would be able to find a time to curse B'nei
Yisroel without
Hashem realizing what he was up to.
The
problem with this Rashi
is
the following. Billam was not an ordinary person. As evil as Billam
was, there was a potential in him equal to Moshe rabbeinu's.
Rashi3
writes that in order to level the playing field and remove any
excuses that the goyim
would have for not doing teshuva
(repentance),
Hashem rested His shechina
on
Billam. With Billam, the goyim
of
the world had their own Moshe rabbeinu
who
had the potential to lead and advise them in the right direction
through nevuah
(prophecy).
If so, when Hashem came and asked Billam, “Who are these men with
you?” why did Billam suddenly doubt Hashem's knowledge? Billam was
very aware of Hashem's power and should have understood that there
must have been a different reason for Hashem asking him who the men
who were with him were.
Furthermore,
if Billam had listened in history class, perhaps he might have even
known the reason for Hashem's unnecessary question. After all, Billam
was not the first one ever to have a question asked to him by Hashem
of which Hashem obviously knew the answer. Take Adam for example.
After eating from the Eitz
Hada'as,
Adam and Chava achieved a level of knowledge and realized that they
were unclothed. As they searched for something to cover themselves
in, Hashem called out, “Where are you?”.4
Rashi5
describes
that Hashem asked this in order not to scare Adam. Proper middos
dictates
one to knock before he enters. Therefore, when Hashem was about to
enter – so to speak – Gan
Eden to
speak to Adam when he was not expecting it, the right thing to do was
to give a slight warning before hand. This is why Hashem first called
out, “Where are you?” before actually approaching Adam. In this
case, Adam understood what Hashem was doing and he used the
opportunity to do teshuva
for
eating from the eitz
hada'as.6
A
very similar episode takes place later in Beraishis.
After Kayin killed his brother, Hevel, Hashem came to Kayin and
asked, “Where is Hevel your brother?”7
Again, Hashem did this in order to not scare Kayin as well as to give
him a moment to think about his actions and do teshuva.
However, Kayin had very different reaction than his father, Adam.
Instead of doing an immediate teshuva,
he first tried to play along. Kayin responded, “I do not know. Am I
my brother's keeper?”8
Only after when Hashem said to Kayin, “What have you done? The
sound of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground!...”,9
did Kayin finally respond, “Is in my iniquity too great to
bear...”. As Rashi10
writes,
Kayin tried to be goneiv
daas elyon
– be like one who steals the Supreme Knowledge as if he could fool
Hashem. He was easily swayed to try to not have to face the situation
he had gotten himself into. Unlike Adam who did immediate teshuva,
Kayin first tried to get away with killing Hevel. However, ultimately
Kayin also did teshuva
and accepted the fact that Hashem knows every detail of what is going
on in the world.11
Billam
on the other hand seems to have had the worst reaction of all three
of them. Once he heard Hashem asking him a question, he immediately
adopted as a fact that Hashem has moments when He is not completely
aware of what is going on. This belief stayed with Billam even after
Hashem explicitely warned him not to carry out his charge from Balak.
Why
was Billam so stubborn? He did not take the opportunity of Hashem
taking His time to approach as a moment to do teshuva,
as Adam did. He did not even correct himself after trying to take
advantage of the situation, as was the case with Kayin. Instead,
Billam totally blew it. In his mind he confirmed that Hashem is not
all-knowing and that he could capitalize on this. What was different
about Billam that made him think differently from Adam and Kayin?
People
hear what they want to hear. The Orchos
Tzadikkim12
writes that listening and a person's ratzon
(will)
are
closely related. Depending on what a person's ratzon
is
will change what he listens to and how he interprets what he hears.
Adam was a tzaddik
and
therefore understood the purpose behind Hashem asking him where he
was. Kayin was a beinoni
who
had just done the despicable act of killing his brother. He therefore
tried to “play along” and see how long he could get away with it
for. Billam, however, was a rasha.
Therefore, his ears were programmed to constantly be searching for
things against Hashem. When he heard Hashem asking him a trivial
question, he did not have the open-mindedness to understand the
situation.13
Instead, he heard Hashem depending on him for an answer, and
automatically understood it to mean that Hashem is not all-powerful.
With this confirmed belief, he then set out to carry out his intended
agenda to destroy the Jewish people.
Billam
had the potential to be a Moshe rabbeinu,
however, he ended up as the polar opposite. Moshe had one mission in
mind: to carry out the word of Hashem and serve simultaneously as a
servant of Hashem and appointed leader of the B'nei
Yisroel.
Therefore, everything Moshe did was with that focus in mind.
Everything Moshe saw was with an emes
lens,
displaying how everything could be used to achieve high levels of
kedusha
and
become closer to Hashem. Billam, though, had a quite different
outlook on life and therefore perceived everything with a lens of
sheker.
Everything he saw, did, and even heard was used to come up with
excuses and reasons to go against Hashem and fight B'nei
Yisroel.
May
Hashem help us define our ratzon
in
the correct way so that we could gain from the messages around us,
and not be guided to view and hear everything in a sheker
way
as Billam's ratzon
did.
2Bamidbar
22:9
3Bamidbar
22:5
4Beraishis
3:9
5Ibid.
See also Meseches Derech Eretz 5
6See
Sifsei Chochimim Beraishis 4:9 who quotes the Maharashal
7Beraishis
4:9
8Ibid.
9Beraishis
4:10
10Ibid.
11See
S'forno and Ramban on Beraishis 4:13
12Sha'ar
HaRatzon
13See
also Maharshal Gur Aryeh
22:9
No comments:
Post a Comment