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Thoughts on the Parsha ~
Parshas Balak
What Do You Hear?
By: Daniel Listhaus
וַיָּבֹא אֱלֹקים אֶל בִּלְעָם
וַיֹּאמֶר מִי הָאֲנָשִׁים הָאֵלֶּה עִמָּךְ: וַיֹּאמֶר בִּלְעָם אֶל הָאֱלֹקים בָּלָק בֶּן צִפֹּר מֶלֶךְ מוֹאָב שָׁלַח אֵלָי: הִנֵּה הָעָם הַיֹּצֵא מִמִּצְרַיִם וַיְכַס אֶת עֵין הָאָרֶץ
עַתָּה לְכָה קָבָה לִּי אֹתוֹ אוּלַי אוּכַל לְהִלָּחֶם בּוֹ וְגֵרַשְׁתִּיו: וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹקים אֶל בִּלְעָם
לֹא תֵלֵךְ עִמָּהֶם לֹא תָאֹר אֶת הָעָם כִּי בָרוּךְ הוּא:
“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?” Rashi[2]
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. Billam 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.
Rashi[3]
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]
Rashi[5]
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 Bereishis. 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 Rashi[10]
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 explicitly 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
Tzadikkim[12]
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.
[1] See Tehillim 20:8 as well as Rashi
Bamidbar 22:4
[2] Bamidbar 22:9
[3] Bamidbar 22:5
[4] Bereishis 3:9
[5] Ibid. See also Meseches Derech Eretz 5
[6] See Sifsei Chochimim Bereishis 4:9
who quotes the Maharashal
[7] Bereishis 4:9
[8] Ibid.
[9] Bereishis 4:10
[10] Ibid.
[11] See S'forno and Ramban on
Bereishis 4:13
[12] Sha'ar HaRatzon
[13] See also Maharshal Gur Aryeh 22:9
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