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Thoughts on the Parsha ~
Parshas Balak
The Letter S: Which Side Are You
On?
By: Daniel Listhaus
וַיֹּאמֶר בִּלְעָם לָאָתוֹן כִּי הִתְעַלַּלְתְּ בִּי לוּ יֶשׁ חֶרֶב בְּיָדִי
כִּי עַתָּה הֲרַגְתִּיךְ
“Billam said to the
she-donkey, ‘Because you have mocked me! If there were a sword in my hand I
would now have killed you!’”
-Balak 22:29
The Torah[1]
relates that Balak, king of Moav, realized that B’nei Yisroel a small nation of slaves that recently escaped Egypt,
not only managed to defeat the Emori, but even obliterate the giant guardians
Sichon and Og who Moav.[2]
This made Balak and all of Moav very worried and they went to seek counsel from
the elders of Midian.
Rashi[3]
points out that Moav seeking advice from Midian was not typical as the two
nations hated each other. However, the circumstances were such that they found
themselves hating a common enemy even more - the B’nei Yisroel, and they were willing to look the other way from
their differences and join forces to solve the “Jewish problem” of their time.
The reason they felt Midian would be the proper strategic partner was because
they knew that Moshe rabbeinu had
spent time in Midian and figured that perhaps Midian would know what Moshe’s
secret to success was and, by extension, what his proverbial kryptonite might
be. Indeed, Midian did know; they revealed that Moshe’s unique power was his
mouth. When Moav heard this they said, “We too will come against B’nei Yisroel with a person whose power
is in his mouth.” This led them to Billam ha’rasha
who Balak hired for a large sum of money.[4]
The passukim go on to describe that Billam
was accompanied by a number of men on the journey that would take them to the
proper place for Billam to set up and curse B’nei
Yisroel. However, their journey there
was far from uneventful. Billam’s donkey came to a screeching halt when it saw
a malach (angel) standing on the road
right in front of it with sword drawn.[5]
Rashi[6]
describes that the malach said, “This
rasha has put aside the tools of his
craft, for the craft of the goyim of
the world is the sword, and he comes against B’nei Yisroel with his
mouth, which is the craft of B’nei Yisroel. I too shall come against him
with his own craft.” However, Billam just hit his donkey and redirected her
back to the road. The malach came
again as a fence on either side and the donkey squeezed against the wall,
pressing Billam’s leg against the wall; Billam continued to hit the donkey. The
malach then came again and stood in a
narrow path and there was no room for the donkey to go. Billam hit the donkey
again with his staff.
The passuk[7] relates that Hashem then opened the
mouth of the donkey and the donkey said, “What have I done to you that you
struck me three times?” Billam replied, “Because you have mocked me! If there
were a sword in my hand I would now have killed you.”
Rashi[8]
(ibid) comments that this was a major embarrassment for Billam. The officers
that were with him thought to themselves, “This is the person we are trusting
to destroy a whole nation with his mouth and yet for his own donkey he needs a
weapon?”
Although
Rashi is unclear as to whether the officers verbalized this mockery, if these
were only their thoughts, or if this was merely what Billam thought they were
thinking, it is certainly a valid tease. Billam was hired to wipe out B’nei Yisroel yet his own donkey he
would have threatened with a sword if it were available.
Let us take a
moment though to think about the following. Why was it that Billam’s gut
response to disciplining his animal was that he would have killed it with a
sword? If Billam himself was someone whose expertise was utilizing his mouth as
a weapon, why not threaten or actually curse the donkey with his mouth?
It must be
that we see from here that Billam, as a goy,
really held the same craft as all the other nations - that of the sword. This
also helps us understand the Rashi mentioned earlier. The malach went to block Billam because, “This rasha has put aside the tools of his craft, for the craft of the goyim of the world is the sword, and he
comes against B’nei Yisroel with his
mouth, which is the craft of B’nei
Yisroel. I too shall come against him with his own craft (i.e- the sword).”
Indeed,
Billam’s weapon of choice was not just conceptually the sword, but practically
as well. This is evident from the fact that his immediate response to the
donkey was a threat by sword.
However, with
all this in perspective, how could we understand why then he did not have his
sword with him? Why was he so confident in his mouth alone to fight against B’nei Yisroel that he was comfortable
leaving his sword at home? Why not at least bring it as a backup plan? He was coming to essentially do battle with B’nei Yisroel, why would he leave his
choice weapon behind even if it was not the tool he selected to hopefully use
for this purpose?
Perhaps we
could learn from Billam ha’rasha what
he and Midian really knew as a fact about the secret of B’nei Yisroel’s success.
As Jews, we are asked to balance hishtadlus and bitachon. However even after understanding the need for balance,
there needs to be a fundamental realization as to the perspective and way we approach
these concepts. Dovid ha’melech writes
in Tehillim[9],
“Some with chariots and others with horses, but we in the Name of Hashem our
G-d call out.” Many people are under the impression that the order of
operations in striking the balance between hishtadlus
and bitachon is that first we choose
or are put into a position where we strive to do something, we then daven to
Hashem for help and success, and then, upon a successful result, we have a
renewed faith in Hashem as we witnessed His siyata
d’ishimaya. Let us take the following
simple example. Imagine a student has a difficult math final coming up. Having
been thrown into a situation where he has a test to take he decides he is going
to try his hardest. At the same time, he davens to Hashem that Hashem help him
study and be successful, and then after receiving his score he has renewed bitachon.
Although this
is certainly a level, the truth is that the perspective should be exactly the opposite.
The real order is that we start with bitachon.
We begin with believing that Hashem is all powerful and it is He alone who
created and orchestrates the world on a daily basis and does everything
according to His overall master plan for our individual benefit, and therefore
it is appropriate to daven only to
Him.[10]
After having bitachon, one follows
forward by davening as we believe in
Hashem and understand that He wants us to daven to Him. Tefillah is then followed by action which demonstrates that the
person has full belief in Hashem’s ratzon
to do what is best and is therefore able and willing to act upon it with
confidence. In our student’s final exam case, the parallel example would be
that the student anticipating taking the test stops to think that ultimately
Hashem runs the world and decides how people’s circumstances will turn out.
This strong belief sparks the individual to daven
for his success from Hashem because he believes and understands that it is all
within Hashem’s power and will. Following that, the student’s push to get out
of bed, study, and ultimately take the exam should be fundamentally because he
has the confidence that Hashem is there and that his tefillos will work on his behalf to the capacity that Hashem deems
fit.
When we
approach an enemy in battle wielding weapons and davening, the perspective is
not that we are entering in war and davening that we are successful; rather, we
begin with having full bitachon in
Hashem and daven with kavana to overcome our enemies and then
we are willing to enter in battle to bring about the result. Bitachon is not an enhancement to hishtadlus, it is the other way around!
Proper hishtadlus is acting upon the bitachon.
This is
something which Midian, and specifically Billam, understood fundamentally.
Their battle with B’nei Yisroel could
not be at the battlefield. If they would fight on the battlefield that would
mean they had already lost. After all, B’nei
Yisroel led by Moshe rabbeinu
entering into battle would be an action already rooted in complete bitachon and tefillah; the battle itself would just be the finishing touches,
the demonstration that they fully trusted in Hashem’s aid. Perhaps this is the
reason Billam did not even bother bringing his sword with him. Billam, as Moshe
rabbeinu’s evil counterpart, fully
understand the power of bitachon as a
source of koach ha’tefillah and
understood that he had to interfere in such a way that Hashem would be angry
enough at B’nei Yisroel that He would
chas v’shalom cast us aside completely and look away from our bitachon and tefillah.
When we think
of the relationship between thoughts, speech, and action it is quite complex. Optimally,
one would understand who he or she is at one’s core and allow that to filter
through and define the character of one’s speech and action. However, we know
that the inverse relationship works as well. One who succumbs to negative
actions, could easily find that translated over time into negative speech and a
decay of his personal interior core. In the same vein, one who strives to
practice meritorious actions will often find himself within the realm of “metoch shelo lishma bah lishma”, that
even if the spark of the good action was not specifically due to the purest of
intentions or beliefs, the mere continuation of good actions could lead to an
ultimate positive change in one’s self, and further have an effect of
continuing good actions but for the proper reasons, intentions, and based on
good core values and beliefs.
May Hashem
help us that we ourselves should be zoche
to reach the level of B’nei Yisroel
in the midbar and that our enemies
recognize that when it comes to fighting B’nei
Yisroel their craft is useless. Let us work from all ends of the spectrum,
working on our bitachon, our tefillah, and our ma’asim (actions) to ultimately achieve that level where words beat
sword.
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