IN THE MORNING BALAK TOOK BALAAM UP TO BAMOT-BAAL. FROM

THERE HE COULD SEE A PORTION OF THE PEOPLE.

(Bamidbar 22:41)

What You See from

Here, You Cannot See from There

…and Scripture tells us that he did not see the entire

camp, since they were encamped by four flags [posted] at the four directions of

the winds. On the second attempt Balak told him you

will see only a portion of them, you will not see all of them (Bamidbar 23:13), so as to say, "This time you will not see all of

them, if that is what is keeping you from cursing them. Rather, curse them for

me from there if you can, because they cannot all be seen from there." Balak thought that there might be a flag on one of the

sides whose people were good and righteous and God did not want to destroy

them.

(RaMBaN loc cit)

And the fire of the Lord burned

among them and consumed of the ketzeh

Or from the last portion – ha'muktzim [the outcasts of the people].

The outcasts really deserved to be cursed, and the important

officers were easily susceptible to the evil eye, due to their high status. Such

was they method chosen by Balaam – if he could find no excuse to curse them, he

would give them the evil eye.

(Keli Yakar 22:41)

And the Lord Uncovered Balaam's eyes – a Lesson Taught by the Ass and Balaam

Ruti Lazare

A balance of terror, demonization, cultural and existential danger; all of these

constitute the background to the forthcoming encounter

between Israel and Moav.

The suspicions are based upon frightening rumors, on estrangement and

alienation. An unknown wandering tribe has disturbed the arrangements of power which

have gained the agreement of the local peoples.

Indeed, such tensions and suspicions

are not generated only by an encounter that is expected to be belligerent. Such

emotions can also arise from a positive and desired encounter. That may happen because

closeness itself can threaten the autonomy of the individual; it can endanger

his uniqueness, and breach the boundaries he has set up. It appears that the

blessing of a people that shall dwell alone touches upon this particular

fear, lest each side might have to erase something in order to allow unification;

one may mix with the other unto the blurring of its own essence. This, of

course, can also occur in a positive encounter that has been planned by both

sides; all the more so in an encounter accompanied by enmity and estrangement.

Several biblical stories relate

the drama of a meeting between mutually suspicious parties. In most instances

we readers identify with the weaker and more anxious side; we feel that "our"

hero is in danger. Our parasha is unusual in that

here the enemy is the one who is worried. The narrator stands entirely in the

viewpoint of Moav; its people, king, and prophet.

Of course, we know of biblical

stories in which Israel looks at itself as if through

the eyes of other nations, as in the case of the Song of the Sea, which

magnifies praise for God by describing the fear and trembling of the nations. However,

these are literary descriptions in which the exaggerated and awesome fear that

overtook the peoples of Canaan serves to emphasize the wonder inspired by God's miracle. Elsewhere

in Scripture we find references to world public opinion in arguments for lenient

punishment of the sinning Israelites: Why should the nations say…? However,

the story of Balak and Balaam is a complete literary

unit whose characters and main speakers belong to the enemy camp.

The opportunity to see ourselves

from someone else's perspective places reality in a new light – a reality so

well known to us that we are unaware of its full significance. Balaam is given

permission to speak and we get to hear Israel's praises from a singularly

unbiased observer. We are doubly pleased because the stranger's testimony

secures our own self-image; it greatly strengthens our view of ourselves as being

better than others.

Let us, then, describe the

opening positions of the dramatis personae:

Balak is a king who until recently was

confident of his military strength. Recognition of a new phenomenon has

subverted his confidence; he realizes that he is not in need of a strategist or

general, but rather of someone who can remove the magic spell, who can prove to

him that the threat is not so bad, that he has the strength to overcome it. It

is clear to him who the "bad guy" is, and what he does.

In his distress, he turns to a

psychological warfare consultant. This form of warfare does not alter reality;

it does not fill ammunition depots, intensify training, create new combat units

or call up the reserves. The expert in psychological warfare studies the enemy in

depth, not just his military capabilities, but his culture and way of life as

well.

Balaam

is the expert

for hire. He essentially stands on the seam-line that divides the two opposing

sides. He is a kind of cultural and national double-agent. His job as an envoy

allows him to identify with those who send him while preserving his own

neutrality and independence. This status allows him to discover the unexpected.

He is sent to uncover points of weakness, but instead he finds points of

strength.

The Israelite nation, a wandering people in search

of respite and a place to call its own, simply wants to get "home" in

peace. However, its innocent desire upsets the tranquility of the entire

region, whose peoples fear that nothing will remain as it had been. The

Israelites see themselves as a weak nation of slaves, lacking consolidation and

inexperienced in warfare, but armed with faith in the justice of its course and

in its natural and moral right to a place of its own.

We, who identify with our fellow

Jews, read the story in its entirety as a victory of the forces of good – with the

help of God's miraculous intervention – over the forces of evil. As spectators

we cheer repeatedly as curses change to blessings, we laugh at the stupid

prophet who cannot even see what his ass sees; we are angered when he strikes the

innocent beast, and sigh in relief when the evil plot is thwarted.

However, I believe that the

temptation to side with the ‘good-guys" makes us miss the point of the story.

Can we ever side with Balaam? In

order to do that, we must remove the title "the wicked" that the

Sages gave him, we must revoke the plentitude of sins they attributed to him,

and ignore the connection made by Scripture between Balaam's curse and the sin

of Ba'al Pe'or. Then we can

momentarily enter the enemy's imagined consciousness and find an island of hope

in a sea of enmity in the story of the curse that became a blessing.

Clearly, my suggestion imposes

an unbearable burden – how can we desert the position of the persecuted,

suffering Jew, and exchange it for the terrifying image of a cruel and

destructive conqueror?! Indeed, it is not easy to take leave our righteous status

as "those who suffer insults but do not inflict them."

The political cartoonist Dosh expressed this difficulty well in a cartoon he drew

about a year after the Six Day War, in which adorable Srulik

stands before a mirror and discovers a monster looking back at him.

Let us return to Balaam, a

prophet equipped with powers of prophecy and malediction. He is sure of the

tremendous power of the words that leave his mouth, but still recognizing his

limits; he is blessed with spiritual wisdom. It is reasonable to assume that he

really did want to curse, both because he had been promised a tempting wage and

because he identified with his clients. Like Moav, he

stood in amazement and fear before the tribe which threatened to control the Middle East. The delays and dawdling were

caused by his uncertainty regarding his powers and regarding the plan itself;

they were not born of a lack of identification with his customer. Personal and

financial interests jibed well with his political interests.

The professional prophet

approached to check-out the proposed victim of his curse, but discovers a new

side to it. From his chosen perspective, high in hill-tops, a multi-dimensional

picture is revealed to him, including inner and outer characteristics, unimagined

cultural and spiritual qualities, as well as internal and military might.

Here we see Balaam undergo a

dramatic change of mind. He had meant to exploit every weakness and failure he

found as convenient points from which to work his curse, but he could not

ignore the new information that had been revealed to him. The story of the

scouts – like contemporary affairs involving intelligence and espionage –

teaches us that subjective interpretation is no less important than the actual information

uncovered. Those who are sent to collect information often skew their

conclusions to fit the common wisdom or their own initial positions, causing them

to miss important facts that were in plain sight.

The ability to develop

unexpected interpretations requires courage, intellectual honesty, and a

readiness to make due without stereotypes and stigmas. Balaam stood well in

this trial; his readiness to recognize new aspects of the situation and to

uncover complexities that he had not formally seen allowed him to change his

original world view.

Balaam appears in an arena where

both Israelites and Moabites are frozen in their conceptualizations. They are

incapable of looking up and observing the situation from a broader viewpoint. Balaam

suggests new perspectives to both sides: he proposes to the Moabites that they

take note of the special qualities of the wandering tribe of slaves, to see

their foreignness not only as a threat but also as a challenge. As for the

Israelites, he allows them to appreciate their strengths and uniqueness.

Balaam was not sent to work out

a compromise, but his prophecies forced the king to rethink his belligerent orientation;

the whole affair results in a truce. Scripture concludes laconically: Balaam

also went on his way

(Bamidbar 24:25). The crisis had been avoided for the time being because one

or both of the sides realized the futility of the conflict.

True, Balak

claims that Israel is mighty and powerful, but

military power does not have to pose a threat in itself if it is unaccompanied

by aggressive intentions. Perhaps the Or Ha'Hayim

(on

24:25) is right in

saying that Balak was the one interested in worsening

the relations with Israel because his rule was based upon displays of power: "Balak did not continue to serve as king, because Moav understood from Balaam's words that the Israelites

would do them no harm. Thus, the purpose [of his reign] became void and they

dethroned him, so he left to his way."

It seems that as a king with a

strictly military agenda, Balak wanted to strengthen

the threat, and when the Israelite threat dissipated, the Moabites dethroned

him. From here we see that there must be two parties to a crisis, and according

to this interpretation, Balak took the lion's share

of responsibility for bringing the region to the brink of war. The Or Ha'Hayim's

interpretation makes it clear that in the case before us, war was not forced

upon anyone of the nations; it was not a decree of fate but rather the rational

– and perhaps cynical – choice of a war-mongering king.

The hero of the story is, then,

Balaam. Thanks to his allegiance to his inner voice, which was stronger than

conventions and interests, the prophet managed to internalize a new world view,

to look at the other and the stranger and to see in him beauty and strength.

The wonder of having one's eyes

open is not a supernatural event. The words and the Lord uncovered Balaam's

eyes and he saw describe the moment of his decision to consider the

situation from an additional viewpoint that invited new discoveries and that

allowed him to become cognizant of a presence that had previously been hidden. The

view itself determines reality, coloring it with new hues and influencing the

course of history.

In our parasha,

the ass that sees better than the prophet serves as a deprecating symbol for

all those whose thinking is frozen, who refuse to see what is happening before

their very eyes. The beast and its master challenge us to be flexible and open

in relation to foreigners and enemies.

We have seen that the conflict

was postponed non-violently. However, the avoidance of bloodshed is not received

with fanfare, because the courage of one who disarms opponents is modest; it

wins neither medals nor headlines. It does, however, require great strength of

character to make an acquaintance of a stranger and turn conflict into

compromise.

Ruti Lazare is a lecturer, teacher advisor and curriculum

developer.

Balaam's Ass:

Reality, Dream or Prophecy?

And

the Lord opened the ass's mouth: It seems

that this was also a demand of the moment. It was needed in order to show him

that he was like the ass, for whom it was not natural to speak, but whose mouth was

opened by the Lord for Israel's sake. Similarly, the Lord

temporarily opened Balaam's mouth to prophesize for Israel's sake, and to keep the nations

from saying, "If only we had prophets, we would repent."

(Keli Yakar Bamidbar

22:23)

And

the Lord opened the ass's mouth: According

to the plain meaning, the ass's speech was a great miracle and unnatural, and it occurred

for Israel's sake, for the Holy One blessed be He performed a wonder and changed

the plan of Creation by having an animal speak in order to say that even an

animal can recognize and know that this mission [of cursing Israel] was

improper. It is like a man who says that the mountains should cover him over

and the hills should fall on him, and there is no need to mention the human

race, for it is intelligent, for even the mindless animal understands that it

is wrong to curse the people, for it is blessed.

And if you understand the passage's hidden meaning, you will

find that the ass's speech is like the snake's speech; in neither case does it

come from themselves for they have no faculty of

speech. It is for this reason that the Lord juxtaposed [the verses] and the

Lord opened the ass's mouth and the Lord uncovered Balaam's eyes, and he

saw the angel of the Lord, for as soon as she spoke and died the angel was

revealed to him and spoke with him, for her swerving from the path and pressing

his leg and crouching down were three signs. Each of hem occurred because of the

angel, and there is no need to even mention the fourth sign, i.e., [the ass's]

speech.

(Rabbeinu Behayey Bamidbar 22:28)

We have explained that wherever it is mentioned that an

angel was seen or had spoken, this has happened only in a vision of prophecy or

in a dream whether this is explicitly stated or not… .And

there is no difference between a statement in which the prophet literally

affirms from the first that he saw the angel and a statement according to whose

external sense the prophet at first thought that an individual had appeared to

him, whereas at the end it became clear to him that it was an angel. For

inasmuch as you find in the course of the event that he who was seen and had

spoken was an angel… And likewise the whole story of Balaam on his way and of

the she-ass speaking: all this happened in a vision of prophecy, as it is finally

made clear that an angel of the Lord spoke to him.

(RaMBaM, Guide of the Perplexed II:42,

Pines translation)

There

Is No Augury in Jacob, No Divining in Israel

All of these matters [necromancy, soothsaying] are all

lies and falsehood, and with them the idolaters of old deceived the ignorant

into following them, and it is not fitting for Israel

– who are the wisest of the wise – to follow this

nonsense; they should not imagine that there is any utility in them.

(RaMBaM, Mishneh Torah, Avodah Zara 11:16)

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