Edited and adapted from Ari’s Grill & Torah on July 7, 2017.
We have an amazing parsha this week, with a lot of really special messages — morals of the story — that we can learn from. But the first thing we’re going to discuss is something really weird: the person we use to name this parsha is not only a non-Jew — which is okay, because Noach was also a non-Jew — but an antisemite.
Now, I would say maybe not the first antisemite, because we had Lavan. Well, not really an antisemite, because we didn’t have Jews yet. But certainly Pharaoh in Mitzrayim was an antisemite, and Amalek, when we came out of Mitzrayim, was an antisemite. Then we have Bilaam and Balak, these two antisemites who really have it out for the nation of Israel. And we have to figure out why.
So we have this parsha, Balak, named not only after a non-Jew. Noach, by the way, was also a non-Jew, but the story of Noach came out as a positive one. The story of Balak, however, is the story of an attempt to curse the nation of Israel.
So the question has to be asked: why are we naming a full parsha in the Torah after an antisemite? How is it possible that a man whose whole goal in life was to curse the Jewish people has a parsha named after him?
Can you imagine naming the State of Israel after Hamas, or Hezbollah, or Abu Mazen? Can you imagine a parsha in the Torah being named after Abu Mazen? It sounds ludicrous. Ridiculous, right?
That’s question number one, and it’s actually connected to the answer, but we’ll get there in a second.
Number two, something really strange is going on in this parsha. As they’re going ahead to try to curse Bnei Yisrael, how does God give the message that Bilaam cannot do so?
Through a donkey.
The pasuk says, Hashem patach et pi ha’aton—Hashem opened the mouth of the donkey and let the donkey speak. That only happened after the donkey kept walking into things and pressing Bilaam against the walls. Bilaam finally smacked the donkey.
“What are you doing?”
The donkey turns to him and says, “What do you want from me? There are angels in front of me.”
The donkey saw the angels—and Bilaam, one of the prophets, did not.
What is with the talking donkeys? Are we in Shrek or something?
A Prophet With His Own Agenda
So we really have to understand: who is this guy? Who is Balak? What is going on here?
If you look at the beginning of the parsha, they’re trying to curse the nation of Israel. Bilaam is a prophet from another nation. He’s not a Jewish prophet, but he has prophecy. It’s not that he didn’t have prophecy. He did.
He speaks to God the first time and says, “I want to curse Israel.”
God says to him, “No. You cannot curse Israel.”
Then Balak comes a second time and says to Bilaam, “I want to curse Israel.” And Bilaam says to him, “You know what? Why don’t you sleep here tonight, and I’ll talk to God and see what He has to say?”
Now, if God already said the first time, “You can’t curse Israel,” what are you telling him to sleep over? What are you going to ask God? You already know what God’s answer is.
This is really interesting. Bilaam was a prophet. He received prophecy from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and he was not Jewish. But the problem was that he took his prophecy somewhere it was never meant to go. God gave him prophecy, but Bilaam tried to shape that prophecy into what he wanted. He wanted to curse the nation of Israel.
Instead of saying to Balak, “Listen, I can’t do that. God already told me not to curse the nation of Israel,” he says, “Sleep here tonight, and I’ll talk to God. I’ll have a little discussion with God and see if He’ll change His mind.”
What are you doing?
Bilaam didn’t understand that prophecy is a tool. If you don’t use a tool correctly, not only are you not a righteous person—you become an evil person. When Bilaam got God’s answer, he obviously didn’t like it, because he had his own personal agenda. He wanted to curse the nation of Israel.
But look at the way he presented himself. You can almost picture him walking around with his head down. “I’m very modest. Sleep the night. Let’s try to figure this out. Let’s see what God says. Let’s figure out how we can do this.”
He acted like a righteous person. “Let’s figure things out. Let’s make some kind of compromise.”
But when God says no, there are no compromises. You can’t compromise with the will of God.
The Anti-Bilaam
Who is the opposite of Bilaam? Who is the person that, when God says to do something, doesn’t compromise? There’s no, “Well, what if I don’t want to?” or “What if I do want to?” Who is the other side of this coin—someone God commanded to do something that was completely out of character for who he was?
I’ll give you a hint.
Both of them had donkeys involved in the story.
The other person was Avraham.
What was Avraham’s defining trait? We say that all the forefathers had their own unique traits—and we’re going to talk about Hebron in a moment. Avraham’s trait was chesed. Kindness.
So what commandment does God give him?
The Akeidat Yitzchak—to offer his own son as a sacrifice.
If there was ever a command that was completely opposite to Avraham’s nature, this was it. But Avraham doesn’t ask questions. In fact, the very next morning, Avraham saddles his own donkey and goes.
Here, too, the Torah tells us that Bilaam saddled his donkey.
There was only one difference between what Bilaam was doing and what Avraham was doing.
Avraham was doing the will of God.
Bilaam was doing the will that was directly opposed to what God wanted.
So it doesn’t matter how modest Bilaam acted. It doesn’t matter how nice he acted. It doesn’t matter how righteous he tried to appear. If you’re going against the will of God, you’re going against the will of God.
It’s really that simple.
You can’t do that.
When Even a Donkey is a Prophet
So what does Bilaam do?
Bilaam figures, “I’m a prophet. I can do what I want. God gave me the power to hear communication from the heavens, therefore I can do what I want. I can even have a little discussion with God. I can tell God what to do.”
Now, we know that with Avraham Avinu, when God says, “I’m destroying the city of Sedom,” Avraham argues with God. He says, “Come on. What if there are 100 righteous people in the city? You’re going to destroy the whole city even though there are 100 righteous people there?” Then it goes from 100 to 90, to 80, all the way down to 10.
But Avraham was arguing with God in order to save people. Bilaam was arguing with God not to save people, but to curse the nation of Israel—something God had already told him he could not do. Balak comes back, and they try again, and then again. Every time, God says no. Yet Bilaam keeps going because he has his own agenda.
You see, being a prophet isn’t just about receiving messages from God. Prophecy is a tool. According to everyone, prophecy wasn’t given in clear-cut messages. The prophet had to understand what God was saying. He had to be on the spiritual level to interpret that message correctly.
But Bilaam figured, “I have prophecy. I’m a prophet. That means I can do whatever I want.”
No.
Your status in life—whatever it is—doesn’t give you permission to do whatever you want. If anything, your status makes you more responsible.
Let me explain what I mean.
If you’re a religious Jew, you’ve got a kippah on, you’ve got tzitzit on, you’re walking around looking religious, and then you go out and do something wrong, that’s much worse than someone who doesn’t believe in God doing the same thing. Why? Because you’re out there saying, “Look at me, look at me.” You’re representing something bigger than yourself.
And I’ll tell you something else. I don’t care what you wear on your head. I don’t care what color your clothes are. If you behave like a behemoth, if you behave like an animal, then that’s what you are. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.
Even a prophet.
Here was Bilaam, a prophet, and he used prophecy for his own personal agenda.
So what does God do?
God does exactly what you have to do to a prophet who thinks he’s a big shot because he has prophecy.
Who should God give prophecy to when the prophet himself is acting like a big shot?
A donkey.
Bilaam is riding along on his donkey. The donkey keeps turning aside and squeezing Bilaam against the wall. Bilaam starts hitting the donkey.
The donkey turns to him and says, “Why are you hitting me? What are you hitting me for?”
Bilaam answers the donkey, “Why are you smashing my leg against the wall?”
The donkey says, “Don’t you see the angel standing in front of us with a sword?”
And Bilaam says, “No.”
Now, besides the fact that he’s having a conversation with a donkey, understand what’s happening here. The donkey sees the angel. Bilaam, the prophet, doesn’t, because Bilaam lost the ability to see beyond the physical world. He used his prophecy for evil, and he lost the very thing he thought made him special.
The message is clear.
Hashem says, “Bilaam, you think you’re so great because you have prophecy? I’m in charge of prophecy. I gave it to you, and I can just as easily give it to a donkey. You’re not so special. I chose you, that’s true, but you used My gift for evil.”
“You think you’re so good? Even a jackass is better than you.”
The donkey sees the angel.
Bilaam doesn’t.
הֶן עָם כְּלָבִיא יָקוּם וְכַאֲרִי יִתְנַשָּׂא
Now here’s some really cool stuff.
The curses that Bilaam wanted to curse the nation of Israel with turned into blessings. And in one of those blessings, he uses two different words in the very same sentence. First he calls the nation of Israel a lavi—a lioness. Then, in the second half of that same sentence, he calls the nation a lion.
So you have to ask: what’s going on here? Why switch from a lioness to a lion? Why not call us both lions, or both lionesses?
I saw this today. It was new to me, and I really got excited when I saw it.
According to Chazal, the lion is stronger than the lioness. The lion is the king of the jungle. There’s no queen of the jungle. So first Bilaam calls Israel a lioness, and then, in the very same sentence, he calls Israel a lion.
The answer is beautiful.
On our own, the nation of Israel is like a lioness. A lioness is still strong. She hunts. She fights. She’s powerful.
But with God, we’re like a lion.
We’re even stronger.
In other words, Bilaam couldn’t get the curse out of his mouth. He even tried to lower Israel’s stature, but God turned it into an even greater blessing. First he says we’re like a lioness—strong on our own. Then he finishes by saying that with God, we’re like a lion.
That’s the blessing.
On our own, we’re strong.
But when God is in our corner, we’re even stronger.
And that’s exactly what Bilaam couldn’t stop himself from saying.
The Lesson
So when it comes to us, why do we have an entire parsha in the Torah named after an antisemite?
Certainly not to honor the antisemite. It’s to teach us a lesson. Apparently, if an entire section of the Torah is named after a non-Jewish antisemite, then the message must be very, very important.
What’s the message?
The message is actually very simple.
God gave Bilaam prophecy, but prophecy is a tool. Don’t think that because God gave you a gift, you’re suddenly something special. If you don’t use that gift for good, the gift itself doesn’t make you righteous.
In Bilaam’s case, it was exactly the opposite. He thought prophecy made him important. He thought it put him on a higher level than everyone else. God said, “No. I gave you prophecy, and I can just as easily give it to a donkey.”
That’s the lesson.
Whatever gifts God gives us in life—whether it’s intelligence, money, influence, leadership, or prophecy—they’re all tools. They don’t make us great. They make us responsible.
If we use those tools for good, we can rise to unbelievable spiritual heights. If we use them for evil, we can sink to the lowest levels. The gift itself doesn’t determine who we are.
What determines who we are is what we choose to do with it.
And that’s not just a message for the Jewish people.
Bilaam wasn’t Jewish.
It’s a message for everybody.
The Tools We Are Given
We are given things in life. God gives us things, and God takes things away. Everything is a lesson.
We have this concept called gam zu l’tovah—this, too, is for the good. Whatever happens to us is God’s decision.
There’s a famous idea in Judaism that, in this world, before the redemption, there are two blessings we make. One is HaTov VeHaMeitiv. We bless God for the good things that happen. We drink good wine, and we say HaTov VeHaMeitiv.
Then there’s the other blessing: Baruch Dayan HaEmet. When bad things happen, we accept God’s judgment. We recognize that He is the ultimate Judge.
But our sages teach that in the World to Come there will only be one blessing: HaTov VeHaMeitiv.
People ask, “What do you mean? When people get hurt, how can everything be HaTov VeHaMeitiv?”
Because then everything will be clear. We’ll finally understand that God was in charge all along. Even the things that looked bad will be revealed as gam zu l’tovah—this, too, was for the good. That’s why, in the World to Come, everything will be HaTov VeHaMeitiv.
The tools God gives us in life—whether we’re Jewish or not Jewish—are just that: tools. If we use those tools for good, we can rise to unbelievable spiritual heights. If we use them for bad, we can sink to the lowest levels, almost like animals.
This idea is even brought down in Bereishit. It says that humans can go down with the animals. What does that mean? If we behave like human beings, we rise above the animals. But if we behave like animals, then we’ve lowered ourselves to that level.
It’s our choice, and that’s a very important lesson.
Why didn’t God simply create everything perfect? Why do I have to make choices? Why does evil exist? Why do we have an evil inclination? Why couldn’t God just make me an angel?
The point is that the whole existence of the human race is about choice.
According to Jewish tradition, God created the world because He wanted to share His goodness with others. But in order for us to truly receive that goodness, we have to choose it. And in order to choose good, we also have to have the ability to choose evil.
A perfect example: you want to get married. You want a girlfriend—whatever it is. If you put a gun to someone’s head and say, “Tell me you love me,” and they say, “I love you,” there’s no relationship there. There was a gun to their head.
A relationship only exists when someone is free to choose.
That’s what God wants from us.
He wants us to choose Him.
That’s why there is good and evil in the world. That’s why every one of us has free choice. You can’t say, “Well, if I had what he has, I’d be a better person.” God gives every person exactly the tools they need for their own life.
The question is what we choose to do with them.
The Bilaams of Today
Now, in terms of us in the Land of Israel today, in the State of Israel today, God gave us a present. He brought us back to the Land of Israel after 2,000 years of exile—after being kicked out and killed and gassed and shot all around the world. They told us, “Go home. Go home.”
Well, now we’re home.
And what is UNESCO doing?
UNESCO is trying to strip away our tradition.
Let me give UNESCO a little update.
We faced Pharaoh—he’s gone. We faced the Romans—they’re gone. The Assyrians—they’re gone. The Greeks—they’re gone. Hitler’s gone.
You’re not going to win.
You’re just not going to win.
Not because we’re so great.
Because you’re so evil.
That’s why.
I’m not nervous. Not even the slightest bit. UNESCO means nothing to me. Nothing.
Hebron doesn’t belong to the Jews? Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—the patriarchs—and Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah are buried there. Doesn’t belong to the Jews? Who are you fooling? You’re ignoring history. You’re ignoring biblical history.
The truth is, I’m not nervous over this.
The biggest problem is us.
All of us watching—we’re the biggest problem when we can’t get up on our hind legs and roar that Jerusalem is ours. Period. End of discussion. When we’re willing to talk about going back to East and West Jerusalem, created in 1948 by the Jordanian Legion, which literally split Jerusalem in half with a wall where Jews couldn’t even get to the Old City.
And we’re supposed to want to go back to that? East and West Jerusalem—that was a good solution?
Where are the human rights activists? Where are they?
Because UNESCO, just like Bilaam, is in a position where it could do tremendous good in the world. The UN is in that position. Abbas was in that position.
But these people are evil.
And just like Bilaam made himself look righteous—”Let’s see what God says”—these organizations do exactly the same thing. The UN says, “We’re a human rights organization.” UNESCO says, “We’re protecting world heritage.” Abbas says, “I’m a peace partner.”
They’re all presenting themselves as righteous.
But evil people lie.
The question isn’t really what they’re doing. The question is whether we, the moral people, the honest people, finally stand up and say, “You’re not getting away with this anymore. We’re not going to allow you to keep lying.”
That’s the question we have to ask ourselves.
Unfortunately, this week Benjamin Netanyahu vetoed a vote in the Knesset on a Jerusalem Unity Law. The idea was simple. If, at any point in the future, there were negotiations to divide Jerusalem and give away part of our capital, it would require 80 members of Knesset to approve it. That would have made dividing Jerusalem virtually impossible.
Instead, it was vetoed.
And I think it’s exactly these kinds of political games that give organizations like UNESCO the audacity to say Hebron isn’t Jewish and Jerusalem isn’t Jewish. What do you expect them to think when our own Prime Minister won’t firmly stand behind a united Jerusalem? What do you expect them to think when our own people call Hebron an occupied city?
Ludicrous.
Before 1929, Hebron had a Jewish majority, until the Muslims slaughtered the Jewish community and drove them out completely.
So I’m really not looking at the Bilaams of the world. I’m not worried about them. God will take care of them.
We have to take care of ourselves.
We have to make the right decisions. We have to make the right choices.
And remember Bilaam’s blessing. On our own, we’re like a lioness. We’re strong. But when God is in our corner, we’re like the lion.
And nobody can beat the lion.
Signing off from the beautiful, rolling hills of Judea, in Israel.