[Be-Ahavah U-Be-Emunah – Toldot
5773 – translated by R. Blumberg]
Bilaam was
certainly a believer in G-d. After all, he'd dared to argue with Him! He also
believed in G-d's might, and thought
that it was possible to bend the will of G-d to match his own will, to force
G-d's hand, and to dictate to Him. Thus, he was no prophet, but a sorcerer and
a magician - a spiritual technician who held that by way of certain mystical
measures it would be possible to transform G-d's will to be like his own. G-d
could be tempted, G-d could be deceived. G-d could be manipulated as a means
towards achieving his own ends.
After all,
it was as clear as day that G-d did not want him to curse the Jewish people. "Do not curse the nation, because it is
blessed" (Bemidbar 22:12). Even so, he sought out one trick after another
to carry out his scheme and curse us. Bilaam thought that not everything is
always revealed to G-d; that G-d is not always in the same state of awareness.
It was therefore possible, he thought, to take advantage of moments of
inattentiveness in order to curse the Jewish people (Rashi 22:9). Likewise, if
G-d did not wish him to go with Balak’s princes to curse Israel, perhaps he
could curse them from his present location (Rashi 22:12).
Or, if he
couldn't curse them, then he could bless them (ibid.) and conceal veiled curses
within these blessings. It was entirely clear to Bilaam that G-d opposed his
plans and was angry. Even so he went, thinking, "Perhaps I will be able to
induce G-d to accept my plan" (Rashi ibid. 20). All the same, because he
had a great desire to curse, and that was the overriding factor (Rashi 22), he sought
every possible avenue. He told the angel, "If you consider it wrong, I
will go back home" (ibid. 34), by which he meant, "True, you are obstructing
my path, but G-d gave me permission" (Rashi ibid. 34). Obviously that
wasn't true. G-d had not given him permission, but He had given Bilaam free
will (Rashi 22:9). "A person is led along the path of his own
choosing" (Rashi ibid.).
Bilaam
told the angel: "G-d gave me permission and you are nullifying His words. That's common with G-d - He says one thing
and an angel nullifies it, as when he told Avraham to sacrifice his son on
Mount Moriah, and then he had an angel nullify it. Here as well, you have the
final say" (Rashi ibid. 34). The bottom line, according to Bilaam, is that
G-d did not have the final word. The angel did, and it would suffice to come to
an arrangement with him.
Even after
the miracle of the talking donkey and the angel blocking his path, Bilaam still
thought he would succeed in finding an escape hatch to bribe G-d. All along the
way, Bilaam was hoping that perhaps G-d would agree with him. "Perhaps G-d
would come to meet him as he wished" (Rashi 24:1). After all, Bilaam saw
as his life's goal bending G-d's will to his own will. Yet since all of his
previous attempts had failed, he had an alternative strategy: "I will
mention their sins, and that will give my curse a foothold" (ibid.). In
the end, after all his efforts failed, he used a doomsday weapon, literally
inciting them to sin. "I will tell you what to do: their G-d hates sexual
sin... my advice is that you make them sin" (Rashi 24:14), and this was
carried out with Moabite women (ibid. 25:1).
Without a
doubt, the man was very wise. Indeed, he was a great genius equipped with
lofty, mystical talents. Yet he used those talents to oppose G-d's will and to try
to bend G-d's will to his own: “You might ask: Why did G-d cause his divine
presence to rest upon a wicked non- Jew? It was to prevent the nations from
being able to say: ‘If we just had prophets we would repent.’ G-d thus sent
them prophets, and the nations rebelled. At first they were sexually chaste,
but Bilaam advised them to abandon themselves to promiscuity" (Rashi
22:5).
Bilaam is
dead, but his disciples and his disciples’ disciples continue to contaminate the
world among each of the nations. For some of them, the most important thing is
their own will. For them, the world is a means to their satisfying their wishes.
They want to bend G-d's will to their own; to nullify it before their own.
We
however, Avraham’s disciples, say "Treat G-d's will as your own so that
your own will becomes like his (G-d will so love your wishes that they will
become like His own). Nullify your own
will before His (the fear of G-d), so that the will of others will be nullified
before your will" (Avot 2:4). The ideal for us is to increase G-d’s glory
on earth.
Rabbi Shimshon
Raphael Hirsch distinguishes between Avraham, who when he went to sacrifice
Yitzchak said (Bereshit 22:5), “We will bow down”, i.e., we will humble
ourselves, and Bilaam, who told Balak, “Stand by your burnt offerings” (Bemidbar
23:3). i.e., stand erect.
Like
Bilaam, his disciples think that the purpose of sacrifices is to make G-d
capitulate to our will. Therefore, since the Patriarchs built seven altars in
all, Bilaam also built seven altars. (Rashi 23:4). We, the disciples of Avraham,
do not involve ourselves with magic and sorcery, but with serving G-d, and we do
not force Him to do our will. Actually, we would wish to sacrifice ourselves as
Avraham did when he brought Yitzchak, and we long to do all we can for the sake
of his name.
Bilaam's
disciples look for every possible way to make the commandments fit into their
world, nullifying, erasing or minimizing. They scratch away at the edges of
Jewish law, neutralizing halachot by all sorts of pseudo-halachic arguments.
After all, their whole world consists of I, what I want, what I feel. "I
have set myself before me always." What determines whether a Mitzvah will
be relevant and in force, is whether or not I emotionally take a liking to
it...
They
support their utterances with nonsensical comments, claiming that our Sages
nullified Mitzvot that they found inconvenient, such as Shofar when Rosh
Hashanah falls out on Shabbat, Lulav on Shabbat, Prozbul, and Heter Iska. In
their opinion, these enactments provide a flexible model suited to the needs of
man.
G-d
forbid! It's just the opposite! These laws were enacted in order to do G-d's
will. They constitute holy reverence for G-d's will, and a fear of the Sabbath
being profaned, or a fear that people will refuse to make free loans to the
poor.
Thus,
Reform and Conservative Jews at first did not wish to differ openly, so they
invented all sorts of Prozbuls and Heterei Iska and Shabbat timers to change
the Torah, to make life easy for themselves. In the end however, the cat came
out of the bag, and their true face was revealed. The idea of moving to the
Land of Israel was not so easy for the Reform Jews either, so they blotted it
out of their prayer books and dispensed with their longing for it. Indeed, in
our Holy Land, they constitute a marginal minority. Still other examples of self-deception,
as though in the name of the Torah, can be found in Mesillat Yesharim, Sha’ar Ha-Nekiyut.
The
“Bilaamic” foundation for preferring man’s will over G-d's likewise finds expression
in Torah learning. There are two approaches to Torah learning: the traditional Torah
approach and the academic approach. The traditional approach of our Sages and
of their disciples and their disciples’ disciples says the following: Moshe is
true and his Torah is truth. The words of the Medieval Sages are truth and the
words of the later Sages are truth, and we stand before this heavenly truth
with holy reverence. We do not understand everything, but we know that this is
the truth. We therefore break our heads trying to understand this truth, and
when we do not understand it, we lower our heads in humility and we say:
"This requires further study.” Who requires the further study? We do. When
the eminent genius Rabbi Akiva Eiger writes regarding Tosafot, “this requires
further study,” he does not mean that he recommends to the author, the Tosafot,
to examine their own words more carefully. Rather, he is addressing himself,
saying that he must examine the text more and more until he understands it.
"If
our predecessors were angels, then we are human beings. If our predecessors
were human beings, then we are like donkeys” (Shabbat 112b). It is therefore
not surprising that we do not always understand what Rashi says. Quite the
contrary, what is puzzling is that we sometimes do understand it. We strive to
adapt and exult our intellect to Rashi's level.
Yet
Bilaam's modern disciples say, "I decide what is right and what is not,
what the verse means and what it does not, and if Rashi or our sages did not
say what I say, then that is a question on them. It shows that they did not
understand the topic so well and we understand it better."
“The sum
of the matter, when all is said and done: Revere G-d and observe all His
commandments, for that is man’s whole essence” (Kohelet 12:13). Man’s whole
essence – the fear of G-d! If you dictate to G-d what to do, that's not reverence.
You might
ask: True, Avraham’s disciples have things good in the World-to-Come, but the
disciples of Bilaam have things good in this world because they do what they
like. If G-d robs us of this world, then we have to be honest with ourselves
and admit that the disciples of Bilaam have the better deal.
That is
not true, however. Bilaam's disciples descend to Gehinom whereas Avraham's
disciples enjoyed this world and inherit the next, as it says, “Endowing My
friends with wealth, I fill their treasures” (Mishlei 8:21. See Avot 5:23).
That must
be our goal: to draw near to G-d, and not to draw G-d near to us. After all, we
know what G-d’s will is, so let’s not try to be overly smart. Rather, let us be
the living fulfillment of, “Relate to G-d with perfect faith” (Devarim 18:13).
