“Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishkenotecha Yisrael - how beautiful are your tents, Jacob, your dwelling places, oh Israel!” (Numbers 24:5) These wonderful words of blessing, adopted by Jews all over the world as the words that are said upon entering the synagogue, were far from guaranteed when we consider the narrative of this week’s portion, Balak.
As the Israelites made their way ever closer to the Land of Israel they had to pass through kingdoms belonging to other nations. While they did not seek war, many times it found them anyway. With God’s help, the Israelites emerged victorious time after time. Balak, the king of Moab, understood the approaching Israelites as a threat to him and his kingdom and decided to act against them. In order to weaken the Israelites and have a chance on the battlefield, Balak engages the services of a local sorcerer, someone with the power to bless or curse people or nations, named Bilam (often written in English as Balaam).
While there are several steps along the way (including a part with a talking donkey that I highly recommend you read at some point) I will make the long story short. Bilam arrives at the Israelite camp prepared to do what he is hired to do, to curse the Israelite nation as they camp in the desert. He tries to do so three times and, each time he opens his mouth, words of blessing - truly beautiful linguistic formations of ancient Hebrew - come out. The story’s purpose for inclusion at this juncture of the Exodus seems straightforward. As explained in the Jewish Study Bible, “the account is a contest in the divine realm between the God of Israel and those supernatural elements available to Balak. At times amusing, and somewhat mocking of the non–Israelite prophet, the message of this pericope is serious: The intent of the Lord reigns supreme and cannot be superseded. Even the powers of a well–known non–Israelite prophet are ultimately controlled by God. In the end nothing in Balaam’s four oracles exacts a curse upon Israel; in fact, his prophecies function in reverse, blessing Israel and cursing her enemies.”
Just as God prevailed over the supernatural forces at Pharoah’s disposal in Egypt, and will again later in the books of both Joshua and Judges against non-Israelite nations and their gods, Bilam is ultimately subject to the will of the God of Israel, the most powerful of the divine forces. I want to take a moment to consider the character of Bilam and consider what his motivations and purpose was. I purposely left off the last sentence of the paragraph from the Jewish Study Bible I cited above but this is what I would take a moment to consider: the idea that, “the biblical traditions are not consistent in their assessment of Balaam’s intentions.” What did Balaam hope to achieve? Why? And what can we learn about him from these intentions?
The Torah narrative paints a somewhat inconsistent picture of Balaam’s motivations and intentions which leaves the work of discerning them to the rabbis. In the rabbinical sources we find that most judged Balaam harshly, viewing him as a source of contempt and a character that should be resoundingly repudiated.
Some judge him in comparison to heroes from the Torah. In Pirkei Avot it is written that, “[one who has] a good eye, a humble spirit and a small appetite -- is from the students of Abraham, our father. [One who has] an evil eye, a haughty spirit and a broad appetite - is from the students of Bilaam the evildoer.” Bilaam was used as the ultimate contrast to Abraham, who was so clear and definite in his belief and devotion to one God. In another rabbinic source from a similar period the rabbis compare Bilaam to Moses. The text recognizes that Bilaam was indeed a prophet who could communicate with God, yet there were major differences between them including, “Moses did not speak with God unless he was standing, "And you, here, stand with Me." (Devarim 5:28) And Bilam spoke with God when he was fallen, "The vision of the Almighty shall he see, fallen and his eyes uncovered. (Bamidbar 24:4)" Moses spoke with God upright, at his most powerful and present whereas Bilaam is described as only having this ability when he was at his lowest, weakest point.
In the Talmud the rabbis are even more pointed in their condemnation of Balaam. In the tractate Sanhedrin there are a series of texts that work to show what a contemptible figure Bilaam really was. The first reminds us that in the Mishna it is written that four non-Jews have no part in the world to come, one of whom is Balaam and the Gemara explains that “the name Balaam is interpreted as a contraction of: Without a nation [belo am], or one who has no share in the World-to-Come with the Jewish nation. Alternatively, the name Balaam is interpreted as one who wore down the Jewish people [bila am].”
A second source that follows shortly after this reasoning goes even further, explaining that the source of Balaam’s prophecy was not his heart or his spirit, rather his penis. This was a rabbinical method of disparaging him, showing that even his most impressive quality came from a compromised place. In the same discussion the rabbis also accuse Balaam of engaging in bestiality with the donkey that is mentioned in our portion. While it does not make for the most appealing reading, for that reason I did not directly quote the text here, if we take all of these sources together we understand the general rabbinic understanding of Balaam. Yes, he was a prophet that could communicate with God. But, beyond this one special ability he was an unquestionably evil figure. For the rabbis, Balaam's intentions were clear: he came before the Israelite nation fully intending to curse them and to condemn the Israelites to never reach the Land of Israel as promised by God.
From these sources it seems like there is no redemption for Balaam. He was evil, he intended to do evil things, and if it was only up to him that is precisely what he would have done. But, and this is the beauty of the Talmud, only a few sentences after the two previous examples I cited above another rabbinical interpretation is presented that completely flips the earlier ideas on their head:
“Rabbi Yoḥanan says: From the blessing of that wicked person, Balaam, you can ascertain what was in his heart.
He sought to say that they should not have synagogues and study halls, and he said instead: “How goodly are your tents, Jacob”, a blessing on their synagogues.
He sought to say that the Divine Presence will not rest upon them, and he said instead: “And your dwellings Israel.”
He sought to say that the kingdom of Israel would not continue, and he said instead that it would continue: “Like the winding brooks” which flow continuously.
He sought to say that they would have no olive trees and vineyards, and he said instead: “Like gardens by the river’s side”.
He sought to say that their fragrance would not diffuse from their fulfillment of mitzvot, and he said instead: “Like aloes that the Lord has planted”.”
From the blessing of Balaam you can ascertain what was in his heart. The Torah narrative and the rabbinical sources tell us a story that fills us with expectation, assures us that we know where the story is headed: Balaam wants to do evil and only because of God’s intervention does he do the proper thing. But Rabbi Yochanan teaches differently, that we can understand what Balaam really intended to do, the message and feeling that were truly upon his heart, from the beautiful words of blessing that he bestows upon the People of Israel. Even though he sought to say something different, each time he opened his mouth words of encouragement, of strength, of beauty came out. From those words, not from his dealings with Balak, can we ascertain what Balaam truly intended.
This flipping of expectations, reading the character of Balaam as not an evil force full of bad intention rather as a human being that, in spite of the limited negative information we know about him, actually had within him the motivation to do good, carries an incredibly powerful lesson. It is a beautiful implementation of the Mishnaic principle that when we judge any person we should ladun b’chaf zchut - judge a person with the scale weighted in their favor. In English we might say giving someone the benefit of the doubt, but that does not fully encapsulate the expectation of the principle. What Rabbi Yochanan reminds us and what the principle of ladun b’chaf zcut really asks of us is that we should not use our preconceived notions or the limited information we have about a person to draw what might be an unfair conclusion about who they are.
This lesson feels particularly relevant today. As we live in a world where there is so much public information about each and every one of us, the sheer amount that we are exposed to gives us the impression that we know more than we really do. We often use Ockam’s razor when it comes to building our assumptions about others. One Facebook post, lawn sign, one comment in a conversation leads us to believe that we know everything about others’ ideology and beliefs. We run to the proverbial wisdom of ‘if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck.’ Yet, thankfully, human beings are not ducks. We are so much more complex than one movement we support, one idea we expressed on social media, one candidate we donated to, one organization that we belong to… the list is truly endless. If we know this about ourselves, we know how much more complex we are than one idea, party, or cause we support, we must do the hard work to give that same consideration to others. I do not want someone taking a single data point about me and making assumptions about who I am from that one piece of information, so I must try not to discern everything about others from one thing I know about them.
This is exceptionally hard to do. Our brains are programmed to do this very reflexive sort of triage, going through a checklist in order to understand which in-groups we share with others, our potential points of commonality or conflict. This is so natural and, admittedly, an essential key to our survival in what can at times be a dangerous world. But we must also remember that we are not ducks, nor any other animal for that matter. We are human beings and we have an incredible capacity for complex understanding and empathy… when we choose to use it.
Parashat Balak this year reminds us that even as the gaps between us feel wider, and perhaps they are, we have the exceptional ability to look past our expectations of others, to overcome our first impression and to judge them, as we all hope to be judged, by the blessings they offer. This is no easy task, it even pushes against some of our most basic instincts. Yet, if we can do it, if we can push ourselves to ladun b’chaf zhut each and every person that we meet, perhaps our collective humanity can show us that the differences between us are not so great after all.
Shabbat Shalom.
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