Dear Friends;

I hope you’ll enjoy the following Parsha summary followed by a Dvar Torah:

” Parsha in a nutshell ”

Balak, the King of Moab, summons the prophet Bilaam to curse the people of Israel. On the way, Bilaam is seemed to be betrayed by his donkey, who sees the angel that G-d sends to block their way before Bilaam does.

Three times, from three different vantage points, Bilaam attempts to pronounce his curses; each time, blessings are issue instead. Bilaam also prophecies on the end of the days.

The people fall prey to the charms of the daughters of Moav and are enticed to worship the idol Peor. When a high-ranking Israelite official publicly takes a Midianite princess into a tent, Pinchas kills them both, stopping the plague raging among the people.

” Dvar Torah ”

For the first time in the Torah, the whole Parsha is dedicated to the lives of a foreign king and a gentile prophet. The king being Balak, the king of Moav and Bilaam being the prophet who was not Jewish but feared G-d. Bilaam was a very powerful prophet. His strength was not in his arms, but rather in his mouth. He had tremendous power of speech. Whoever he blessed was blessed; and whoever he cursed was cursed. The Chachamim say that his vision of prophecy was as equal, if not greater than Moshe. They also say that he was a very wicked and greedy man. But how do they know that? As you read through the plain text, it seems that he followed Hashem’s orders every step of the way?! He even blessed Benei Israel a few times! Up till now, I always thought that when the Chachamim don’t like someone, they just bad mouth him and make him look bad in our eyes. But I was proven wrong, since the commentators demonstrated that the greediness of Bilaam can be found in the plain text of the Torah itself. So let us see how do they demonstrate this to us?!

The story goes as follows: Balak the king of Moav, after seeing the devastating defeat of the Amorite kings against Benei Israel, he realized that Moav would not stand a chance confronting them military. Therefore, he decided to use a secret weapon; to curse the Benei Israel rather than to fight them. And he chose Bilaam who had a great power of speech to do this.

So, Balak sends messengers to Bilaam to invite him over to come and curse the Jews. Bilaam asked the messengers to stay overnight, so that he can ask Hashem what to do, in his dream. G-d told Bilaam, “Do not go with them; do not curse the people, for they are Blessed”. Bilaam relayed that message to Balak’s messengers.

When Balak heard that Bilaam would not come, he assumed that the reason was because the proposed reward was inadequate — that he had tried to get away too cheap. Therefore, Balak sent a more prestigious delegation promising Bilaam a great reward and granting him his every wish.

Bilaam, tells the new delegation that “Even if Balak will give me his entire treasury filled with silver and gold, my hands are tied — I can only do what G-d permits me to do.” But still he asked them to stay overnight to see if G-d would let him to go on this mission. This time, however, Hashem tells him that he can go, but only the words that He puts in his mouth shall he speak.

The next morning, Bilaam wakes up early, prepares his donkey, and heads back to Moav together with the messengers. Along the way, a miracle happens. An angel holding a sword, who is seen only by Billam’s donkey, blocks the path. The animal had no choice but to move sideways rather than forward, crushing Bilaam’s leg against the wall by the side of the road. During this time, Bilaam, unaware of the supernatural circumstances that made a change in donkey’s behavior, is furious. He strikes the animal three times to get him back on the path. Another miracle occurs! The donkey begins to talk. He carries on a brief conversation with his Master.

“Why did you hit me three times?” asks the donkey.

Bilaam replies: “Because you mocked me! If only there were a sword in my hand I would kill you!”

Wow! What a fascinating reaction by Bilaam! A donkey starts to talk, and all Bilaam wanted to do was to kill him?? The last time an animal spoke was about 2000 years before when the serpent spoke to Eve. This was big miracle miracle! Even if Bilaam was a great prophet and was used to seeing miracles; this wasn’t an everyday kind of a miracle! It occurred every 2000 years!!! So, why wasn’t Bilaam surprised at all?? A simple “WOW” would have been sufficient!!!

Rabbi Berel Wein gives the following interesting explanation: Bilaam was so eager to reach his destination, to reach to his place of fame, fortune and glory that he completely missed the miracle. His greed for money was so much, that a talking donkey did not surprise him! All he was thinking about, was all the fortune that he is going to get when he accomplishes his mission. When his donkey deviated from her path, he didn’t stop to see what’s wrong and why is she doing this. He just kept hitting her, to get her back on the path as fast as possible! Bilaam’s wickedness was not just because he hated the Jews, but rather, it was the greed that he had for money and fortune, that blinded him from seeing the miracles happening around him. Some Chachamim even put Bilaam’s donkey at a higher intellectual level than Bilaam himself, since when the donkey saw a supernatural phenomena, like seeing an angel, she understood that she cannot continue on her usual path– she needs to change her path! But when Bilaam saw a once in a lifetime miracle, a talking donkey, he just wanted to continue going on his usual path, as if nothing has happened!

Yes my friends, unfortunately there is a little bit of Bilaam in every one of us. It is natural for a man to have greed for fortune, glory, fame and success. We all want to be rich and famous. But with being so, we shouldn’t miss the miracles around us. Keep in mind that we are all surrounded by miracles. Yes, maybe we don’t see a talking donkey nor a splitting of the sea, but we have other miracles in our lives. Every morning when we wake up and we are alive and healthy and we see our wife and children being healthy too, is a miracle. Do we spend sometime with our family appreciating this, or all we think about is to go to work as fast as we can and make more money?! Do we spend sometime praying to Hashem and thanking him for what he has given us, or the urge to accumulate more wealth doesn’t allow us to do so?! Miracles don’t need to be supernatural events, but rather, any act of G-d which we benefit from is a miracle! Let’s not miss them!!

So my friends, miracles do happen! You don’t need to be a genius to see the miracles, all you need to do is to open your eyes! Remember that a donkey who is one of the most unintelligent animal, saw the miracle around him, but Bilaam the prophet missed it all together!!

Shabbat Shalom, Happy 4th of July & Regards;

Martin