Bilaam and Change

Midrash, Bamidbar Rabbah asks:

“Why don’t animals speak?”

“If they were able to speak it would be impossible for them to work for humans and no one could stand against them.  For here is this donkey, the most stupid of all creatures, and then there was her master, Balaam, the wisest of all men, and he could not contend with the donkey.”

“Therefore out of consideration for people, the Holy One closed the mouths of beasts.”

Remember the last time an animal spoke in the Torah?  It was in the Garden of Eden.  And that event was so cataclysmic it ended with the first man women disabusing one another ending with their expulsion from Eden.  It all started with a talking snake. 

Such a comment gels with the Torah, which states that “God opened the mouth of the donkey…” (Num. 22:28).  Until now, it was firmly shut along with all the other beasts of the world since the time of Eden. 

According to one Hasidic source, the nations of the world hear that Moshe rabbenu has led the forces of Israel from bondage and through glorious conquests since their liberation.  They further murmured that Moshe’s strength was inimical to him: His speech abilities enabled the Israelites to vanquish all their enemies.  That is why God disproved them by placing the power of speech in the donkey’s mouth.  This would prove the power of God was the source of all true power (imrei kohen)

The donkey also has a past.  According to Midrash he was a gift given by Jacob to pharaoh.  You will remember how Jacob spent his final years in Egypt, brought by his son Joseph, viceroy to the throne.

Jacob gifted the donkey to the Pharaoh with the caveat that the king always treats the Israelites kindly.  Time passed and Bilaam, the prophet-for-hire, bent the ear of the Pharaoh and convinced him that Pharaoh could make better use of the Jews by making them work for him, eventually enslaving them. Bilaam further advised Pharaoh to increase the quota of bricks that the Jews were forced to make.

It is interesting what the Midrash is doing. The Midrash is trying to sew the thread between various stories so that we can get a bigger picture of these narratives.  Everything is connected.  Bilaam’s noxious behavior is consistent throughout the years.  He can spotted throughout the ages advising people on how best to hurt one another.

Do people change?  Of course they do but it does not come easily or without effort.  Most times, the effort comes from elsewhere, from the unconsidered aspects of life.  There often needs to be an “emergency” or an unavoidable conflict that forces us to bend. In Bilaam’s instance change does not come until God decides that He will intervene. 

That is where the donkey comes in.  Apparently, Bilaam refuses change until he hears it from an unlikely source, one that has remained silent since Eden.