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.

Hukkat: The Ultimate Mystery

The mitzvah of the red cow is the most perplexing tale in the Torah. That is why it is called a chok, a mitzvah that escapes logic. Maimonides tried to understand it. King Solomon was confounded by it. For some unknown reason the ashes of the animal make pure the impure.

Perhaps the mitzvah of the cow is connected with the mystery of death itself. Death consumes endless hours of deep thought. We want to know that there is something greater, more lasting than the lifetime of a human being. We know that people have a limited lifetime, but is that all there is? There must be more!

When Miriam and then Aaron die in the parasha we are deeply pained. We have carefully followed their lives, hopes, aspirations throughout the long years of slavery and exile. Is this truly then end of their life? All that remains is a story to be told. It is very sad. The chok of the cow hints that there is a border between life and death. When one has crossed over to the other side it is not simply a dull end to physical existence but also a beginning.

"A child made the palace floor filthy. The king said: Let his mother come and clean up her child's dirt. By the same token, God says: Let the cow atone for the deed of the calf. " - Tanchuma, Chukat 8.

Life and death are part of the same whole. We are interconnected. Just as the cow is the purification for the next generation, so too one universe, albeit unseen, flows into t he next.
In a later segment of the Torah reading the Israelites fall sick. Moses then sets up a bronze curled snake on a large pole. Anyone who saw the serpent was cured of their illnesses. What does this mean? In the Talmud, it is explained by Rashi that the sign of the serpent was an inspiration to the people that there was a power in the universe greater than anything else. The power exceeded the strength of their sickness. It transcended life. It was even more powerful than death. Represented by the bronze serpent the power of God is over life everything.

Perhaps the real message of the Torah reading is a subtle reassurance that our eyes have limited vision. The universe is far more expansive than what we see. The borders of life and death themselves are a chok, a mystery to us, but they are governed by God.

The people of the Israel suffer in the Torah reading too. They are affected by the death of the prophetess Miriam. They too question the meaning of life and its abrupt end. Now that the generation is nearing the end of its forty year wandering they also stare at their own mortality. When God answers their plaintive call for comfort He gives them water. And then the people break out into song. Why do they sing? Because, they realize, death is not the end of them. The waters represent a continuation of a soul. That is why the Lord God says, "From Midbar to Mattanah.: Literally -- "Fom the desert to the gift." The "gift" is not temporal; it represents eternity.

Samson Raphael Hirsch taught, "Happy is he who takes note of the unseen fiery serpents that beset his path, put to flight by the Almighty." Without God all is lost. With God all is possible.

Haftarah Insight:
From the start of the tale of Yiftach there is great sorrow. As a young man he was purged from his home like noxious bile that no one could stand. Running to a distant land, Yiftach became a warlord whose ferocity was well-known. Who knows? Perhaps it was all those years of pent up rage that made him so fearless?
Yiftach is recruited by his own people to lead a war against the relentless enemies of the Jews, the Ammonites. Making a pact with the Israelite leaders, Yiftach also makes an unholy vow to God. Praying for victory Yiftach promises to deliver whatever comes to his door after winning the war against Ammon.
What is the message? Be careful with words? Perhaps. Only ask for what your heart desires? Perhaps. Do not let anger rule your thoughts? Most likely.

A Matter of Law:
Death contaminates. The Sages ask, why does death make people impure? 1. Life is holy and we need to ensure that life and death are never confused. 2. No human remains may be used for any purpose, eg bones for utensils, skin for clothes. In this way, human life is respected. 3. Since the dead make impure no one would dare ever make a shrine out of a final resting place.

Bamidbar: Counting on Faith

Numbers.  It sounds like a CPA’s dream.  In Hebrew we call it Bamidbar, which means “wilderness.” The older name for the book is Sefer ha-Pekudim, the Book of Gatherings.” While this new book of the Torah does contain the tallies of Jews in the desert it reaches far more deeply than just a census.

For example. The first born in many families, maybe all, excites the parents.  This introduction of new life is so novel, it borders on the sublime.  God tells each family that they must redeem their first-born. Why?  Precisely because each family pins hopes and aspirations on this child.  Who knows if they will be blessed with another?  Great pains are taken to find just the right name that will help determine the character of the child.  Love is lavished on him.  Blessings are pronounced and his every cry is attended.  

Then God tells us, “He is not yours.”

The family must then redeem the child from God teaching a powerful and profound lesson about ownership and possession.  Such redemption announces that even life is tentative and that we need to be mindful that there is a greater power than us.

To this day we practice Pidyon ha-Ben, the exchange of silver to redeem the first-born.

For example. The Children of Israel must pass through the midbar, a brume of clouds, sun, rocks, sand and scorpions in order to obtain their objective of the Promise Land.  They trekked for forty years through that barren landscape.

Is this not kike our lives? We grow, challenge, make foolish mistakes, pay handsomely for them, and then finally grow to the stature of maturity? It is our own sojourn through a personal wilderness that eventually makes us worthy of entering our promised land. How long did we wander?  Twenty years? Fifty?

For example.  Each family among the numbers was responsible to help transport the Mishkan, Tabernacle, and its various appurtenances. They carried the holiest items where the Jewish people talked to and worshipped God.

How often we become carried away by trivialities!  We lie awake at night worrying over bills.  We stress about our children or parents.  We argue endlessly about the same things day after day, (which is usually about who wields power).  The Torah is gently reminding us that these things should not be the focus of our attention.  There is something far for worthy and meaningful.  Carrying the mishkan or cleaning the shul is far more meaningful and rightly prioritizes life’s demands.

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Davar Acher

The Torah reading for this week, the fourth book of the Bible, contains a census. The details of the parasha are parceled out deliberately as the Torah means to clearly delineate each of the tribes. The tribes are painstakingly separated both in name and in fact. Imagine the twelve tribes sorted out by their relationship to one of the sons of Jacob. Each took their place next to their sisters and brothers and cousins. Then under a specific banner they were singly counted. Every name is mentioned. Then they were supposed to march tribe by tribe into the Promised Land of Canaan.

What was supposed to happen and what actually happened are two different tales. In fact, the Israelites were bothered by their new freedom. Yes, bothered. The change from slave to freeman was too great a transition for them to make. That is why the complaining about water and food and the missing elements from Egypt began almost immediately after liberation. Perhaps the biggest act of rebellion was when the people bought the “lie” of the spies. The quarreling over whatever the issue was not at the heart of the problem. The real problem was a lack of trust.

Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno commented that had the Jews accepted the direction from God; had they believed and maintained their belief in the God that liberated them, fed them, gave them Torah they would have marched right into Israel. The enemies of the land would have scattered at the sight of them carrying their tribal banners. Instead, doomed to wander for a full generation, the Israelites entered Canaan under Joshua in a different fashion.

When the next generation of Israelites crossed into Canaan they were not counted. The names were not specified. Only the heads of the tribes are mentioned in the Book of Joshua. Why the difference? Because, tells Sforno, the Israelites lost something when belief left them. Instead of defining themselves through God, Torah and trust they defined themselves by other external criteria. They worried about the Canaanites. They agonized over food. They argued about water. The identity of the Israelites came from disbelief.

An analogy. When Adam and Havvah met the snake in the Garden, the snake convinced them that the fruit of the forbidden tree was better for them than the other one. They took it. With that act, the two primal beings were sent into exile. Much later, Moshe would confront the nemesis of the Jewish people, Pharaoh, and defy him. Moshe showed the power of God as he exercised control over the serpents of Pharaoh. He grabbed the tail, trusting in God, and the snake became a staff. This act of faith was the beginning off the end of the exile for the Jewish nation.

The snake is an emblem of trust or disbeleief. No wonder later generations conceived of the snake as the yetser hara, the evil side, because it had the power to sway humanity into exile...but it also had the power to redeem it.

We can transform any act into something else with the necessary tool of faith. In fact, the gematria – numeric value – of snake is the same as messiah. In other words, an end to the ultimate exile will be granted when we each take the serpent by its tail - an act of faith.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, the Kotzker Rebbe, was a challenging Hassidic master. The Kotzker demanded an absolute, personal search for truth. Listen to his words:

"If I am me because you are you, and you are you because I am me, then I am not me and you are not you. But if I am me because I am me, and you are you because you are you, then I am me and you are you."

In the final analysis, we must be accountable individually. We are responsible for ourselves. When we have the necessary ingredient of life, faith, God counts us, loves us, and declares, “Now you are a whole person.”




Haftarah Insight:
Hosea does not give up. Faced with a painful life - a woman, his wife, who abandons him and the desolation of having been abandoned for another - Hosea maintains his faith. Despite all she does, Hosea believes in the power of love, return and redemption. In much the same way, Hosea teaches us that God does not give up on us. He still loves, believes in our potential and awaits our return. "You are the children of the Living God!" the prophet proclaims.

A Matter of Law:From this Torah parsha we derive the idea that people are never to be counted. If a census needs to be taken we use the method devised by the Torah itself, we count possessions - shekels here - not souls. The law is extrapolated to even refusing to count the presence of ten for a minyan.