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Rabbi Mark Borovitz, Finding Recovery and Yourself in Torah, p. 277
We have to learn from God and others, and in order to do so, we must try to understand their way of reasoning and seeing a situation and its solution. For many of us, the only way to do this is to question. Questioning our guides, our elders, and even God is not bad. What is important and ultimately determines whether or not we learn is how and for what we are questioning. Too often, we are trying to be right rather than seeking truth. Too often, we get mad at the person who is trying to help us see more of the picture, which forces us to give up what we want in order to do the next right thing.
Rabbi David Kasher, Parshanut, p. 305
And yet, the rabbis hate Bilaam. For them, he is the epitome of wickedness. They pile on him all the nastiest things they can think of. Including, even, the following unpleasant suggestion from the Talmud: His donkey said to him…I’ve let you not only ride me during the day, but also to lay with me at night. (Avodah Zarah 4b) Well, as rabbinic insults go, it doesn’t get much lower than, “You have sex with your donkey.”
Bamidbar Rabbah 20:12
The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him, “I do not desire the death of the wicked. [But] in as much as you want to be obliterated from the world, ‘arise and go with them.’” (Numb. 22:20, cont.), “But only the thing [that I tell you are you to do].” [These words are] to teach you that he went with a warning. Immediately he got up early in the morning [preparing his donkey] quickly all by himself. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him, “You wicked man! Their ancestor Abraham has already anticipated you at the binding of his son Isaac,” as stated (in Gen. 22:3), “So Abraham arose early in the morning, saddled his he-ass.” (Numb. 22:21, cont.) “And went with the princes of Moab”: [These words are] to teach you that he was as glad at the tribulation of Israel as they were.
Rabbi Harvey J. Winokur, from The Mussar Torah Commentary, p. 248
Mussar would teach that Balaam shows arrogance and pride instead of humility and sense of mission at exactly the moment at which he saddles his donkey and begins the journey. We are meant to understand that it is Balaam’s initial arrogance and lack of sense of mission that are making God angry—and therefore Balaam’s anger at his donkey is entirely unjustified—and that, in turn, his donkey is right to get angry at him!
Rabbi Harvey J. Winokur, The Mussar Torah Commentary, p. 248
If God gave Balaam permission to go to Balak, why would God then change course and try to stop Balaam on his journey? In verse 20, God gave Balaam permission to go with the men as long as he only spoke what God told him to speak. The text then says that “when he arose in the morning, Balaam saddled his donkey and departed with the Moabite dignitaries” (Numbers 22:21). The answer lies in the two-letter word “if” in the context, “If these personages have come to invite you, you may go with them” (Numbers 22:20). However, the following morning and without hearing from Balak’s men, Balaam sets out on his journey. Mussar would teach that Balaam shows arrogance and pride instead of humility and sense of mission at exactly the moment at which he saddles his donkey and begins the journey. We are meant to understand that it is Balaam’s initial arrogance and lack of sense of mission that are making God angry—and therefore Balaam’s anger at his donkey is entirely unjustified—and that, in turn, his donkey is right to get angry at him!
George Robinson, Essential Torah, p. 477
From one of the most tragic moments in the entire Torah—Moshe being told that he will not be permitted to enter the land promised to the Israelites—to a story with elements of pure farce—Balaam and his poor put-upon talking donkey. If this isn’t the most improbable turn of events and shifts of tone in all of the Torah—in all of the Hebrew Bible!— someone should point out a more outrageous juxtaposition.
Bamidbar Rabbah 20:20
(20) 19 (Numb. 23:14-16) “And he built seven altars [and offered a ram and a bull on each altar]. Then he said unto Balak, ‘Stand here [beside your burnt offerings and let me make myself available to the Lord over there]….’ And God appeared to Balaam and he placed a word (davar) in his mouth”: Like a man who places a bit upon the mouth of his animal and twists him to where he wants [it to go]. So was the Holy One, blessed be He, twisting his mouth.
(1) Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here and have seven bulls and seven rams ready here for me.” (2) Balak did as Balaam directed; and Balak and Balaam offered up a bull and a ram on each altar. (3) Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offerings while I am gone. Perhaps יהוה will grant me a manifestation, and whatever is revealed to me I will tell you.” And he went off alone. (4) God became manifest to Balaam, who stated, “I have set up the seven altars and offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.” (5) And יהוה put a word in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak and speak thus.”
Number the dust-cloud of Israel?
May I die the death of the upright,
May my fate be like theirs! (11) Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? Here I brought you to damn my enemies, and instead you have blessed them!” (12) He replied, “I can only repeat faithfully what יהוה puts in my mouth.”
(א) וַיַּ֣רְא בִּלְעָ֗ם כִּ֣י ט֞וֹב בְּעֵינֵ֤י יְהֹוָה֙ לְבָרֵ֣ךְ אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְלֹא־הָלַ֥ךְ כְּפַֽעַם־בְּפַ֖עַם לִקְרַ֣את נְחָשִׁ֑ים וַיָּ֥שֶׁת אֶל־הַמִּדְבָּ֖ר פָּנָֽיו׃ (ב) וַיִּשָּׂ֨א בִלְעָ֜ם אֶת־עֵינָ֗יו וַיַּרְא֙ אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל שֹׁכֵ֖ן לִשְׁבָטָ֑יו וַתְּהִ֥י עָלָ֖יו ר֥וּחַ אֱלֹהִֽים׃
(1) Now Balaam, seeing that it pleased יהוה to bless Israel, did not, as on previous occasions, go in search of omens, but turned his face toward the wilderness. (2) As Balaam looked up and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the spirit of God came upon him.
(סד) וַתִּשָּׂ֤א רִבְקָה֙ אֶת־עֵינֶ֔יהָ וַתֵּ֖רֶא אֶת־יִצְחָ֑ק וַתִּפֹּ֖ל מֵעַ֥ל הַגָּמָֽל׃
(64) Raising her eyes, Rebekah saw Isaac. She alighted from the camel
(א) וַיִּשָּׂ֨א יַעֲקֹ֜ב עֵינָ֗יו וַיַּרְא֙ וְהִנֵּ֣ה עֵשָׂ֣ו בָּ֔א וְעִמּ֕וֹ אַרְבַּ֥ע מֵא֖וֹת אִ֑ישׁ וַיַּ֣חַץ אֶת־הַיְלָדִ֗ים עַל־לֵאָה֙ וְעַל־רָחֵ֔ל וְעַ֖ל שְׁתֵּ֥י הַשְּׁפָחֽוֹת׃
(1) Looking up, Jacob saw Esau coming, with a retinue of four hundred. He divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two maids,
Word of Balaam son of Beor,
Word of the man whose eye is true,
(4) Word of one who hears God’s speech,
Who beholds visions from the Almighty,
Prostrate, but with eyes unveiled:
Your dwellings, O Israel!
Lori Hope Lefkovitz, Torah Queeries, p. 212-213
Including the famous lines preserved in Jewish liturgy, “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel!” the people are blessed in a clear, poetic conclusion that affirms the unyielding power of fate and definitively supplants the evil king’s intended curses with the abiding blessings from Heaven.
Rabbi Shai Held, The Heart of Torah, vol. 2, location 3309 & 3345, Kindle edition
Moberly rightly insists that we “resist any facile or moralistic tendency to assume that a person who becomes corrupt must always have been so.” A better, more sophisticated reading would understand, Moberly contends, that “the text is portraying the more complex situation of a person who is genuinely a prophet (in that he knows he can practice the responsibilities of such a vocation) but who may yet go astray. When a serious divine test, serious because of its genuine allure, confronts Balaam, he wavers from his initial faithfulness to his vocation and succumbs to temptation.”...
If God chooses to bless through Balaam, then God can choose to bless through us as well. We are forbidden to write ourselves off, just as we are forbidden to write off others. I can be deeply flawed and still be called to serve. If God could not make use of limited people, God would have no one to make use of at all.
Rabbi David Kasher, Parshanut, p. 310-311
But maybe it wasn’t just a matter of what God wanted. Maybe a part of Abraham didn’t want to protest. Maybe he wanted to show what a great man of faith he was, and was willing to sacrifice his own son to do it. A person is led down the path that he wishes to go. God forbid, we could never say such a thing about Abraham. So instead, we say terrible things about Bilaam. We accuse him of longing to curse us, even though he ultimately blessed us. And we condemn him for going, even though God told him to go. Because he should have known better. Because sometimes, even when you think God is telling you to do something, you don’t do it. Even though it sounds exactly like the call you’ve gotten before – Go forth! – this time, you just know it’s wrong. And if you don’t, well then we have to wonder: just where is this voice of God coming from? Is it really out there, calling to you from somewhere up above? Or is it all in your head? Be careful walking down this path of destruction – this path you thought God told you to take. For you may find an Angel of the Lord standing in your way, telling you to go no further. Let’s hope to God you see it in time.
Bava Batra 14b, 12
The baraita now considers the authors of the biblical books: And who wrote the books of the Bible? Moses wrote his own book, i.e., the Torah, and the portion of Balaam in the Torah, and the book of Job.
Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, Bewilderments, p. 247-248
I suggest that, as in the case of Job, if we imagine Moses writing the story of Balaam, Moses’ inner life becomes palpable to us, for an instant, as a mystery that can be intimated only through the indirections of the work of his own writing. If Job is a kind of alter ego, staging the forces at play in Moses himself, then Balaam, too, serves as a way of working through crucial aspects of Moses’ own life struggle.