And Hashem came to Bilam and said to him “who are these people with you”
BaMidbar 22:8
Though parshat Balak for the most part discusses the story of Balak, the first few aliyos dedicate themselves to a somewhat tangential story. Messengers are sent from Balak to retrieve Bilam, and they are sent back to Balak empty-handed. Balak sends more messengers, and the second group of messengers is successful. The messengers seem to steal Balak’s spotlight.
But who are these ‘messengers’? First, when they arrive at Bilam’s home, they are the Zikeinim, the Ziknei Midyan and Ziknei Moav. That night, Bilam tells them to stay, and the Sarei Moav stay; so now they are officers, and they are no longer from Midyan. The next morning, Bilam addresses the Sarei Balak. They return to Balak, and Balak sends officers of higher rank. These Sarim are referred to as Avdei Balak when Bilam tells them to stay overnight. Finally, the next morning, Bilam agrees to go with the Sarei Moav, who are called Sarei Balak when Bilam reaches his destination. What a headache! Even Hashem seems uncertain who these people are!
The first transition is the most intriguing. We call the messengers Zikeinim once, and never again refer to them that way. What happened to their title? And furthermore, what happened to the Zikeinim from Midyan?
Rashi answers the second question. The term Zikeinim was first used this week in pasuk 4. Moav, when they made peace, did not consult the armies or the nobles of Midyan; they rather consulted the elders. Moav knew that the Jewish leader Moshe, had spent much of his life looking after his father in law’s sheep in Midyan, and the Midyanites perhaps would know the secret to Moshe’s amazing power. Sure enough, the Midyanite elders were a tremendous help. “His power is only in his mouth” they replied. Moshe was not a strong or influential man. On the contrary, he was a stuttering 80 year old. But Moshe had the power of prayer, to bless and curse, for good and for worse.
The clear response to Moshe was Bilam; Bilam too had this power of prayer and would prove a worthy adversary to Moshe. Maybe with Bilam on Moav’s side, the Jews could be pushed away for good. And so Balak sent these elders from his nation, and elders from Moav, to hire Bilam on behalf of the king.
Before we go any further in to the story, there is a little more background that must be laid out. The first pasuk of the parasha seems totally pointless. Moav and Midyan were warring nations who made peace in order to deal with the Jews. Only in pasuk 4 is Balak, a Midyanite who probably would have been killed for stepping on Moavi soil had it not been for the established truce, crowned king. So why then would anyone care that Balak saw the Jews defeat the Emori; he was a Midyanite prince?!
Rashi answers this question as well. Balak used what he saw in order to play with the emotions of the Moavim. He pointed out how if Sichon and Og could be defeated by the Jews, then Moav would have no chance. Therefore the next pasuk reads “And the Moavim were frightened,” which led to their need to appoint Balak as their king.
The second pasuk is also very troubling. Why do we only discuss Moav’s fear? Shouldn’t Midyan fear the Jews as well? (Ironically, it was Midyan whom the Jews obliterate in Matos and Moav whom the Jews spare.) But Balak’s stirring speech only effected the Moavim because of the Kal ViChomer involved. If Sichon could destroy Moav (as is stated in last week’s parasha, 21:28) and Yisroel could destroy Sichon, then surely Yisroel would annihilate Moav. Midyan, though scared, remained much more rational in their fear. Only Moav became disgusted with their own lives out of the enormous and irrational fright they felt.
Now that we recognize the difference between the mentality of Moav and that of Midyan, we can try to understand why the Midyanite elders didn’t stay overnight like Bilam had asked them to. To a rational mind, the hiring of Bilam was a solution to the apparent problem, the encroachment of the wandering Jewish nation and their awesome leader Moshe. If Bilaam couldn’t prove himself a worthy match for Moshe, than to what good would his blessings or curses be?
The Levush Ha’Orah explains the thought process of the Midyanite elders. By the Maka of Tzfardeyah, Paroh runs to Moshe yelling “Get rid of these frogs!” Moshe responds “when would you like me to pray for the end of this plague?” and Paroh says ‘tomorrow.’ Moshe prays the next day and all the frogs die. Clearly, Moshe would expect Paroh to say ‘get rid of them right now,’ but Moshe wanted to prove that he wasn’t just looking into the stars (like Bilam did) and praying at the moment he could foresee would be the end of the Maka. Moshe had the real gift of prayer; he called the shots and didn’t wait for orders from the heavens. If Bilam, the elders thought, can provide us with an immediate response, then he clearly has the level of prayer that Moshe has. But if he waits overnight for Hashem to address him, if he can’t call his own shots, then he’s no match and we would only be wasting our time hiring him.
Midyan, and correctly so, went on its way, and was saved from tremendous disgrace. They weren’t even cursed by Bilam at the end of the parasha. But Moav was stubborn. Their elders didn’t act much like elders when they decided to stay overnight with Bilam. By remaining stubborn and hoping Bilam could still curse the Jews, their actions no longer reflected their wisdom, and so the pasuk demotes them to their status quo, the level of ‘officers.’
Unlike servants, officers are left in charge of certain affairs. These officers were sent to investigate the possibility of using Bilam’s powers to counter Moshe’s and perhaps negotiate a price. The elders from Midyan turned down the option for the reason explained above, while the officers from Moav were turned down merely because of their lowly rank; Bilam claimed it wasn’t befitting to his honor to travel with them. The second group of messengers, however, were no longer in any control of the situation. They were merely a dispatch, a collection of nobles assigned to retrieve Bilam. As Balak said “Al Na Timana,” don’t turn this offer down. Furthermore, there was no price to be discussed, “Kol Asher Tomar Eilli E’eseh.”
While the first messengers are called Sarei Balak, the second group, a group considered ‘higher ranking from the first’ in pasuk 15, are called Avdei Balak. This now makes perfect sense. The title Eved or Sar is not a reflection of rank, but rather a reflection on the individual’s control of the matter. Since the first group was given full control, they were addressed as officers, but when the second group conveys Balak’s urgent orders, Bilam addresses servants instead. Once the king’s orders have been fulfilled and Bilam agrees to come, they return to their status quo title ‘officer,’ like in pasuk 15.
Only one question remains. Now that we understand the difference between a Zakein and a Sar, a Sar and an Eved, what differentiates between an officer of Balak and an officer of Moav? The elders would certainly represent the nation, I’ve never heard of the king’s elders, Ziknei Balak simply wouldn’t make sense. Avdei Moav may make some sense, but the people, as explained above, were clearly servants to the king’s request. But why are they the rest of the time jumping between titles Sarei Moav and Sarei Balak?
Once again, Rashi answers this question, and chooses to answer it where the question seems strongest. When Bilam leaves home, he leaves with the Sarei Moav, and as he’s walking along the road, after his confrontation with the Satan, he travels with the Sarei Balak. Bilam seems to perform the exact same action, yet something clearly has changed.
Interestingly, both phrases, Sarei Moav and Sarei Balak, are superfluous in their respective locations. Rashi explains by the first, when Bilam saddles his donkey, the pasuk should have only said “he went,’ not whom he went with. Rashi explains “Lebo KiLebam Shaveh,” they departed with the same intent and enthusiasm, which we would not have otherwise known. By the second, pasuk 35, the pasuk again needlessly makes mention of the officers. Rashi therefore explains there “Samei’ach LiKlalam KiMosam” Bilam was happy to soon be cursing the Jewish nation, just as the officers were.
There are two clear problems with this Rashi. The extra words must be coming to teach us something we didn’t already know, but wouldn’t we assume they were both happy to curse the Jews if Lebo KiLibam Shaveh? Why would we ever assume anything changed unless told so? Even stranger about the Rashi is how he completely changes the lashon in pasuk 35 from the lashon used in pasuk 21. Why not just write Lebo KiLebam again?
The question may be a little stronger if we ask it on pasuk 21 instead. The pshat Rashi offers in pasuk 35 seems a little more detailed, so if Lebo KiLebam really meant Samei’ach LiKlalam KiMosam, why would Rashi explain Bilam’s thoughts so vaguely the first time. Rather, the vague lashon of Rashi seems to imply that Lebo KiLebam is really a continuation of the previous Rashi. That morning, Bilam hastily saddled his donkey so he could get as early a start to cursing the Jews as possible. Rashi opens by explaining that Bilam’s hasty actions were out of his hatred towards the Jews. Like the pasuk says about Moav, “VaYakatz Moav,” they too hated the Jews and wished them to be cursed out of hatred. And so Lebo KiLebam out of hatred towards the Jews. But after the encounter with the Satan, Bilam was a little more sedated. It was no longer the rushed morning, and the paced journey provided no spark to fuel anyone’s hatred. Rather, they all felt excited and happy to finally curse the Jews, but not in a hasty irrational manner.
We can now understand the reasons for the parasha’s use of these messengers’ names in their respective locations. First, they are Ziknei Moav. When they decide to stay, though they should have realized that Bilam would be of no useful service to the king, they acted irrationally, like the Moavim, and are therefore called Sarei Moav. In the morning, Bilam addresses the Sarei Balak with a rational excuse that the rational king would accept and react upon. The meesengers, though they had just been brutally insulted by Bilam, were willing to accept the insult. Anything so long as Bilam would curse the Jews as soon as possible. And so the Sarei Moav got up and returned to Balak. Avdei Balak returned, and hastily departed as Sarei Moav in the morning, though they happily traveled back to Moav as Sarei Balak.
One simple question remains. Why does the Torah need to write all this detail about the messengers? Just call them Anashim or Malachim. Anashim and Malachim are terms used to describe them by Hashem and Balak, respectively, but whenever the story views these emissaries from Bilam’s angle, the language keeps flopping back and forth. Why?
Maybe the lesson within the messengers’ names is one that teaches about themselves and their mission but rather a view of the story from Bilam’s eyes, a lesson in the way Bilam approached the world. The gemara teaches that Hashem gets angry at the world for a regah every day, “Ki Regah BiApo.” This regah lasts about six hundredths of a second. Bilam was able to identify this moment and take advantage of it by starting his curse in that short window of time. This was the power Bilam possessed which separated him from any other non-Jewish prophet in history.
What exactly was Bilam’s power? When Hashem resolves to destroy the Bnei Yisroel after the Cheit HaEigel, He says to Moshe “Achaleh Osam KiRaga.” Moshe responds with two arguments. Hashem should remember the past; remember what He promised to the Avos. Also, the nations would say Hashem isn’t as strong as they are if Bnei Yisroel never enter Eretz Yisroel. Rather than forfeit the past and future of His nation, Hashem agrees not to kill the people.
The concept of “Raga” that Moshe battles in this story is one of removal from context. Moshe argues that the Bnei Yisroel may have acted insane for a brief lapse, but that shouldn’t effect Hashem’s view on everything that they have done and will soon accomplish. The people are not deserving of death, just a punishment. On the other hand, Bilam uses this regah to his advantage. For the brief time, when Hashem is mad enough to destroy the world yet doesn’t because of all the potential and all the past accomplishments, the world does actually change its physical state. The gemara says that the red vein in a roosters crest turns white for those six hundredths of a second. Bilam could see that moment, the moment in time removed from context, in the stars and knew that cursing the Jews right then would be enough to convince Hashem to destroy them.
The gemara says that during the days of Bilam, Hashem did us a tremendous favor and never got mad. Hashem, had He been mad, would not have been able to turn down Bilam’s request. Note how the gemara doesn’t say that Hashem held off the Rega in the time of Bilam. Rather, Hashem excluded Himself from the moment that stood out of context.
When Bilam sees these messengers, he always sees them outside the context of their actions. One minute they are Sarei Moav to him. The next minute they are Sarei Balak. Depending on how they appear at the particular moment, Bilam changes his mind over the status of these messengers. Whatever they do at that particular Regah decides their personality. That’s Bilam’s perspective.
Hashem teaches Bilam a tremendous lesson through their short dialogue. Bilam’s nature was about as antithetical to being Dan Adam LiKaf Zechus as a person could behave. When the Zekeinim arrived, Bilam assumed they were Zekeinim, but he soon discovered that Moav’s men were not Zekeinim after all; he had judged them much too quickly. Hashem says to Bilam “Who are these people” and Bilam can’t answer the question directly. The Ohr HaChaim writes about Bilam’s response that he admitted to not knowing who these people were, but he did know that they were sent from Balak and he knew why they were sent. Bilam can answer ‘what’ and ‘why,’ and he can definitely answer ‘when.’ But answering questions that began with ‘who’ was where Bilam constantly faltered.
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