WRJ Voices: Balak

When a parashah contains the Torah’s (one and only) famous talking female donkey, it is sure to be interesting. This week, we study Balak, from Numbers 22:2-25:9. The children of Israel are approaching Moab.  Balak – King of Moab – hires Balaam, a diviner, “to curse Israel to oblivion”, generally considered an efficacious means to subject one’s enemy in ancient times.

On the journey to curse Israel, Balaam’s donkey sees an angel, causing him to “swerve from the road … and into the fields.” His master, Balaam, is temporarily blinded and does not see the angel himself. Angry that his donkey has balked, he proceeds to beat the beast in frustration. After a couple of beatings, the donkey finally speaks: “Look,” he says, “I am the ass that you have been riding all along until this day! Have I been in the habit of doing thus to you?” Balaam realizes that the donkey has never behaved this way before and quits berating her. Only then is Balaam permitted to see and hear the angel, who instructs him to “say nothing except what I tell you.”

Is it possible that this donkey, who sees and knows the importance of the angel, is more perceptive than Balaam, a diviner who has presumably received messages from God? How often do we only look to the experts for answers and don’t take time to hear the others whose ideas may have merit? Sometimes the lowly donkey may be aware of more than his master.

And, how often do we fight and struggle against an obstruction that appears, such as a donkey that balks, an obstruction that is in our way, that slows us down and makes us angry? How do we stop to realize there may be an important message or lesson in the resulting delay or detour? In Balaam’s case, the donkey’s defiance was clearly a message that Balaam needed to notice the angel and pay attention.  

The angel tells Balaam that he must only say what the angel puts in his mouth when he is with the Israelites; as a result, be blesses the Israelites three times. This results in the origination of Mah Tovu, the poetic and graceful description of the Israelite’s encampment, a reminder for all time that we have the ability, combined with an obligation, to create our world in ways that honor what we have been given.

Mah Tovu Ohalecha, Yakov/mishk’notecha, Yisrael

“How fair are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel”.

Ultimately, this parashah offers powerful reminders that we will always have struggles, and we are reminded that we must look for the value and lesson inherent in the challenge while acknowledging that to be alive and human and Jewish in our world is a tremendous opportunity.

Pamela Lear is a member of the WRJ Board. She is involved in the Sisterhood of Temple Beth Am in Miami, Florida.