Two weeks ago I wrote about the gentile prophet Balaam. I said that we perceive him to be an evil person, but I'm sure that some people can disagree with this and claim that he was actually righteous, because he believed in G-d, and he constantly and repeatedly told King Balak of Moab that he would only say that which G-d puts in his mouth. So far so good - wonderful. But really, if you give this whole episode another look, you realize that something is very wrong with this picture. King Balak wanted to curse the People of Israel to bring a calamity, a disaster upon them. This is a horrible thing. And he tried to get prophet Balaam to help with it - so that he would curse them for him. Balaam should have said right then and there: No! I cannot do so. They didn't do anything to harm you to deserve this. But instead he said: OK, but let me ask G-d first. Can you imagine? If someone would have told you to kill an innocent person - instead of saying 'no', you would ask G-d for permission to do it, and not just once? Again and again and again? To defend Balaam, you can say that he knew G-d wouldn't allow this. If this is the case, then why did he ask Him in the first place, and so many times at that? You can also claim that he didn't have any choice. The mighty King Balak asked him to do it, and it was dangerous for him to disobey him. Wrong again! In the end, when Balaam blessed Israel instead of cursing them, King Balak was not happy, but there was no punishment or revenge to Balaam. They parted peacefully. Balak was king of Moab, and Balaam was from another nation, Midian. So no excuses for Balaam. But if you needed more proof than that to indict Balaam, it comes in this week's Portion.
Do you remember that last week I wrote here that the women of Midian seduced the Israelite men to sin with them, and while doing so - to worship their idol, Peor? This caused thousands and thousands of Israelites to die in a plague, until Pinchas did what he did and stopped the plague. How is this episode related to anything? In this week's Torah Portion we hear that the scheme to make the Israeilte men sin with the Midianite women so that G-d would be angry with us, and punish us as a result - this evil advice came from... Balaam!!! In this week's Torah Portion, in Numbers 32:16, Moses tells the People of Israel about the Midianite women: "Behold, these women caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to revolt so as to be unfaithful to G-d in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck G-d's people". Peor was the Midianite "god", their idol. Do you need any more evidence that Balaam was truly an antisemite who hated G-d's people and wanted to cause them harm?
The fact that Balaam talked about G-d doesn't make him a righteous person. Senior Nazi officials were talking about G-d all the time. Hitler in his infamous book, "Mein Kamph", talked about G-d quite a lot. In fact, he saw himself as a messenger of G-d to eradicate the inferior parts of humanity (in his view). He said things like: "I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator". "Even today I am not ashamed to say that I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time". "Anyone who dared to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent Creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise." In Israel we cannot get our hands on this book - it is forbidden to sell, and I believe it is a respectful gesture for the millions, Jews and non-Jews, who lost their lives due to his distorted worldview. But I read the first volume of the book "The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich" and it was abundant with quotes like this from that book.
Adolf Eichmann also talked about G-d in his trial. I was shocked to read it. How can they be so evil and at the same time talk about G-d? Do they think G-d likes their ways? They committed the most horrendous crimes humanity has ever known, and they talked about G-d in the process of doing so. When I think of this, verses from Psalm 50 come to my mind: "But to the evil person G-d says: 'What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips? You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you. When you see a thief, you join with him. You throw in your lot with adulterers. You use your mouth for evil and harness your tongue to deceit. You sit and testify against your brother and slander your own mother's son. When you did these things, and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you. But I now charge you and set my accusations before you."
The moral of all of this is that people can seem very religious and G-d loving, and talk so much about G-d, but their hearts are not upright and clean. And Balaam was exactly such a person. I'm constantly checking myself to make sure that I don't only talk about this, but actually be this - the cleanest I can be. Not easy, but this is our life's task, to take the weeds out and leave the blossoming flowers in.
I think of a person who is the exact opposite to that of Balaam: Rabbi Yitzchak HaLevi Herzog, who passed away 60 years ago, and did everything in his power to fulfill G-d's will and help the Jewish people. His Jahrzeit was just recently. He was the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland. When the British published their White Paper (a resolution to limit the number of Jews who can immigrate to Israel), he tore it apart and said: "We cannot agree to the White Paper. Just as the prophets did before me, I hereby rip it in two". During WWII, he went to the USA to meet with President Roosevelt and ask him to help the Jews of Europe. He didn't get help from Roosevelt, and was heavily sorry and disappointed. Some people who were there say that his hair turned white as he was leaving the meeting. It shows just how deeply he cared. After the war, Rabbi Herzog went to Europe and together with many other people from Israel tried to bring Jewish children who were hidden in monasteries and local families back to their nation. In some of the monasteries, they met with resistance from the monks and catholic priests who didn't want them to take the children back and didn't tell them who of the children was Jewish. But the Israeli people were very clever. When they got to the monasteries, they cried in Hebrew "Shema Israel..." ("Hear, oh, Israel..."), and suddenly, from all the many orphans present, a few children closed their eyes by putting their fingers on their eyes, and completed the verse aloud "HaShem Elokeinu, HaShem Echad" ("G-d is our L-rd, G-d is One!"). It was almost like a secret password, a Shiboleth, that runs through the Jewish People for generations since time immemorial, and unites us all in one unbreakable chain. This is how they identified the Jewish children and took them back to their nation, to their homeland, to their religion. There were some righteous gentiles who helped the process and did everything they could to help find the kids and return them to their people. Their purpose was to build, whereas Balaam's purpose was to destroy. May we always merit to be among the builders and not among the destroyers, among the Herzogs, and not among the Balaams.
There is much more to say, we'll leave it to other times.
Shabbat Shalom U'Mevorach!
R.
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