Balak
July 4, 2015
Balaam: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
In summary, this parsha tells the story of Balak, king of Moav, who sends for a diviner, Balaam (also written Bilaam), to curse the Israelites, so that Moav might drive them off. Balaam initially refuses, as God orders. Balak insists, offers more gold. Balaam sets on his way, having advised Balak that he may only speak words that God puts in his mouth. On his way, his donkey sees what Balaam cannot-an angel of God bars the way. Balaam beats the donkey; the donkey speaks up, Balaam then perceives his folly, atones, and proceeds as God’s messenger. “Ma tovu” says Balaam, overlooking the Israelite camp. “How lovely are your dwellings, people of Jacob”. Balak angrily dismisses Balaam, who divines Moab’s fall. Israel, seduced by Midianites, indulges in harlotry and idolatry. God is very angry: Pinchas saves the day by slaying an Israelite and his Midianite partner: God’s anger is stayed after twenty four thousand Israelites have died.
In a survey of many rabbis’ views of Balaam, the more common opinion is that this person is not very admirable:  that Balaam, having said no once to Balak, should not have conceded at the second request: basically Balaam demonstrated at that moment that he had his price and that Balak had named it.
I take a more gentle view of Balaam: he is summoned by a powerful Balak to curse the Israelites, whom Balak sees as a very real and powerful threat to his kingdom: Balak is confident that a curse from Balaam will be effective in helping him win against the Israelites, because he believes that Balaam has the ability to do exactly that: curse the Israelites. Balaam knows that God has blessed Israel. Balaam cautions Balak, that indeed he may bless or curse, but only as God dictates (and I imagine that Balaam intuits that God will only give him words of blessing for his address): the words are not his to choose: they come from God. At the second summons, Balaam reiterates his limitations: he can only speak what God dictates. When Balak asks Balaam once again, God permits Balaam to go to Balak’s bidding. To me, it is rather extraordinary that Balaam has with God a kind of relationship not dissimilar to Moses’: they are engaged in conversation. We read that Balaam accepts God’s permission and sets off to meet Balak.
Being kindly inclined to Balaam, I choose to deduce that Balaam is satisfied with the permission. Perhaps is he concerned about this own life if he persists in contradicting Balak? He certainly is honest toward Balak about his absence of control over the words he will utter. But the Torah states that God was incensed at Balaam’s choice to proceed. I once again find myself utterly at a loss for this change of disposition: God is not predictable, and certainly proves moody here.
God chooses to communicate his upset by placing an obstacle on the road of Balaam, but Balaam, for reasons not narrated, does not perceive the obstacle, assumes his donkey is just being stubborn when the donkey stops or moves strangely, and chooses to strike the animal, three times, rather than wonder at this unusual behaviour. Even more so, when the donkey talks back to him to reproach him his beatings, Balaam is not at all surprised: this could be a conversation with a human servant, and we would not be the wiser except that the text repeats clearly that it was his donkey, not his servant, who spoke. While this episode is curious, extraordinary, miraculous even, I find the behaviours of humans more interesting than that of the donkey. 
What was Balaam supposed to do? 
If I put myself in his shoes, I well imagine that I too would want to hear from God that it is acceptable to go to Balak’s rather than risk derision, prison, death even. I reason, as Balaam might have, that perhaps along the way, some event or encounter will allow Balak to understand that I, Balaam, am powerless at contradicting God, and only the messenger for God’s words. 
Being human, Balaam uses all that he has at this disposal to bring about a good disposition from God: he arranges for numerous sacrifices (fourteen, no less). But he senses that God is not about to change from his original position vis-à-vis Israel: God has blessed Israel. And finally at verse 24:1 we read “Now Balaam, seeing that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, did not, as on previous occasions, go in search of omens, but turned his face toward the wilderness”. And the words of praise came to him as he admired the camp of Israel. 
Rabbi Abigail Treu from JTS wrote a dvar in 2012 where she wrote that at that moment when Balaam ceased to try to please Balak and made the choice to turn to the wilderness, he was ready to face life without trying to organize it in his own way. 
How frightening, how risky, to stop looking for omens, for indicators of how to behave. 
Yet, when he did that, “the spirit of God came upon him” (24:2). She concluded that when we are able to face the wilderness, having prepared our souls to face that which we dread, we are strengthened by the spirit of God that finds us there. 
Balaam did what God had in mind for him. Balak was very angry, enraged even (24:10). But Balaam was able to remind Balak of his consistent position throughout Balak’s persistent demands.  And Balaam finished off by actually prophesying that the neighbouring nations, including Moav, would perish (which was the last thing he wanted to do, early on, but probably sensed would be part of the words that God might give him, words that Balak himself was so insistent on “managing”). 
The story ends curiously ( 24:25): “Then Balaam set out on his journey back home; and Balak also went his way”.
The editors of Etz Chaim conclude that each went back to his previous way of thinking, unaffected by having encountered God’s protective love for Israel. Here again, I do not concur with the rabbis: what the Torah does not say, we may speculate about. I like to think that each of them was changed by this encounter, by being forced to look differently at a situation that was actually unchanged from the beginning to the end: Israel throughout was encamped in the wilderness, not outwardly engaged in any activity apart from daily living.
This perspective, -turning to the wilderness, to the unfamiliar-, was very much at the centre of the conversation held on June 14, at the JCC, by the panelists invited by Paul Adler, to consider very big matters. The learned speakers present offered kernels of wisdom to the assembly: if we want to help bring about peace, to help promote understanding between human beings, between ourselves and people of different faith groups, we must lower our guard, we must suspend judgement, we must listen to our fellow human beings, to what they say, to whom they are, with an open heart. We must not look for omens, for familiar, and comforting, and controlling devices: we must step out of the comfort zone. We must be authentic. We must let go of ourselves and be attentive to the person, to the presence who is at our side. 
Balaam was able to reach that place. 
And despite some rabbis’ view that Balaam was not such a great prophet, one other prophet, Micah, reminds us today in the Haftarah, that he himself appreciated his colleague Balaam. We will hear later this morning Micah’s words (Micah 6: 6-8):
“With what shall I approach the Lord, 
Do homage to God on high?
Shall I approach him with burnt offerings,
With calves a year old?
Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
With myriads of streams of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, 
The fruit of my body for my sins?

He has told you, o man, what is good, 
And what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do justice
And to love goodness,
And to walk modestly with your God.”

What does this mean: to walk modestly with your God? In the context of today’s parsha, perhaps does it mean exactly what Balaam finally discovered: some very difficult things, we cannot get around: we must face them head on, with complete honesty, with humility, without face saving schemes or exit strategies, and hope for the best: hope that God’s spirit is with us to take us through.