Adapted from the writings of Rav Moshe Leib HaCohen Halbershtat, yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.
This week's Torah portion of Balak (Bamidbar 22,1-25,9) discusses the Gentile prophet Bil'am and his attempt to help the Moavites vanquish Israel via his power of speech. This happened just after the Israelites had defeated the Canaanites, the Emorites and the Bashanites – all of whom had sought to prevent Israel from reaching Eretz Yisrael.
The situation was such that the Israelites had grown quite confident of their military abilities, after tasting the sweet taste of victory, and had begun to feel that it was their own prowess that had brought them success. "Here we are," they began to feel, "a nation of former slaves that has defeated two regional powers; we're now really on the map! The others will think twice before they start up with us." [This precisely was what Moshe later warned them against: "Do not say 'my own power and strength brought me all this'" (D'varim 8,17).]
The Medrash tells us that Balak, King of Moav, feared that he might be next to be defeated. He therefore convened an urgent meeting of his military officers and intelligence personnel to see how to counteract the looming Israelite threat. In the background was the clear fact that Israel was winning battles super-naturally. Balak himself, an admired astrologist, saw in the stars that he could in fact defeat Israel – but he didn't know what he should do to bring this about.
Aware that Israel's leader Moshe had grown up in Midian, Balak turned to Midian – his erstwhile enemy with whom he now made peace in order to fight their common potential enemy, Israel – to ascertain the secret of Moshe's leadership and strength. The Midianites told him that Moshe's strength was in his "mouth," his power of speech. Balak now understood that he could not fight a conventional war against Israel, and so he said, "Let's get someone who truly understands and can implement the source of the Israelites' power and he will lead us against them."
The Moavites therefore reached out to Bil'am, who was known to be able to win battles with the power of his mouth. He would curse Israel, King Balak assumed, and Israel would be defeated.
However, both Balak and Bil'am made a bitter mistake. They did not know that Moshe's above warning concludes as follows: "Remember that it is Hashem your G-d Who gives you the power to succeed" (D'varim 8,18). Without G-d, Heaven forbid, neither the greatest generals nor the most state-of-the-art weaponry can help Israel win a war – but with G-d, nothing can stop them! It was G-d Who enabled Israel's power of prayer to be effective in their wars against King Sichon of the Emorites and King Og of the Bashan. But if Hashem decides that the power of the mouth is not sufficient in a given case, then even a great prophet such as Bil'am, who was able to determine with pinpoint accuracy the precise second that G-d could be expected to be angered (Rashi to Bamidbar 24,16, based on Sanhedrin 105b), will not be able to succeed.
It is only Hashem "Who gives you the ability to succeed," whether the war is fought with conventional means or via words and speech; neither type of weapon has any value if G-d does not render it effective.
Bil'am, after failing to successfully curse Israel, offers to advise Balak as to how he could defeat Israel: "Come and I will advise you" (24,14). The Medrash tells us that he explained to Balak how precisely to entice Israel into sinning with the daughters of Moav. In fact, we soon read, "Yisrael abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit harlotry with the daughters of Moav" (25,1). This was the result of Bil'am's advice, as Moshe later said (31,16).
In our words: Bil'am was a great enemy of Israel, and tried many times to curse and trip them up. At one point, as recounted in this week's portion, "G-d opened the mouth of [Bil'am's] donkey" (22,28), and it began to speak, scolding Bil'am for hitting it. G-d thus gave Bil'am a message so clear that only someone blinded by his hatred, such as Bil'am, could miss it. The message was that the power of the mouth is dependent solely on G-d; if He wishes and decides, then even a donkey can open its mouth and speak! But Bil'am was unable to receive the message; he may have understood it, but he certainly did not internalize it, and continued to try to curse Israel.
But it didn't work, and Bil'am ended up blessing Israel instead: "No black magic exists in Jacob, and no occult powers in Israel" (verse 23); the time will yet come when G-d's love for Israel will be revealed to all. "The nation will arise like a great lion, and will lift itself up like a young lion" (verse 24) – when the Israelites awaken in the morning, they jump up to fulfill the mitzvot, to wear tzitzit, to recite Kriat Shma, and to put on tefillin (see Rashi to verses 23-24). Bil'am is here showing that he understands that the power of his speech is limited because of the mitzvot that Israel fulfills, and that this is why G-d is not allowing his curses to be effective against them. Bil'am then drops the bomb, his final piece of ammunition: "If you want to defeat Israel, Moav, then your only hope is to cause them to sin. That's the only scenario in which G-d will remove His protective shield from them."
Most sorrowfully, Bil'am's plan worked. The Israelites sinned gravely, and a great plague broke out among them. Pinchas ben Elazar saved the day by realizing that the correct Halakhic response was to kill the ringleader of the sinners and thus stop the public desecration of G-d's name. And so, after 24,000 sinners were killed, the plague was stopped, and G-d's protection was restored to Israel.
The People of Israel thus learned the hard way a critical lesson for all future generations: "The scorpion does not kill; it is sin that kills" (B'rachot 33a). Whatever ammunition or weapons are used, whether they be conventional, nuclear, biological – or a curse – none of them have intrinsic value or strength. They can never penetrate the Divine defenses – unless these are removed. And even then, the weapons may have no value: a plague can break out on its own, as it did in this case. That only strategy then is to restore the spiritual Divine protection to Israel, by sanctifying G-d's name via the mitzvot. This is the critical message of Parashat Balak.
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