Parashat Balak - Insights and Questions
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
Balak king of Moav sees Israel approaching, and he understands that ordinary force is difficult against them. Instead of sending an army, he summons Bilam, a man whose word of blessing or curse is considered to carry power. Bilam wants to go, but again and again it becomes clear to him that he is not the master of his own mouth. Even on the road, his donkey sees the angel of God before him, and he, the “great seer”, is blind to what stands in front of his eyes.
Then comes the climax: Balak places Bilam again and again in different viewing positions, as if changing the camera angle would let him find a flaw in Israel. But every time the mouth opens to curse, a blessing comes out. One of the most famous blessings is: “Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov mishknotecha Yisrael” (How goodly are your tents, O Ya’akov, your dwellings, O Yisrael, Numbers 24:5).
But the ending is shaking: after every attempt to harm Israel from the outside has failed, the danger comes from within, at the Shittim. There Israel falls in sin with the daughters of Moav and with Ba’al Pe’or. A sharp message: sometimes the enemy fails to curse you, so he tries to make you spoil yourself.
A few insights that can really hold attention
1. Balak feared what Israel had not yet done to him. The parasha opens with fear. Balak sees, imagines, gets stressed, and acts out of anxiety. Sometimes a person does not fight the reality, but the movie running in his head. Moav was not attacked, but the fear had already conquered it.
2. Bilam is a lesson on a spiritual person without correction of character. Bilam speaks with God, hears lofty messages, knows how to say great sentences, but inside he chases honor, money and control. A spiritual gift without humility can become more dangerous than ordinary weakness.
3. The donkey sees, the prophet does not see. This is perhaps one of the sharpest moments in the Torah: the man of spiritual vision needs a lesson in seeing from a donkey. Sometimes the person most sure that he sees everything is the most blind. And the simplest reality, even “the donkey”, tries to save him.
4. You cannot curse one whose root is blessed. God says to Bilam: “Lo ta’or et ha’am ki varuch hu” (You shall not curse the people, for they are blessed, Numbers 22:12). This is not only a technical prohibition against cursing. It is a revelation of depth: there is an inner blessing in Israel that does not depend on the gaze of Balak or Bilam.
5. Balak changes places, but does not change his gaze. Balak moves Bilam from point to point, maybe from another angle he will succeed in cursing. There are people who change places, jobs, friends, environments, but do not change their eye. And so they continue to see bad even in a new place.
6. The curse that failed from outside became a trial from within. The ending at the Shittim teaches a piercing idea: when it is impossible to bring Israel down through open hatred, the attempt is made through seduction, mixing, loss of boundaries. This is a shift from frontal war to inner war.
7. The mouth is a weapon or a vessel of the sanctuary. The whole parasha revolves around speech. Balak wants speech that will curse. Bilam wants to control speech. God turns the speech into a blessing. The mouth can destroy lives, but when it is connected to truth, it can turn darkness into blessing.
This parasha leaves a very strong impression: a person can stand on a high mountain and try to see flaws in others, but sometimes what he really discovers is the flaws within himself.
Balak thought he was hiring a mouth, but the Torah reveals that the real war is about the eye
Balak invites Bilam in order to curse. On the surface, everything revolves around the power of speech: curse, blessing, prophecy, mouth. But when read closely, it turns out that the root of the entire parasha is precisely vision.
Bilam is the man who is supposed to be the great “seer”. But on the road, it is precisely the donkey that sees what he does not see. The Torah describes that the angel of God says to him: “Vatir’ani ha’aton vatet lefanai zeh shalosh regalim” (The donkey saw me and turned aside before me these three times, Numbers 22:33). The animal saw, the prophet did not.
And this is not a side detail. This is the key.
Balak keeps trying to change Bilam’s viewing angle. He raises him from place to place, as if telling him: maybe from here you will succeed in seeing Israel in an ugly way. It is even said: “Lechah na ekachecha el makom acher ulai yishar be’einei ha’Elohim vekavoto li misham” (Come now, let me take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you curse them for me from there, Numbers 23:27).
The curse did not fail because Bilam did not know how to speak. It failed because at the moment of truth he was forced to see correctly.
The moment Bilam stops chasing divinations and looks at the truth, the Torah says: “Vayisa Bilam et einav vayar et Yisrael shochen lishvatav vathi alav ruach Elohim” (And Bilam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel dwelling according to its tribes, and the spirit of God came upon him, Numbers 24:2). And from the continuation of that same speech comes the blessing: “Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov mishknotecha Yisrael” (How goodly are your tents, O Ya’akov, your dwellings, O Yisrael, Numbers 24:5).
Balak tried to find the angle from which the people of Israel would look ruined. God forced Bilam to see the angle from which their inner beauty is revealed.
Sometimes our problem in life is not what we say, but from where we look. A person with a crooked eye can turn a blessing into a curse. And a person who receives a true eye discovers that even inside a camp in the wilderness, in sand, tents and tribes, there is a divine light that forces even Bilam to say: there is goodness here that cannot be cursed.
A sharp message: whoever looks for flaws will find mountains of viewing points. Whoever receives an eye of truth will see blessing even in a place where the enemy planned a curse.
Questions on Parashat Balak
- Why was Balak afraid of Israel specifically after the victory over the Amorite, was he afraid of their military strength or of something deeper?
- Why does Balak not go to ordinary war, but seek out specifically the mouth-power of Bilam?
- Did Balak truly believe in blessings and curses, or did he simply understand that there are wars that begin in consciousness?
- Why does the Torah dwell so long on the story of the messengers who come to Bilam, what is hidden in this negotiation?
- What is the inner difference between Balak’s desire to curse and Bilam’s desire to go?
- How is it possible that Bilam speaks with God and still remains such a problematic figure?
- Was Bilam a prophet, a sorcerer, a politician, or a person who used spirituality as a tool of control?
- Why does Bilam say words that sound so God-fearing, while the Torah paints him in a negative light?
- What is the secret in Bilam asking again for permission to go, after he already received an answer not to go?
- Why is it the donkey that sees the angel before Bilam, is this only a miracle, or a deep sting against Bilam?
- What is the message in the fact that the simplest animal in the parasha sees more than the man considered the greatest of seers?
- Why does the angel stand against Bilam three times, and each time the road becomes narrower?
- Is Bilam’s narrow road a parable of his own soul, a person who pushes himself into a place from which there is no return?
- Why does Bilam grow angry at the donkey instead of asking himself what she is trying to save him from?
- What can be learned from the fact that Bilam holds a conversation with a donkey, but does not stop to ask why this is happening?
- Why does Balak move Bilam from place to place in order to curse, is he looking for a weak point in Israel or a blind spot in Bilam?
- What is the deep meaning in the fact that every attempt to curse turns into a blessing?
- Are Bilam’s blessings praise for Israel, or a hidden indictment against Bilam himself?
- Why is the beauty of Israel revealed precisely through the eyes of an enemy?
- What did Bilam really see in the camp of Israel that caused him to speak a blessing instead of a curse?
- Does Parashat Balak teach that a person can be surrounded by enemies, and not know at all how much protection is over him from above?
- Why is the people of Israel almost not active in most of the parasha, while behind the scenes an entire spiritual war is being waged over them?
- What is more dangerous in the parasha, Bilam’s curse from outside, or the fall of Israel at the Shittim from within?
- Does the story of Bilam teach that a person’s greatest enemy is not the one who curses him, but what he himself is willing to lose for the sake of honor?
- What is the most shaking innovation in Parashat Balak: that the Holy One turns a curse into a blessing, or that He reveals that even an enemy can become a vessel that tells the praise of Israel?
Daily Aliyot
Parashat Balak - First Aliyah
The shock of empires. Moav watches what happened to Sichon and Og, and trembles. Israel defeated the kings of Transjordan and began to take its place, in territory and in consciousness. Out of fear, a new tactic is born: not the sword, but the curse.
Parashat Balak - Second Aliyah
Bilam wakes and refuses. But Balak does not give up, sending more important messengers with a larger bribe. Bilam's refusal hides an inner appetite. He leaves a door open, asks to sleep on it another night, and in the night receives a conditional green light.
Parashat Balak - Third Aliyah
One moment of inner blindness can lead a person to the abyss, even when he sees everything with open eyes. Bilam sets out with princes and honor, but beneath the surface his path arouses divine anger. A simple donkey sees what the prophet does not.
Parashat Balak - Fourth Aliyah
The moment Balak waited for: Bilam is about to curse Israel. The preparations are impressive, seven altars, seven bulls, seven rams. But instead of a curse, a blessing pours from his mouth. A people that dwells alone. Bilam wants to die the death of the upright, even without living their life.
Parashat Balak - Fifth Aliyah
Balak does not give up. After Bilam has already blessed Israel, he tries again from a different angle. Perhaps if we do not look at the whole nation but only its edge, we will manage to see it in a negative light. But again, blessing pours forth in place of curse. Israel does not yield to spells or tricks.
Parashat Balak - Sixth Aliyah
At the climax of the story, Balak tries again and again to find a new angle from which the curse might succeed. But instead of a curse comes revelation: the spirit of God rests upon Bilam, and from his mouth flows one of the Torah's most famous blessings - how goodly are your tents, O Jacob.
Parashat Balak - Seventh Aliyah
Silence falls after a series of curses that turned into blessings. Bilam returns home, but before leaving he whispers a vile counsel. The prophecy of the star from Jacob, the sin at Shittim, and the act of Pinchas that stops the plague.