Why does the beauty of Israel reveal itself precisely through the eyes of an enemy?

One of the most beautiful sentences ever said about the people of Israel was not said by Moshe Rabbenu, not by Aharon, not by one of the elders of Israel. It was said by Bilam, a man hired to curse.

And the answer, as a midrashic idea, is this: sometimes the greatest beauty is the one that even an enemy cannot deny.

When someone who loves you praises you, you can say: he loves, he is close, he sees you with a kind eye. But when an enemy comes searching for flaws, climbs the mountain, changes angles, tries again and again to find a point of weakness, and in the end a blessing comes out of him, that is testimony of a completely different kind.

Balak did not bring Bilam in order to write a song of praise for Israel. He brought him in order to find the place from which a curse could be spoken. So Balak moves him from spot to spot, as if to say: maybe from here you will see them differently, maybe from here you will find a flaw in them. But precisely inside this hostile gaze, something is revealed that cannot be erased.

The verse says: “Vayisa Bilam et einav vayar et Yisrael shochen lishvatav vat’hi alav ruach Elohim” (And Bilam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel dwelling tribe by tribe, and the spirit of God came upon him, Numbers 24:2). And further in that same speech he says: “Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov mishknotecha Yisrael” (How goodly are your tents, O Ya’akov, your dwellings, O Yisrael, Numbers 24:5).

That is, the beauty is revealed precisely through Bilam’s eye because he did not come to see beauty. He came to find a curse. And when he nevertheless sees good, it reveals that the goodness of Israel does not depend on the compliment of one who loves them. It is an inner truth.

The one who loves sometimes sees the good because he wants to see good. The enemy sees the good even though he does not want to see it. And that is stronger testimony.

As a midrashic idea, Bilam is like a reversed mirror. He arrives with a desire to distort, but the Holy One uses him precisely to reveal a truth. The mouth that was hired to be an instrument of cursing becomes an instrument of blessing. The eye that searched for a flaw becomes a witness to beauty. And this is itself the victory: not only does the enemy fail to harm, he is forced to say exactly what he most did not want to say.

That is why the beauty of Israel is revealed precisely through the eyes of an enemy. There is beauty that, when a friend speaks it, is moving. But when an enemy is forced to speak it, it is shattering.

Sometimes a person feels that the whole world is looking at him with a critical eye. But Parashat Balak reveals that there is an inner point of blessing that even a hostile gaze cannot erase. Sometimes the one who comes to diminish you reveals, without intending to, how great the light is inside you.

More articles in the series on seeing in Parashat Balak:

• The verb ‘vayar’ (and he saw) repeats many times in Parashat Balak - what are the hidden meanings behind it?
• What did Bilam really see in the camp of Israel that made him say a blessing instead of a curse?