A Thought on Parshas Balak

"...va'yiftach HaShem es pi ha'ason..." (22:28) "...and HaShem opened the mouth of the donkey..." This week we study the puzzling passage of the sorcerer Bilaam, who experienced at least four vision-encounters from HaShem. Perhaps the best known of those experiences is the episode of the donkey that talked to Bilaam. Chazal tell us that the creation of 'the mouth of the donkey' took place early on in the saga of genesis, so important was its role in the story of our people and in the story of humanity itself. It appears as if the conversation between Bilaam and his donkey was brief. It is a matter of debate between our Sages as to how long the animal survived after that interaction. It is also a debate between the Sages as to whether Bilaam alone heard the voice of his beast (something that a sorcerer is more likely to experience) or whether the entourage of Balak also heard that communication. Ibn Shu'aib cites both views in an effort to work through the meaning of the passage. He begins by opining that the Divine message behind the granting of speech to the donkey was like this: HaShem is the One Who grants speech and hearing (Shmos 3:11), giving and removing both as He wishes. It is a remarkable veering from 'teva' - 'nature' - that HaShem would give the faculty of speech to an animal, yet His message to Bilaam was that 'just as I can implant speech, so do I determine what and who can communicate at all times'. This was to signify to Bilaam the futility of his quest to curse the Blessed Nation. Only HaShem determines outcomes. So, according to this approach, the only one who needed to experience the speech of the donkey was Bilaam himself. His 'prophetic vision' was to sober him, not to crown him with an aura of superiority. Thus, reasons ibn Shu'aib, Bilaam was not going to share his encounter with anyone else. It was nothing to brag about that HaShem had granted him a supernatural encounter as a means of deflating his plans to curse the Jews. In fact, he would have been humiliated to share with the Balak cartel that he had heard a donkey talk, and had been warned by it to keep quiet. According to that approach, the implication of the next verse (22:29) that the donkey died after this, takes on a different meaning. The verse means that HaShem saw to it that the beast reverted to its 'animal state', meaning that it lost its enhanced status as a speaker. The power of speech is a life enhancement (see Berishis 2:7). The donkey's 'death' meant that it's higher faculty was no longer present, which is a relative death, or loss of a life quality. Now, the other view holds that not only Bilaam but all of his entourage heard the donkey speak. This approach considers that the entire group witnessed the event because they also sought some form of mystical encounter, whether Divine (in their perception) or whether occult. But they did hear the animal talk to Bilaam. Whether or not its message led them to disparage Bilaam or whether it served to sober them at that supernatural moment and to leave them in awe of a higher reality, the group was more focused on the mystical phenomenon than on its impact on the now-humiliated Bilaam. Why did the donkey then die? According to this approach, it's death was a Divine intervention. Not only had its moment and purpose in creation come, and gone, but the risk was now present that the occult-seeking group would deify the beast. Its demise prevented such idolatry from occurring (compare how Chazal relate how last week's copper snakes were later misperceived by Jews as having some supernatural power which needed to be revered, leading King Chezkiah to destroy them). The donkey had fulfilled its purpose in creation and could not now deflect humanity onto a deviant tangent of believing in any force, energy or power other than HaShem. Good Shabbos. D Fox