Ari Levisohn: Welcome to Into the Verse, where we share new and unexpected insights about the parsha, diving deep into the verses to uncover the Torah’s own commentary on itself. 

Rabbi David Fohrman: I'm Rabbi David Fohrman, and I am joined by one of our scholars here at Aleph Beta, Tikva Hecht, who I understand, Tikva, you've got some interesting material ideas or possibilities to share on Parshat Balak. So give me just a second to sort of set the table for us. Parshat Balak tells us a really intriguing and entertaining story. This king from Moav by the name of Balak, who becomes fearful of the Israelites that are coming his way. He's worried about Israel coming and destroying him, much as Israel destroyed some other kings that oppose them. He seems to be unaware of the fact that Israel has no belligerent stance towards Moav, no beef with Moav whatsoever. But nevertheless, he is afraid and he is seeking a secret weapon.

But rather than reaching for something material, he reaches for something transcendent. He's looking for a mercenary prophet-for-hire, a man by the name of Bilam. Who, by the way, Tikva, I always thought was interesting, that I kind of felt that his name was a contraction of two words: Bal-Am, which is to say, a man without nation. Almost to say that, you know, he's the ultimate mercenary; a prophet-for-hire, somebody with no real allegiances, but somebody who can be hired to make his way into the transcendent realms, and in this case, perhaps curse Israel and stop them in their tracks.

And God seems to be sort of discouraging him from going with Balak to try to curse the people. But look, if this is something Bilam really wants to do...God discourages him, discourages him again. Bilam says, “Please, come on. Can't I go?” And finally, God, you know, lets him go and says, “Look, you can go, but whatever it is that I tell you...I, God, tell you, you, Bilam, have to say. In other words, in the end, you're not going to be successful cursing this people.” And in the end, Bilam is not successful cursing the people. He blesses them instead.

And on the way, this sort of strangely entertaining story. You have Bilam's donkey that comes along and basically seems to see this angel that Bilam himself can't see that’s standing in his way. And that donkey's taking steps to avoid the angel. Bilam doesn't realize that, gets upset at the donkey, keeps on hitting the donkey. The angel keeps on moving, boxes the donkey into evermore tightly controlled spaces until the donkey just kind of collapses. And Bilam just keeps on, almost obsessively hitting this donkey. And finally the donkey opens his mouth and starts speaking and says, like, “What did I ever do to you that you're hitting me this way? I'm just your loyal donkey.”

And Tikva, at least from my perspective, the thing that I always thought was strange about the story, was that Bilam is not even surprised that his donkey's talking to him. It's like, if my donkey was talking to me, I wouldn't answer the donkey. I would be like, “What in the world is going on?? A talking donkey?!” I'd run for the hills.

But Bilam takes it all in stride and just starts having this conversation with the donkey. It's like, “No, you're trying to subvert me.” And then the donkey talks back...and anyway, that's pretty much you’re really quick summary of the story, but go ahead.

Bilam’s Talking Donkey

Tikva Hecht: Well, on that point, what story does it remind you of? Where else do we have a talking animal and the human beings just interact with this animal as if that's just how it goes?

Rabbi Fohrman: And the answer I think clearly to that is back in the Garden of Eden. And what's remarkable about the Garden of Eden story is that there you also have a talking animal. You have this snake that talks. But what's super remarkable is that, in both of these cases of the Torah, these are the only two cases where you ever have a talking animal. What’s remarkable about both these cases and really makes them seem as if they're almost two sides of the same coin is that not only do you have talking animals; in each case, it seems clear that the reader is not supposed to be surprised that there was a talking animal. The Torah is just like, “Yeah, and the animal just talked.” We seem to be living in a world of talking donkeys.

Tikva: In a way, Chazal (the Sages) connects these stories as well. Chazal says that the פִּי הָאָתוֹן, that the mouth of the donkey is created on that first erev Shabbos (Sabbath eve), which is also, according to Chazal, when the story with the snake and the tree happen. So it feels like, in a way, we’re told that the donkey's mouth opens, but it's like the same time that the snake talked, that's when this possibility was created. So it seems like there's some kind of link there.

So I just want to explore with you the connection between these two animals. That, like you said, they're the only two talking animals in Chumash (the Five Books of Moses), in Torah. And maybe it's coincidence, maybe there's a connection, but I think there's another character from the Gan Eden (Garden of Eden) story that's also showing up here.

A Road Back to Eden

Bilam and the donkey, when they're going on their journey, what they run into is an angel. And this angel is described as standing בַּדֶּרֶךְ וְחַרְבּוֹ שְׁלוּפָה בְּיָדוֹ. I’m reading from 22:23 in Numbers. So he's described as standing on this path with a sword drawn in his hand. Now does that remind you of anyone from the Gan Eden story?

Rabbi Fohrman: Well, it certainly does. We have our friendly, or perhaps not-so-friendly, pair of angels known as the Cherubs. And these are the ones who are guarding the way back to the Tree of Life and keeping the people away from Gan Eden. And yes, they're specifically stationed to guard the path back to the Tree of Life, דֶּרֶךְ עֵץ הַחַיִּים (Genesis 3:24). And here, lo and behold, you've got a malach Hashem, you have an angel of God who is בַּדֶּרֶךְ, who's on a path. Is it, perhaps, the path to the Tree of Life?

But what's particularly interesting is that the angel’s got a sword in his hand. Verse 23: וְחַרְבּוֹ שְׁלוּפָה בְּיָדוֹ - He's got this sword drawn in his hand. And of course, the last thing we hear about the angels, the keruvim (Cherubs) that the people see as they leave the garden is that they, too, have swords drawn. They have a fiery, double-edge sword, and here you’ve got an angel with a sword.

So one might curiously muse to themselves, you know, is that a coincidence? Especially because this is the only other story with the talking animal. So, Tikva, if I get you correctly, just to summarize, you've got two stories with talking animals with angels that are בַּדֶּרֶךְ with swords. That sounds pretty intriguing.

Tikva: Yeah, okay. I'm glad you say that, I thought so too. So I started looking; are there more connections between what's happening here with these talking animals and with this angel, just locally in this story of Bilam? You know, if you start letting your imagination roll, it feels like, okay, maybe this is some kind of Gan Eden experience. Well, how is Bilam’s relationship with the donkey at all similar to what happens with the snake and Adam and Chava?

Well, both animals have a little bit more knowledge when they first interact with the human beings than the human beings do, which is one of the other things that seems...right? The snake is aware of the power of the tree. He's more aware of it than the human beings are. He's sort of “post-fruit” himself, in a way. And the donkey is the one aware of the angel.

So both of the animals have that awareness, and then both of the animals use that knowledge in some way to try to manipulate the human beings. And the snake is trying to get them to eat from the tree, so he's trying to manipulate them towards something that they're not supposed to be doing. But the donkey seems to be jumping in and trying to manipulate Bilam; you know, keep him from doing something he shouldn't be doing. So he's trying to save Bilam; the snake is trying to harm Adam.

Rabbi Fohrman: So you're arguing, in a way, that the two are almost opposites. That the snake is using this newfound power of good and evil to harm Adam and try to trick them into, you know, illegitimately eating from the tree, and the donkey is trying to do the opposite, trying to save Bilam from sort of transgressing. That's very interesting.

Tikva: Yeah, and then if you look at their strategies, the way the snake...what the snake says to Chava, he's sort of manipulating her psychologically. He's trying to undermine her trust in God, right? She says, “God said to us we're going to die if we eat from this tree.” And he says, “Oh, no, no, God's fooling you. God's making a fool of you. That's not what's going to happen.” And the way you've often said this, it's like the snake is saying to Chava, “God's just trying to keep all the power for Himself.” So he's undermined their relationship with God, and that's how he tricks her into eating the fruit. It's by, he's undermining that trust that she might have with God, right? “God is actually lying to you.”

One of the things I find really interesting with the Bilam story is when the donkey starts talking and he says, “Why,” you know, “why are you hitting me?” And it's kind of funny, he (Bilam) doesn't say, “You're hurting me.” He doesn't say, “You're getting in my way.” He says, כִּי הִתְעַלַּלְתְּ בִּי - You're making a fool of me (Numbers 22:29). Bilam’s anger towards the donkey is that he feels the donkey is making a fool of him. That's his concern. It's not, “You've hurt me.” It's not the physical pain, it's not the practical inconvenience. It seems like his ego has been somehow, you know, wounded.

If you look at the donkey's response, he doesn't say to Bilam, “Well, there's an angel in the way.” He appeals to Bilam’s friendship. He says (Numbers 22:30): הֲלוֹא אָנֹכִי אֲתֹנְךָ אֲשֶׁר־רָכַבְתָּ עָלַי מֵעוֹדְךָ עַד־הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה הַהַסְכֵּן הִסְכַּנְתִּי לַעֲשׂוֹת לְךָ כֹּה - I'm the donkey that you've rode on all this time. Do I do this to you? 

And so he's appealing to his trust, where the snake is trying to undermine Chava’s trust in God, and that's how he's tricking him into doing what he shouldn't do. It feels like another way these animals are playing almost an inverse role is he's appealing to their relationship, and he's saying to Bilam, “You can trust me.”

And if we think about Bilam, like, entering into Gan Eden, it's like Bilam’s starting from a place of lack of trust. And the donkey is saying to him, “No, no, wait. We actually have a relationship.”

Rabbi Fohrman: So you're giving my brain a little bit too much to chew on here. So let me come back with you and see if I can understand kind of where you're going here. So first of all, you're mentioning that not only do we have two talking animals in these stories, not only would we have two talking animals with angels, angels that are בַּדֶּרֶךְ, angels with a sword, right, but you've said that the function of the two animals is different. One animal is trying to get you to sin. Another animal is trying to protect you.

Similarly, you're suggesting that there's an issue of trust in both cases. In other words, the snake understands that Adam and Eve are supposed to trust God and is seeking to undermine that trust and say that God cannot be trusted.

The only thing I would add, Tikva, is that implicitly the snake is suggesting that I, the snake, can be trusted. In other words, the snake is really saying, “I'm your buddy. I'm your pal. Let me give you a piece of free advice. That guy over there, God, who doesn't want you to eat from the tree? He doesn't have your best interest in mind. You can trust me because I'm your buddy. I'm your pal. I'm the one who would tell you the truth.”

So the snake is implicitly arguing to trust the animal, I would say, much as the animal in the Bilam story is saying implicitly, “Don't you trust me? Don't you trust me?” The difference is that the snake is malevolent and the donkey is benevolent.

So the snake is malevolently saying, implicitly, “You should trust me,” when the snake can't be trusted, and the donkey of Bilam is benevolently saying, “You should trust me. I am loyal to you.” And in fact, he's correct about that.

Tikva: Yeah, you're right. Like, that's a really good point.

Rabbi Fohrman: The other thing that really nails home for me is verse 29 in the Balak story, which you've just quoted. Let's read it out loud: וַיֹּאמֶר בִּלְעָם - So then you have Bilam saying to the donkey, כִּי הִתְעַלַּלְתְּ בִּי - No, you are just playing with me. You are mocking me. לוּ יֶשׁ־חֶרֶב בְּיָדִי - If I only had a sword in my hands right now, כִּי עַתָּה הֲרַגְתִּיךְ - I would use it to kill you.

Now, Tikva, I would ask you to look back at what the snake says to Eve in the story and tell me, what does that remind you of? So Eve says, you know, “We can't eat from this tree.” So the snake says, “Really? לֹא־מוֹת תְּמֻתוּן - You won't die. כִּי יֹדֵעַ אֱלֹקים - It's just that God knows, כִּי בְּיוֹם אֲכׇלְכֶם מִמֶּנּוּ - on the day that you eat it, and on the very day that you eat from it, וְנִפְקְחוּ עֵינֵיכֶם - your eyes are going to be open, וִהְיִיתֶם כֵּאלֹקים יֹדְעֵי טוֹב וָרָע - you'll know, you'll be just like God knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:4-5). That's why he doesn't want you to eat from the tree. You won't die.” The animal, which is the snake, wrongly reassures the human that they're going to be safe and they won't die, as God Himself has said.

Whereas in the Bilam story, it is the human that does the opposite in talking to the animal and threatens the animal to immediately kill them. כִּי עַתָּה - Right now, I would kill you. And then, in both stories, there's the issue of mockery or being the issue of being made a fool of, as you suggest.

The snake’s argument to the woman is, “You've been made a fool of by God. He's tricking you. He doesn't...He's not going to kill you. You're not going to die. It's just, your eyes are going to be open. You'll know the difference between good and evil.” And along comes Bilam to the donkey and says, “You know why I'm so mad at you? Because you're making a fool of me! You know, if I only had that sword, I would kill you now.”

So to me, these connections, the issues of being made a fool of, together with the stakes of death, right, really seem to suggest that these stories are connected, even if in certain ways they're the inverses of one another. In one you have a malevolent snake, and the other you have a benevolent donkey.

Tikva: Right. And just to go back to that point about, like you were saying, the snake seems to be saying...at the same time he's saying, “God is making a fool of you,” he's saying, “You can trust me.” But it seems like that's probably the first moment in Adam and Chava's lives where they even conceptualize the possibility of being made a fool of. So they start off the story from a very trusting place...

Rabbi Fohrman: Adam and Eve?

The Donkey’s Lesson

Tikva: ...Adam and Eve, yeah. I would say, they seem to be coming into this encounter from a place of almost naive trust: “Why would anyone lie to us?” Lying is not part of their reality, it doesn't seem like, and Bilam is walking into this story from a place of, what seems like he has, some insecurity; he has questions of pride. He assumes...the first thing he assumes the donkey is doing is that he's being made a fool of. So I think you're right that the snake, in a way, is similar to the donkey in saying, “Hey, you can trust me.” But, like, in a sense, the net effect of what the snake is doing is undermining Adam and Chava’s ability to trust, and what the donkey seems to be doing for Bilam is saying, “Hey, you can actually trust someone in this world.” You know, “I'm going to be there for you.”

Rabbi Fohrman: Okay, so what you're suggesting is that if the stories are, in fact, inverses of one another, here's how they might be inverses of one another:

In the Adam and Eve story, the Adam and Eve characters are these sort of just-born humans who, like any just-born human, is naive and trusting, right? The world seems like a decent place. Along comes the snake and not only suggests that God might be lying to them, that God might be fooling them, but is, in doing so, opening up Adam and Eve to the possibility that someone might actually fool them, that it's a thing that you can be lied to, that you can be deceived, that you can be betrayed. The snake is suggesting that betrayal is a fact of life in the world, and that, at some level, once you introduce that and you convince someone of that, they're never the same again. They're never as trusting. Their inherent trust of the world has been broken.

Betrayal is always the possibility, and that's...at a certain level, one could even argue that that's the great evil of the snake. They've sort of suggested that duplicity and evil and betrayal exists. And once it exists, then, you know, you can't ever be so trusting anymore, if that's what's required of you.

And similarly, by the inverse, you have a character who seems to be well aware of betrayal. It's almost like one gets the sense that Bilam is this sort of beleaguered mercenary, right? A mercenary is someone for whom loyalty is at the zero place on a zero-to-10 scale.

And therefore, betrayal and duplicity and changing your mind is always the name of the game. And so, obviously, the first thing that Bilam thinks his donkey's doing when he's collapsing is playing games with him, is being duplicitous, right?

And along comes the donkey and is trying to lead Bilam to an alternative way of understanding the world, which is, “You know what? There are some people you can trust. There are some beings you can trust. Look at your experience. What has your experience been with me, Bilam? I've been your donkey for a long time. I've never done this to you. Time after time after time, I have gone wherever you've gone.”

Tikva: Right, and I think it's so fascinating. Like, you were saying that if you look at Bilam, he seems like he doesn't have any allegiance, he doesn't have any loyalty. On a simple reading of the text, what he says is, “I can only follow God, I can only follow God (Numbers 22:13, 18, 38, et al.).” When Balak sends the messengers, that's his official answer. When the messengers come again, he goes back and he asks God again. Why does he go back and ask God again?

Rabbi Fohrman: Sometimes we see God in our own image. You know, we say that we're created in God's image, but sometimes we end up seeing God in our own image. And if I'm a mercenary, who is God? God is just a much more powerful mercenary. So, sure, I'll worship God, but that doesn't mean He has any more loyalty than I have. So just because God comes along and says, “Don't curse Israel, they're blessed,” doesn't mean I trust that. If I needle Him a different way, if I offer God this, if I come over here, His Mind can be swayed because, you know, everyone's got their price. So Bilam the mercenary is the one who's always haggling over the price.

Tikva: I think, in a way, if you think about that worldview, you can say, well, that's a world without good and evil.

The Relationship Between Trust and Knowledge of Good and Evil

Rabbi Fohrman: So now you're actually, really...my mind is just blown over here, because you just dropped something, and let's just consider the implications of that before you even go further. So now you're saying, let's talk about good and evil here, right? How does good and evil play into this world of mercenaries where no one can be trusted?

And I think what you're suggesting, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that a mercenary lives in a sort of caricature of our world which, in a way, is a world in which there is no good and evil. In other words, all there is is money. All there is, is your price, or power. One might even argue, perhaps, that maybe the stories are teaching that a predicate for having good and evil in your life is actually having some loyalty. Another word for that is actually having some trust.

In other words, God was trying to help them understand that the world can be trusted, that I'm a Benevolent God, that I'm feeding you. I'm giving you access to all of these trees, and there's this one tree that, just trust me, you shouldn't eat from yet.

And it's like, “But why, God, why?”

“Just trust Me. Don't you see I'm taking care of you?”

Why was God doing that? What was the game? The answer is, God didn't want to always keep them away from understanding good and evil. God was actually giving them a predicate for understanding good and evil, the basis of what you need to live in a world of good and evil.

It's almost like, you know, what do you learn in kindergarten? What do you learn as a child? What is the work of a child before their mind can expand and consider morality and good and evil and all that? The answer is, you need to learn that the world is a good place. The world is a place where trust is a thing, where you can actually rely on people who suggest that they're there to love you and are connected to you.

And if you don't believe that there's this real thing called love in the world, that there's this Being on High who is to be worshiped not just because He's powerful, but because He loves you. If you don't believe that, you can't have access to good and evil; there is no good and evil. You know why? Because all there is, is self-preservation. All there is, is, “I need to look out for me because who else is going to look out for me?”

And in a way, seen that way, the donkey really is the inverse of the snake, because what the donkey is doing, instead of tempting Adam and Eve to sin by undermining the predicate for their understanding of good and evil, what the donkey's actually doing is saying, “There is something you can trust. You can at least begin to trust me. And if you could begin to trust me, maybe you can learn to trust God.”

So seen that way, the stories, I think, come together in a powerful way. What they're suggesting is that Bilam and Adam and Eve have something very important to learn before good and evil can even be a thing for them. And that is the idea is that there's somebody in the world that can be trusted. For Adam and Eve, it's God; for Bilam, let's just at least start with the donkey.

And one last thing I would say about this, Tikva, is that, what do you think is the common denominator between the donkey and God? God says, “I'm asking you to do something rational. I'm asking you to look at your experience and extrapolate from it. Day after day after day after day, there's food for you. Day after day after day, I provide. Don't you think that's good enough grounds that you can trust Me?”

And the donkey makes exactly the same argument. An argument, not just as blind trust; the donkey's actually making a logical argument. He's saying, “אָנֹכִי אֲתֹנְךָ - I have been here always. You've always ridden on me. I've never acted this way before. Don't you think you can trust me?” Both God and the donkey are helping to educate someone into the world of trust through an appeal to experience.

Tikva: I think that you're making a connection between trust as the foundation. First you have trust and then there's a possibility of maybe one day you would eat from the food. It's not that knowledge of good and evil is always off limits, but that God first wanted us to establish trust and then eventually we might be able to eat from the fruit.

And it seems almost like trust is the necessary first step. And it seems to me that, what's the difference between looking at someone who's doing an action over and over again, but you don't have trust there? You just say, well, for some reason they want to do this action. It's a whim. It's just whatever. For some reason, they like doing this thing. 

So let's take Bilam and the donkey, with Bilam riding on the donkey, right? So he knows that the donkey lets him ride on his back every day. But what's the donkey saying to him? He's saying, “I don't just do that out of a whim. I don't just do that because I enjoy that. I don't do that because every day I happen to wake up and this is what I want to do. I do that because I have a relationship with you. I have a connection to you. There's something larger that I live for than just myself. I live partially for you. You and me are involved in something larger than ourselves.” 

Rabbi Fohrman: And that's expressed in the language: הֲלוֹא אָנֹכִי אֲתֹנְךָ - Am I not your donkey? In other words, “I'm yours. I'm connected to you. I'm your donkey till the day I die, and I've acted consistently in your care, in support of this notion that I love you. I'm connected to you. You're my master.”

Tikva: Yeah, but I’m saying something slightly different. I’m just trying to take it to the next step. If you want to prep Bilam’s mind; someone in that mindset where, you know, he just lives for himself, but there might be a concept of good and evil, there might be some value system that is larger than you and, you know, you could devote your life to something larger than you, you have to open up the mind to the possibility of something larger than yourself. And it seems like trust has that same structure of, “There's something larger than just me. I don't just live for myself; I live for us.” And that's when Bilam's mind starts maybe opening up to, “Wait a second. There's a  way to live in this world that there is something larger than just me.” 

Bilam Begins to Learn

And I think, if you look at what happens next in the story, all of a sudden, Bilam's eyes are opened and he sees the angel. And then he has this exchange with the angel, where the angel gets mad at him and says, “I would've killed you. Your donkey saved you. So finally, Bilam knows the information. It's not just, “Trust me.” Now he knows what actually the danger was. And then if you look at Bilam's reaction, he immediately apologizes. He confesses and he says, “חָטָאתִי - I sinned, כִּי לֹא יָדַעְתִּי - I didn't know” (Numbers 22:34).

In the garden, they know. And he has knowledge, but his way of relating to it, “I didn't know. There was something I didn't see. There was something that I was blind to, I was missing,” that feels like he's starting to open up to something beyond himself.

Rabbi Fohrman: Especially because the next words are, “Yeah, I didn't know that you were there to greet me, angel, בַּדֶּרֶךְ - in the way. וְעַתָּה - And now, אִם־רַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ אָשׁוּבָה לִּי - if it's evil in your eyes, tell me and I won't go.”

So he's playing with these same words of knowledge and evil, right? Which is the name of the tree which, your argument is, he's on the brink of discovering this great truth in the tree that there is such a thing as a system called good and evil that rides on the idea that loyalty might really be a thing.

Tikva: Yeah, that you can have allegiance to something larger than yourself...

Rabbi Fohrman: ...Which is something he's just beginning to get an inkling of. Very interesting.

Bilam's Redemption

Tikva: Yeah, and just to show you one last thing, given everything that we're saying, I think the final support for it is, if you skim the story before this verse, verse 34, where he says to the angel, “אִם־רַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ - If it's evil in your eyes, I won't, you know...I'll turn back,” this is the first time you have that language of טוֹב or רַע (good or bad). You don't have that language showing up. This is the first time in the Bilam narrative that you have רַע, so that you have a value judgment beforehand. It's always action. It's, “I can't go with you, God doesn't let me go with you. This is what I’m not allowed to do.”

Rabbi Fohrman: There's no moral compass of what's right and wrong. 

Tikva: Right, and so here we just have רַע, we don't have טוֹב. But once Bilam meets up with Balak and he attempts to curse the first time, he attempts to curse the second time, and each time that he attempts to curse, it turns into a blessing. And in each of those cases we're told that God puts the words in his mouth. He's really just a puppet for God. But the third time that Bilam attempts a curse, something different happens. And if you look, this is Numbers 24:1.

Rabbi Fohrman: The verse you're referring to is, this is really the turning point where Bilam finally drops his plan to curse the people. After all these times of really trying to “mercenary” God into it, trying to figure out, “Yeah, God's really going to change His mind;” finally, when Bilam drops the mercenary attitude for good and actually sees that there might just be an absolute truth that can be trusted, which is that God loves the people of Israel.

The language for that includes the word tov: וַיַּרְא בִּלְעָם כִּי טוֹב בְּעֵינֵי יְקוָה לְבָרֵךְ אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל - And Bilam saw that it was good in the eyes of God to bless Israel, וְלֹא־הָלַךְ כְּפַעַם־בְּפַעַם לִקְרַאת נְחָשִׁים - and he no longer tries, by means of sorcery, to change God's mind, so to speak (Numbers 24:1). And what's interesting here, Tikva, is, if you look at this language, וַיַּרְא בִּלְעָם כִּי טוֹב בְּעֵינֵי יְקוָה, it really plays off of the last time. Notice what he said earlier. He says to the angel, “Look, I didn't know you were here. עַתָּה - And now, if it's bad in your eyes, tell me.”

Notice how conditional that is, right, and how Bilam is not really taking responsibility for any moral understanding, but placing it on someone else, which is the angel. So you're right, this is the first moment where you have the glimmering of morality that enters into the picture that there's even a moral judgment. But Bilam's not quite ready to own that. 

וְעַתָּה אִם־רַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ אָשׁוּבָה לִּי - And now, if it's bad in your eyes, you should let me know (Numbers 22:34). Oh, you didn't let me know? I guess I can keep on going, right? So I'm not making any judgments. I'm just allowing for the possibility that maybe you can make a judgment, but then you finally have...at the very end, Bilam actually realizes something categorically. There's no conditional. There's no, like, “If this is what you think...” It's like, “No, I see. I understand what God thinks is good.”

וַיַּרְא בִּלְעָם כִּי טוֹב בְּעֵינֵי יְקוָה...And by the way, Tikva, it's really interesting. You know, וַיַּרְא כִּי טוֹב, that language reminds us of a lot back in Genesis. That's the language God always uses when He first sees that things are good, right? The very first “goods” in the Torah. Every time God creates something; וַיַּרְא כִּי טוֹב, וַיַּרְא כִּי טוֹב, He sees that it's good, He sees that it's good. And when Eve seems to begin to misappropriate truth and falsehood by eating from the tree, וַתֵּרֶא הָאִשָּׁה כִּי טוֹב הָעֵץ לְמַאֲכָל - The woman saw, כִּי טוֹב - that it was good to eat (Genesis 3:6). And then she has her own ideas of what's good. And now, you know, “I think it's good to eat even though God says not to eat.”

And here, what you have is Bilam finally understanding כִּי טוֹב; that there is a truth to God and to what God wants, that he's willing to abide by לְבָרֵךְ אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל, and that is to bless the people of Israel.

So I think your argument that this story is about the education of Bilam in the ways of good and evil, the notion that there is an objective morality and it does align with God, and I am required to abide by it; I think what you're saying is that that comes from somewhere. And the predicate for all of that is his discussion with the donkey.

And I think as almost a teacher of young children or even of adults, that trust can be a thing, because trust exists there in the world. And I wonder if, at some level, the donkey is this most humble of creatures; not even a human being, just an animal. But the donkey, in contradistinction to the snake, is bringing in someone cynical and someone who has lost faith in trust and begins to understand that it's a possibility in the world through his interactions with an animal.

I think it’s fascinating and can almost extrapolate from there to other realms. Not just relationships between man and animal, but relationships between man and man, and ultimately even relationships between man and God, which is Bilam's final understanding; an understanding of what God thinks is good and a willingness to abide by it, because I'm dropping the idea that everyone has a price.

One Last Connection

Tikva: There's one last pasuk (verse) that I want to show you that I think really makes this point. For me, it was really powerful to see. If you go a little bit later in the story, after Balak realizes that, once again, his plot has been foiled, and once again, Bilam has blessed the people instead of cursed him, so we have some language that seems very reminiscent of what we have at the beginning of the story.

So I'm looking at the end of chapter 24, in verse 12. At the end of this third curse (or blessing), when Balak realizes that once again Bilam has blessed the people instead of cursed them, he gets extremely upset. And he says to Bilam, “I was going to give you all of these rewards. I was going to give you so much wealth.” וַיֹּאמֶר בִּלְעָם אֶל־בָּלָק, and this is actually echoing what the messengers of Balak say the second time they come to Bilam - He says to Balak, “I said to them, אִם־יִתֶּן־לִי בָלָק מְלֹא בֵיתוֹ כֶּסֶף וְזָהָב לֹא אוּכַל לַעֲבֹר אֶת־פִּי יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת טוֹבָה אוֹ רָעָה מִלִּבִּי אֲשֶׁר־יְדַבֵּר יְקוָה אֹתוֹ אֲדַבֵּר - Even if you had given me a house full of gold and silver, I can't trespass over the word of God to do good or bad from my own heart, of my own accord, against the word of God.”

Now look back at 22:18, that Bilam is referring to, and he says it verbatim except there’s something slightly different. 

Rabbi Fohrman: So he's basically referencing an earlier conversation, paraphrasing an earlier conversation that we have access to. But the point you're making, I guess, is that what he said earlier wasn't really exactly what he's saying now. He thinks it's what he's saying now, but it's not. If you go, actually, back to his earlier verse, he says to these messengers, “Look, if Balak would give me a house full of gold and silver, לֹא אוּכַל לַעֲבֹר אֶת־פִּי יְקוָה - I wouldn't be able to transgress what God says, לַעֲשׂוֹת קְטַנָּה אוֹ גְדוֹלָה - to do something small or something large.” But notice that what he's not saying is “to do good or to do evil,” and it really supports the point you're making; that at this point, he doesn't really have an understanding of good and evil.

He's pre-”good and evil,” in a bad way, right? Because he's so cynical that there is no such thing as trust, that there just isn't anything called good and evil. There's just, like, “Well, I would never go against God. God's so powerful. I can never challenge Him to do what's little or what's big.” But there is no good and evil.

But later on, it's almost like he doesn't understand that. Later on, when he's changed and his donkey has helped him come to understand that trust is in the world, and good and evil now is a thing for him, he's like, “Well, didn't I tell you earlier that I can never do anything to go against God, to do good or to do evil?” as if he had always understood it.

And maybe the change in Bilam is imperceptible to Bilam. Bilam doesn't understand that that change has been made, but we, the reader, can understand it and understand that this is a new thing for him.

Denouncing the Fruit

Tikva: The thing I find so interesting is, he says that, “I can't do טוֹבָה אוֹ רָעָה מִלִּבִּי - I can't do by my own accord; like, my preference for good or bad” (Numbers 24:13). Suddenly he's aware that he might have a sense of good and evil himself. It's like he wakes up as a person. And this verse is full of conflict between, I might be pulled towards good or evil in my heart one way, but I'm going to follow God.

Rabbi Fohrman: And that really puts him where he needs to be, which is to understand that, “I'm not going to make these judgments about what's good and what's wrong. I've seen what God thinks is good, and that's enough for me right now, and I can leave it to God.” It's almost like renouncing the fruit of good and evil. Once you begin to know there is something good and evil, I'll leave that to God. I see what's good in the eyes of God, and I'm not going to say good or evil against that.

Tikva, I just want to point out, thank you for this beautiful understanding, and to me it just really gets to this idea that there is a predicate to good and evil and there's a reason. You know, it seems so maddening: If God really wanted us one day to understand the difference between good and evil, what was He waiting for? Why not just let us eat from this tree? Why not just give us access to good and evil? But the answer is, an understanding of good and evil comes from somewhere.

Even little kids that don't really understand morality and don’t understand good and evil, they're very busy understanding the predicates for good and evil. They're very busy learning to trust people who love them. That really is the work of childhood, and the work of a parent is to create the conditions that allow a child to trust you. Because without that, your child will never grow up to understand good and evil. It's heavy work.

And to me, the story that you're sketching it out also offers hope, which is that, when we live scarred lives and we become burned by betrayal and by those who have tricked us, you can become cynical, and there's no greater cynic than Bilam. The guy who's just looking out for Number One, to be the ultimate mercenary, to be the one who's Bal-Am. And yet, there's a way back.

So, Tikva, with that, I'll just say thank you very much for opening my eyes, much as Bilam's eyes are opened to see the angel in the story, perhaps one of the keruvim guarding the tree of life and these mysterious connections back to the story of the Garden of Eden and their possible implications. I really appreciate it.

Tikva: Thank you so much. 

Credits

This episode was recorded by Rabbi David Fohrman and Tikva Hecht.

Audio editing for this episode was done by Shifra Jacobs, with additional edits by Hillary Guttman.

Our production manager is Adina Blaustein. 

Our senior editor is Ari Levisohn.

Thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next week.