Parshas Balak - Maintaining Bechira

Dedicated to a refuah shelaima for Leya Nechama bas Shulamit

Parshas Balak is a rather strange portion of the Torah. Not only does the Torah present a non-Israelite who appears to have a level of intimacy with Hashem that, until now, has seemed unique to Bnei Yisrael – indeed to Moshe in particular - but there is also a talking donkey and an angel with a sword. These attributes, however, are not what make Parshas Balak so confounding. The most perplexing aspects of Parshas Balak are the seemingly contradictory messages that, when examined closely, illustrate the ever-present tension of bechira (free-will) and the Divine hand in the world, and how important that tension is to the Divine Plan for life.

For those unfamiliar with the narrative, Balaam, a non-Israelite “prophet” whose spiritual connection matched that of Moshe, was asked by King Balak of Moav to curse the Israelites. He tells the emissaries of Moav that he can do nothing without Hashem’s approval, and, when he seeks that approval, he is told no rather firmly (22:12). Balaam sends the messengers home, but Balak sends more emissaries, offers greater reward. So Balaam once again requests to do this task for Balak, and “God came to Balaam at night and said to him, ‘If these men have come to call for you, arise and go with them, but the word I speak to you-that you shall do’" (Bamidbar 22:20).

No hesitation. No mulling over the words. Balaam wakes in the morning, saddles his she-donkey, and heads to Balak. And this angers God greatly. But, it seems necessary to ask: Didn’t Hashem give Balaam permission to go with these men, and, if so, how can Hashem be angry at him?

 Obviously, Balaam missed the tone of the permission, but one doesn’t want to think of Hashem being “Passive-Aggressive.” Indeed, that is not the point at all. Hashem gave him permission to go, but Hashem also provided Him with the framework to make the right choice, to choose to follow the path already set out for him at the very outset. It was, one might presume, obvious to Hashem that Balaam had already determined the course of his actions, and the only way to stop him would have been to alter his will.

 Having free will means that one has the ability to ignore the very obvious proper path; one has the freedom to make bad choices (even over and over and over).  Of course, having the freedom to choose the divergent path does not mean that there are no consequences to those choices. There are, indeed, consequences. The Children of Israel chose to listen to the report of the scouts and believe ill of the Promised Land; Hashem let them react, let them be fearful and angry…but their reaction meant that they could not enter the land immediately, that they were not ready.

 On his journey to meet with King Balak, Balaam’s she-ass sees an angel with a sword and balks.  Balaam gets angry with the ass and eventually strikes it; at which point both the she-ass and the angel speak to him. In this moment, Balaam is facing a higher level of communication than almost anyone in the Torah does. He is being prevented with a direct message of displeasure from Hashem, and yet he still has the choice to ignore it.

 Significantly, as noted by Rashi citing the Midrash Tanchuma, the fact that Balaam did not see the angel in the first place was a message to him of his decreasing ability to connect to the spiritual world. Balaam, however, does not acknowledge this shift in himself. He sees himself still as the powerful-“prophet.” He recognizes that he should have seen the angel, not that he was unable to see the angel, and therefore responds: “I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing on the road before me. Now, if it displeases you, I will return” (22:34). The conclusion of this pasuk is also loaded with significance. Balaam, according to the commentators, is implying that the angel would be displeased, that the angel would want him to turn back, and, in so doing, is asking the angel if he is contradicting the permission Balaam feels he has already received from Hashem.

 (One can almost feel the angel shaking its head in despair at the man’s stubbornness.)

 When the angel tells Balaam to go with the men, it is, as Rashi notes quoting Maseches Makkos 10b: “On that road that a man is resolved to go, he is allowed to go.”

 Hashem does not want to directly intervene in a person’s free will. This is why we don’t see open, grandiose miracles on a regular basis. Witnessing or being part of direct Divine intervention reduces one’s ability to function with bechira, and perhaps this is why Hashem became angry when Balaam proceeded on the path after the emissaries returned. He didn’t want to have to interfere.

 Hashem directly removing or limiting a person’s bechira happens even less frequently than open miracles. He warned Balaam not to set out on this path, and still Balaam made his own choices.

 By the time Balaam reached Balak, he had been well-warned that his words would not be his own, should he choose to curse the Israelites. But Balaam also believed that he had twice evaded following Hashem’s will, and so, perhaps, when he told Balak that “I can utter only the word that God puts into my mouth” (22:37), he believed that this too he would be able to talk his way out of.

 And thus we come to the actual act of blessing the Israelites when he intended to curse them. Was this not a direct dissolution of Balaam’s bechira? Hashem literally put words in his mouth! But Balaam had been warned; he had been told what would happen and so it was not a limitation of his bechira – it was a consequence of his choice of action.

 Balaam was an evil, stubborn, and arrogant man, but Balaam’s actions provide us with an important reminder about the world Hashem created. Every person has free will. Every person has the power to make choices in their lives. Hashem can provide startlingly direct messages, and we still have the ability to make the wrong choice. It is not just part of being human; it is an essential aspect of fulfilling our roles in olam hazeh.