Parshat Balak 5774 / 2014
Joining in the Dram-‐edy Numbers 22:28 Then the Eternal opened the donkey’s mouth, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?” Bamidbar Rabbah 20:12 “Then the Eternal opened the donkey’s mouth”—in order to teach Balaam that the mouth and the tongue are in God’s power; that if Balaam sought to curse the Israelites, his mouth was in God’s power. Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel The opposition between God and the sorcerer is the opposition between the Deity and mortal wisdom. In the story of Balaam, we see these two domains. On the one side, the power of Balaam: enchantments, divinations, and altars—the sorcerer’s belief in his own human powers. On the other, the Deity and the Deity’s message (463). [Wizardry is] a science of omens by means of which a human can foretell the future in magic. Wizardry is anathema to the religion of Israel because its purpose is to reveal the secrets of God in an ungodly way. The wizard consults the dead, idols, oracles, his rod, his cup, arrows, the liver, and heavenly omens in order to foretell the future. It is a form of self-‐ pride, self-‐confidence, and an ambition to be like the gods (497). Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets An analysis of prophetic utterances shows that the fundamental experience of the prophet is a fellowship with the feelings of God, a sympathy with the divine pathos. It is not, like love, an attraction to the divine Being, but the assimilation of the prophet’s emotional life to the divine (Volume I, p. 26). The God of the philosophers is unknown and indifferent to man; God thinks, but does not speak; God is conscious of God’s self, but oblivious to the world; while the God of Israel is a God Who loves, a God Who is known to, and concerned with, man. God not only rules the world in the majesty of God’s might and wisdom, but reacts intimately to the events of history. God does not judge men’s deeds impassively and with aloofness; God’s judgment is imbued with the attitude of One to Whom those actions are of the most intimate and profound concern. God does not stand outside the range of human suffering and sorrow. God is personally involved in, even stirred by, the conduct and fate of man (volume II, pp. 3-‐ 4). Source sheet prepared by student rabbi Daniel Reiser |
[email protected] Some research based on Nehama Leibowitz’s Studies in Bamidbar
Parshat Balak 5774 / 2014 Heschel, “I and You,” from The Ineffable Name of God: Man Transmissions flow from your heart to Mine, trading, twining my pain with yours. Am I not—you? Are you not—I? My nerves are clustered with Yours. Your dreams have met with mine. Are we not one in the bodies of millions? Often I glimpse Myself in everyone’s form, hear my own speech—a distant, quiet voice—in people’s weeping, as if under millions of masks My face would lie hidden. I live in Me and in you. Through your lips goes a word from Me to Me, from your eyes drips a tear—its source in Me. When a need pains You, alarm me! When you miss a human being tear open my door! You live in Yourself, You live in me. Mishnah Avot 5:9 Ten things were created at twilight on the eve of the first Sabbath: 1. the mouth of the earth [that swallowed Korach and his gang] (Numbers 16:32); 2. the mouth of the well [by which the Israelites drank in the wilderness] (Num. 21:16); 3. the mouth of the donkey [upon which Balaam rode] (Num. 22:28); 4. the rainbow [after the flood] (Genesis 9:12); 5. the manna [that fed the Israelites in the wilderness] (Exodus 16:14); 6. Aaron's staff; 7. the worm that cut the stones of the altar in the Holy Temple; 8. the inscription on the tablets of the Ten Commandments; 9. and the tablets themselves. 10. Some also include the evil spirits, the grave of Moses, the ram of Abraham; and others add the original tongs, for tongs must be made with tongs.
Source sheet prepared by student rabbi Daniel Reiser |
[email protected] Some research based on Nehama Leibowitz’s Studies in Bamidbar
