פרשת חקת - בלק

Bamidbar Chapter 19: The Parah Adumah and Purification from Corpse Impurity

Introduction: Context and Timing

Today we’re reading Bamidbar chapter 19, interestingly being recorded on Erev Shabbos Parah where we read this chapter precisely. But now we’re reading it in the context of Sefer Bamidbar so we have to talk a minute about the context.

The Placement of Chapter 19 Within Sefer Bamidbar

The Preceding Series of Mitzvos

As we’ve discussed, this Sefer Bamidbar has these groups of mitzvos, right? We just came from a group of mitzvos which we explained very well yesterday, how it really is connected with the answer to the question, the establishment of the hierarchy of the kohanim and the leviyim and everyone else in a way in which we can understand by giving this story and explaining how this is really all in response to certain challenges, to certain questions.

But now, this is the last mitzvah in this series. There’s one more mitzvah that seems to not connect to that, although there is one way in which it’s connected as the Ramban notes here, but it seems not to be connected with that. It’s not about like matnas kehunah, it’s not establishing the hierarchy, the levels of access to the Mishkan and things like that—that’s not what it’s doing.

The Ramban’s Connection: The Role of the Kohen

One thing in which it might be connected—I don’t know if this is entirely peshat, but what the Ramban says—it’s connected in one way, which is that the kohen is mentioned here a lot. And also I think the Midrash counted it, it says nine times hakohen, so there seems to be a point in which the kohen is in charge of this, and this may be interesting, maybe it’s important, maybe it’s part of the whole thing.

If we connect it with this context, we’ll say something like: the Mishkan, the Mikdash is protected from impure people or not purified people, not holy people accessing it. One of the main ways in which it’s protected by that is—right, in general, even when he is pure, a Yisroel or someone who is not authorized, not a kohen cannot go, but even a kohen or even in the ways in which a Yisroel could go, when he is impure, when he is tamei lanefesh, especially, he cannot go as we’ve learned in Parshas Behaalosecha, and as we just learned, the one in charge of that is really the kohen. The kohen is the one in charge of mishmeres hamishkan, right? They have to watch that nobody who doesn’t belong should be able to go into the Mishkan, and that’s the job of the kohen.

And here we give the kohen also the other side of the job. So that’s maybe the nice thing, like we’ve been saying: the kohen is not only the one in charge of the harsh hierarchical structure, he’s also in charge of making sure that—taking the responsibility for who will come and taking responsibility for the people that will not come and giving them blessings. So maybe in this sense, the kohen is the one who is creating this taharah, this mechatas, which will purify the one who is tamei lanefesh, the one who was impurified, became not pure by touching a dead body. That’s the kohen in charge.

A New Type of Purification

And this is interesting, because there’s different ways of becoming pure. We learned in Parshas Tazria, there’s kibbos begadim [washing of garments], or going to the mikveh, which are washing with water, as the Torah calls it, and those are things that it’s not the kohen’s responsibility. It’s just, you know, whoever wants to become purified, he has to go to the mikveh, he has to get purified in whichever way he gets purified.

Here there’s a new kind of purification, which the kohen—it’s the kohen’s job to do it. Of course, it’s not entirely the only one that’s like this, because this connects really to a series of purifications that work through korbanos, through a kind of korban.

The Structure: Two Parts

So I think that that’s the simple meaning of this whole story, so we see that there’s two parts in it really. The first part is the hakravah, the kind of korban—it’s not entirely a korban, it works more like a chatas, chatas hanisrefes. In any case, a kind of shechitah, a kind of korban, which then, what is left from that korban, the ash from that korban, becomes the purification. But it’s for sure true still that the shechitah is a korban, and the whole process of sort of creating this efer parah [ash of the cow], it’s a kind of chatas, let’s just call the chatas over here, it’s a kind of chatas, which is similar to the chatas, all the chataos hanisrefes, which over there we sprinkle their blood in the mizbe’ach and so on.

But they all have a similar logic where there’s a korban that causes also a purification. Generally korbanos are not for purification, they’re for something called kapparah, atonement, or for a simchah, like a zevach, things like that. But there are certain korbanos, like the korbanos of miluim, which are also—were done in this book, again in Parshas, well no, mostly in Parshas Sefer Vayikra—but the korbanos of miluim, which are also, their job, or part of their job is to purify. So in a similar way, this is a korban whose job is to purify.

Of course also a nazir has a korban like this, or a yoledes, that are what’s called mechusarei kapparah. Some tumos need also a korban to purify them, just bringing a korban. But here it’s not just bringing a korban, it’s that the korban itself becomes somehow the—we call the detergent, the thing that purifies you. So that’s this parsha.

Why This Mitzvah Appears Here Rather Than in Vayikra

And that’s one way of connecting it to where we’re coming from. Ramban says this, he says that it belongs here because it’s all, to tell us that it’s all a kohen that does it. But in a broader sense this is just really an appendix to the parshas of tumah v’taharah, which are really in Sefer Vayikra.

Even the halachos of this tumah—this is an interesting thing—in Tazria and Metzora we had, like I mentioned, the tzarua, zav and tamei lanefesh are a set that are mentioned in Parshas Naso when we send them out of the camp. And now, sorry, in Behaalosecha when we send them out of the camp we have this three sets. So tzarua, zav, those are things that their way of purification is mentioned explicitly in Parshas Tazria and in Parshas Metzora. But tamei lanefesh, what we call tamei lanefesh, is not mentioned. It’s mentioned that it is impure, we mentioned also that a kohen in Parshas Emor we discussed that a kohen is not allowed to ever touch it, we mentioned it about a nazir in the same way in Parshas Naso, that a nazir doesn’t become impure or nefesh, but we did not mention how to purify it. And this is the only place where the purification of that is mentioned.

So it’s sort of the wrong place, possibly because it’s a longer, complicated process, although the metzora is also a complicated process. It’s there, it’s not clear why it’s here.

Thematic Reasons for Placement in Bamidbar

So maybe the reason that I gave is a reason, or could have to do also with the idea of the expansion that we discussed, that this is the expansion. And in some sense tamei lanefesh is like the furthest, right? Remember, being entirely dead is being not part of the community, unless you’re dead in a way in which you stay part of the community. But in any case, in some sense, and this parah adumah is also something done michutz lamachaneh [outside the camp]—the shechitah, the sreifah, all that is done michutz lamachaneh.

So this might have to do in another way, and it has to do with the general theme of Sefer Bamidbar, which is expanding, expand all the way to the edge of the machaneh. We can also see in some sense, like the story of Korach, or the stories of the challenges to the machaneh, right, the challenge—Shelach, Korach—these are all challenges to the machaneh, to the structure of the machaneh. And therefore in sort of being metaphol, sort of working with what’s outside, and now it goes all the way outside, michutz lamachaneh, and can even purify that. So that’s another way of saying it.

Reading the Pesukim: The Ma’aseh Parah

So anyways, let’s read. So as we said, there’s two parts. The first part is the creation, the ma’aseh parah, and then the second part is the hilchos tumas meis, or the hilchos taharan tumas meis.

Pasuk 1-2: The Introduction and Requirements

So first we have Hashem speaking to Moshe and Aharon, and this is, it’s headers, this is the law—I think chukah doesn’t mean, the law means something like the ritual, the order that is always a set order, it’s called the chukah, or the seder, the order of the—and Torah is a teaching, like Torah is Kohanim, with many parts with the header Torah. So that’s I think chukas haTorah [the ritual law of the Torah]. I’ve written about this at length, to explain chukas haTorah. Chukas Torah says one more time also in Sefer Bamidbar, and this is what Hashem commanded.

Speak to the Bnei Yisrael, they’ll do this, they’ll give you, they should bring you a parah adumah [red cow], a red cow. So that’s the—of course that’s—the parshah is named after the redness, parah adumah. It’s very important that it should be red, probably to symbolize blood or something like that.

It should be whole, tmimah [unblemished], right? Now tmimum, that’s every korban is like that, and it explains tmimah asher ein bah mum [unblemished, which has no defect in it]. There’s the Chachamim understand tmimah to be something to do with the redness—it should be fully red. But I think literally it’s just the same thing as ein bah mum [no defect in it].

And asher lo alah aleha ol [upon which no yoke has been placed], also we have something similar by the eglah arufah. So a parah that has not had a yoke on it. So if it had a yoke, it’s like it’s a work animal. We don’t want a work animal, we want something that is a fresh parah, so it’s entirely sacrificed to this, it’s entirely dedicated to this.

Pasuk 3: Given to Elazar HaKohen

And they will take it—so again this is also a structure that we have many times here by Hashem as Isaac, by other things, the people, it’s sort of their responsibility to bring it, and they give it to Elazar HaKohen. So again Elazar HaKohen, that’s also interesting. We discussed yesterday, in the previous chapter, Aharon HaKohen. This chapter, this story seems to be given in a time when Aharon HaKohen is already older, or less capable of doing everything, so it’s Elazar. Of course, maybe Elazar was always helping him, but there’s some aspect of the giving over of the kehunah to Elazar already over here I think.

And what will Elazar do? He will take out this parah to the outside of the camp, and he will, v’shachat otah lefanav [and slaughter it before him]—he will slaughter it in front of him, apparently someone else will slaughter it in front of him, or he will slaughter it in front of the camp, or something like that.

Pasuk 4: The Sprinkling of the Blood

And then what he will do is, take the dam, as I said, it’s very similar to all the chataos hanisrefes, which we take their blood and we sprinkle it on the paroches, or towards the paroches. Here he’s not doing it literally on the paroches, it already starts, other than the regular chataos hanisrefes, which you sprinkle the blood inside—even the opposite, some of them get even brought inside the kodesh hakodashim. This one, he’s sprinkling the blood towards, towards the penei Ohel Moed [facing the Tent of Meeting], towards the side of the Ohel Moed, but not there, just like in that direction.

So seven times, seven times is the amount of all these kinds of sprinklings. In some sense what this means is that symbolically it’s purifying the Mikdash from the tumas meis, since the Mikdash also would have become impure at least if someone with a tumah would go there, or in general, since the kedoshim—

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The Slaughter and Blood Sprinkling

Apparently someone else will slaughter it in front of him, or he will slaughter it in front of the camp or something like that. And then what he will do is take the dam [blood], as I said it’s very similar to all the chatos and esrefes [sin offerings that are burned], which we take their blood and we sprinkle it on the paroches [the curtain] or towards the paroches. Here he’s not doing it literally on the paroches — it already starts, other than the regular chatos and esrefes, which you sprinkle the blood inside, even the opposite, some of them get even brought inside the kodesh hakodashim [Holy of Holies]. This one he’s sprinkling the blood towards, towards the pnei ohel moed [the face of the Tent of Meeting], towards the side of the pnei ohel moed, but not there, just like in that direction.

So seven times, seven times is the amount of all these kinds of sprinklings. In some sense what this means is symbolically it’s purifying the mikdash [sanctuary] from the tumas meis [impurity of death], since the mikdash also would have become impure, at least if someone was a tamei [impure person] would go there, or in general, since the kedushah [holiness] of the mishkan [tabernacle] spreads to the whole camp, so anyone that’s a tamei meis, somehow that touches the mikdash and makes it impure. So also the mikdash is getting purified by this blood, by the seven times of the sprinkling of the blood of the parah adumah [red heifer], so the zrikas dam [sprinkling of blood].

The Burning and the Three Ingredients

And then he burns it, like all the paros hanisrafos [cows that are burned], he burns the whole thing, all of it — its skin, its flesh, its blood, all of it, its insides, its intestines, it burns all of it, all at once. And then he does something that reminds us of what we did in Mitzrayim [Egypt], by the korban Pesach [Passover offering], reminds us of what we do for Mitzrayim, so again, these seem to be things that have to do with purification.

He takes these three ingredients: etz erez [cedar wood], wood of an erez tree; eizov [hyssop], some kind of grass or some kind of specific kind of grass; and shni tola’as [crimson wool] — shni tola’as we have also in the mishkan, reds, some kind of red wool — and he throws them together, so he burns it along with these ingredients. And that’s basically the process of creation. That’s the ma’aseh parah [the act of the red heifer], and then the kohen [priest] from doing this becomes impure.

The “Paradox” of the Parah — Not Really a Paradox

And of course it’s famously said to be a paradox of parah, but it’s not really a paradox, because like, if you take a detergent and you wash something, and then the thing that you washed with becomes dirty. That’s just how life works. It’s very normal. It’s a very normal thing. So, in the same way, the person that touches this, like, touching dirt, so he gets dirty, so therefore, he washes his clothes, he washes himself, and then he can come back to the camp, and until the evening he will be tamei, so this is what we call tvul yom [one who has immersed but awaits evening], so in other words, he is purified, but he still has to wait until the end of the day, because in some sense, like, the day became impure for him.

So that’s the kohen, and now we see that the kohen himself didn’t do all of this, as we said, he supervised it, or he’s the one responsible ritually for it, but he’s not the only one, there might be other people helping, the same thing for them, they have to do the same things.

The Third Person: Gathering the Ashes

So now, there’s another step, now, after this whole process was done, after the parah was slaughtered, it was burnt, and the people taking care of that would finish that out, finish their part of the work, now we have a third person — it might have been the same person, but there’s a third step — after it’s all burnt, a pure person comes and gathers the ashes of the parah, and he puts it in a pure place outside of the machaneh [camp], and now it becomes mishmeres [something watched over there], we call it mei niddah [water of sprinkling], water of sprinkling, water that we sprinkle, chatas [sin offering], mei niddah or mei chatas [water of purification], both names of this thing, these are waters that will purify other things.

Now this person, this third person, also the same thing, he becomes tamei, he has the same halachah [law] as the previous two people. Now this will become a law forever, for the Bnei Yisrael [Children of Israel], for any strangers, any that live within them, will be the same law, this will be.

The Laws of Purification: Seven Days and Required Sprinkling

So now we have the story of how we made this ingredient, this thing, mei niddah, mei chatas, and now we’re going to learn what we do with it, right? So what we’re going to learn is, if someone touches a dead person, he will be impure for seven days, and what that means is a minimum of seven days really, because he doesn’t just automatically become pure after seven days, unlike maybe some other things which might happen that way, but no, he has to, his chatas, he has to be cleaned with this mei niddah on the third day, and therefore on the seventh day he will become purified, that’s the literal way of reading it.

The chachamim [sages] understand that we have to sprinkle also on the seventh day, but that depends on how you read this passage, either bayom hashlishi uvayom hashvi’i [on the third day and on the seventh day], or bayom hashlishi uvayom hashvi’i yithar [on the third day and on the seventh day he will be purified]. In any case, if you will not sprinkle on the third day, then you will not become pure on the seventh day. I think this is really saying what I just said — there are some things, maybe a niddah [menstruant], again, can be discussed, after seven days they automatically become pure, no, it’s not, or like someone before, the evening he becomes pure, of course, if he washed himself during the day, so there is also something he has to do. In the same way here, if you do the mei niddah, then on the seventh day you become pure, otherwise you don’t.

The Punishment for Failing to Purify

And there we have a punishment, if you do this, you touch a dead person, and you did not purify yourself, then you metamei es hamishkan [defile the sanctuary], and you get karet [spiritual excision], because you did not purify yourself with the mei niddah, and you are still impure, so that’s the law of how the purification of the tumas meis works.

The Two Parts: Chukah and Torah

We still didn’t learn the laws of what is, who becomes impure, how it becomes impure, or what else becomes impure, and that’s the second part, so this is the law, maybe we could understand that until now it’s chukas [statute], like it said chukas olam [eternal statute], and now it’s the torah part, so there’s two parts, chukas o torah [statute or teaching], there’s the chukah part, and the torah part, and the torah is just the instructions of who becomes impure and how, and therefore we’ll need this purification.

Expanded Sources of Tumah

Tumah in an Ohel [Tent]

So before we just learned about someone who touches, now we’re going to learn that not only someone who touches, but also someone who is in the same tent, the same ohel as the dead person, then he becomes impure, anyone who, any person who is in the ohel, or anything, any vessels, anything in it. Now specifically which vessels, only open ones, only an open vessel which doesn’t have a closed cover, tightly closed on it, that becomes tumah, but if it’s closed, then sort of like the tumah doesn’t go into it.

Tumah in the Field

Now this is not only a way of becoming impure in a tent, that’s one way if someone dies in a tent, but sometimes people die outside, especially in war, they die in the field, we’ll see later in the story of milchemes Midian [the war with Midian], but that’s the implementation of this halachah. So if you touch a dead person in the field, whether it was a chalal cherev [one slain by the sword], someone was killed by the sword in a war, or just someone died, or a third way in which someone might find a dead person in the field, if he doesn’t find a dead person, he finds the bones of a dead person, or a grave of a dead person also, those graves are usually in the field. So also, you will have the same halachah, you will be impure for seven days, and they will do the same exact thing, they will take this efer [ashes] of the, here it’s called the afar [dust], like the sand, but it’s the same thing, it means the ashes.

The Detailed Sprinkling Procedure

And now we have some more instructions of how it’s done, interestingly, before that we just said yizchatu [they shall sprinkle], and now it gives you more details of how you do it. You put fresh water, mayim chayim [living water], water from a living source, from a spring, into a vessel, and you take an eizov, again, not the same eizov that was burnt in it, a new eizov, and you dip it into the water, and with that you sprinkle it on whoever needs to be sprinkled.

Again this entirely reminds us of what we did in Mitzrayim, where we sprinkled with an eizov, and it gives you water, and it adds, the pasuk [verse] tells you, we sprinkle it on all these things that we just discussed, the ohel, or the things that were in the ohel, or the people that were in the ohel, or someone who touched a bone, or a dead person, or killed a dead person, or just a dead person, or a grave.

The Fourth Person: The Mazeh [Sprinkler]

And it has to be done by a pure person, so this is the fourth person, right, we had the kohen, we had the soref [burner], we had the osef [gatherer], and now we have the mazeh, the person who sprinkles the water, he also has to be pure, and he will also become impure, right, same thing, the person who is mazeh also becomes impure, that’s what it says here at least.

Final Summary: Chain of Tumah and Punishment

And again we have this repeat of the punishment if you don’t, so in other words it includes all these details, if you are impure in any of these ways, and you did not purify yourself, the same thing, you go to the mikdash, you are still tumah, and all of this is again, a continuous order, it’s not something that was just once.

And here we have these four people, a summary of these four people who become impure: the one who sprinkles the water, the one who touches it, so that’s another thing, someone who touches it, or anyone who an impure person touches also becomes tumah, so if you touch a dead person then you yourself become tumah, the next person you touch becomes tumah, but the person who touches that is not tumah forever, only until the evening.

And that’s the simple meaning of this parashah [Torah portion], and that’s how we finish this parashah.

Bamidbar Chapter 20: The Narrative of the 40th Year — Miriam’s Death and Mei Merivah

Introduction: The Third Section of the Desert Narrative

We are reading Bamidbar chapter 20. This chapter is straight back into the narrative, or maybe in a certain significant sense, this is where the narrative switches to the third part of the narrative, which is what we call the narrative of the 40th year of the Midbar — the narrative of Bnei Yisrael getting closer to Eretz Yisrael and what happens at that stage.

Of course, there is an interesting connection between that and the mitzvah that we’ve just come from, which is the mitzvah of Parah Adumah [the Red Heifer], which is the purifier from Tumat Met [impurity from a corpse]. Because this chapter has a bunch of deaths — at least, I mean, the chapter has two deaths in it, and actually talks also about the thing that caused Moshe’s death. So in some sense it has three deaths in it. But of course, the chapter is not an organic division of the text. But it does — we do for sure have the death of Miriam right after, and of course the Midrash already noticed this connection. But I think that that’s some kind of association.

The Structure of the Desert Narrative

But really we’re getting back to the narrative, and the division that I’m making within the narrative is something that we can see and is also very clear again in Sefer Devarim, where Moshe gives his famous speech in the beginning of it, where he divides it this way. Because we have the kind of — although there was the narrative of their travel that started in Parshat Behaalotecha, where they’re traveling to Eretz Yisrael, that narrative sort of finishes in Parshat Shelach, where the Meraglim [spies] caused that plan to be abandoned, to be pushed off for a full generation.

Then the Machloket [dispute] of Korach might have happened before that or after that. It’s not clear, but definitely doesn’t have much to do with the end. Of course, we have these people over there complaining that Moshe is not bringing them to Eretz Yisrael. So maybe a response to what happened with the Meraglim, or in any case, thought that belongs to that series of events. We can see it as the beginning of the journey in the desert. Now we’re getting to the end of the journey and starting to discuss the actual giving over of the generations. This generation, including its leaders — Moshe, Aharon, and Miriam — are going to die, and we start getting to the next generation, which is going to Eretz Yisrael.

So that’s really where it starts, and the location where it starts is this place called Kadesh. Very clearly in Sefer Devarim we see that Kadesh is where the second part of the story starts. Of course, the Meraglim might have been sent already from there, so — but then they went back. So in any case, Kadesh is the place where this part of the story starts.

The Contents of Chapter 20

So let’s just read. There’s a few — like I said, this chapter, we could see some kind of organic whole in it because of what I discussed. It has the stories of Miriam dying, and then the story of Mei Merivah [the Waters of Strife], and then the story of the attempt to go through Eretz Edom [the land of Edom], and then also the death of Aharon in the same place, or in Hor HaHar, which is around next to Edom. But that’s just the chapter division that makes that sound connected. It’s of course also one parashah, Parashat Chukat, but in general, this is where we’re up to.

The Death of Miriam (Pasuk 1)

So let’s start from the beginning. So they come to a place called Midbar Tzin, and within that, apparently a city or an oasis, a place called Kadesh. And in the first month — it doesn’t give us which year; we’re to assume this is in the 40th or the 39th year of the journey of the desert — they come there, and over there Miriam dies and is buried there. So Miriam’s grave, so to speak, is in Kadesh, somewhere, wherever that is.

That’s one note, and like I said, it’s an important note. Miriam was obviously the oldest of the three siblings — Moshe, Aharon, and Miriam. You can see that Miriam was, if she’s the sister that watched over Moshe already when he was a baby, she’s the oldest of the siblings. So she dies first, and this is, I think, symbolizing how the generation is finishing, dying, including its leaders. Of course, everyone died, but we don’t talk about the plain people so much. We talk about the leadership. And now, next story.

The Water Crisis and the People’s Complaint (Pesukim 2-5)

Of course, again, the connection between this story and Miriam’s death is something that the Midrash has elaborated on a lot. Apparently Miriam has something to do with the well. This is a plausible idea, but it’s not explicit in the text. It’s an association that’s built out of it.

The Recurring Pattern of Water Complaints

But what the story is more reminiscent of is the same stories that we’ve had at the beginning of the Midbar. Also they’re called Merivah sometimes. Masah or Merivah might be a different place, might be the same. There was some parshanim [commentators] that understood this the same story, but it’s not necessarily so. It’s definitely the same structure. The physical story might have happened more than once. The desert is obviously a place with no water, and sometimes they somehow survived, they found water somehow all the time, but every time it’s a new challenge. But the challenge can repeat itself again and again.

So it’s not the fact that it repeats itself isn’t really a problem. Even the fact that it’s the same kind of complaint, the same kind of Merivah, the same kind of sign — it’s also not something that’s really a problem, because that’s to be expected from the story. If you know the story, you would expect that. So that’s not really a problem. But I’m just mentioning that this is a story that belongs to that series of problems.

The Complaint Itself

Very basic story problem: you’re going to desert, one big problem is that there’s no water. So that’s what happens. They’re in Kadesh, there’s no water. The Edah [congregation] has no water, so they gather to Moshe and Aharon, and they fight. This is the language — I think this language is in another place — Vayarev [and they quarreled]. They complain, and here they fight with Moshe. Vayarev ha’am im Moshe means they literally fight, or they have an argument with him. Of course, this language, like I said, is in Shelach, and the story of the rock and the water is the same language.

And what do they say? Velu gavanu bigva acheinu lifnei Hashem [Would that we had died when our brothers died before Hashem]. Where’s this lifnei Hashem? I’m not clear what are they talking about.

Then they complained. They say, why did you bring Kahal Hashem [the congregation of Hashem]? So again, we see this thing of Kahal Hashem beginning from Korach already — how they consider themselves Kahal Hashem. We’re not just — Moshe is this one that has connection with Hashem and we just need him and therefore we can’t complain. No, we’re also Kahal Hashem. And Moshe, to bring Kahal Hashem to the Midbar where they will die along with their animals.

Why did they go? So that’s one thing. And the same thing: why did they take us out of Mitzrayim to bring us to this bad place, which is not a place of planting, not a place with any figs, any grapes, any pomegranates, u’mayim ayin lishtot [and there is no water to drink]? So there’s no trees, there’s no water.

Interpreting “Lifnei Hashem”

But where’s this lifnei Hashem? Where they want to have died — they might mean something like, we should have taken our complaint earlier about Korach until the end and then died lifnei Hashem, like the people that died in — Rashi says on this lifnei Hashem, some kind of death by fire or by plague, which is called lifnei Hashem, and dying of thirst is worse than that. It’s like you die just from not having water.

Or lifnei Hashem means they should have died in the desert like — sorry, in the time like they said in Shelach. They said we should have died in Mitzrayim, or there’s nothing — there’s no point in coming to the Midbar, in any case.

Moshe and Aharon’s Response (Pesukim 6-8)

And Moshe and Aharon act in the similar way as they always act. They come to Petach Ohel Moed [the entrance of the Tent of Meeting], they fall on their face, and the Kevod Hashem [glory of Hashem] is revealed to them, Vayera aleihem Kevod Hashem.

And here, other than in other places, Hashem doesn’t complain about much. So this is the fascinating story. I can’t give theories in this shiur [class] about what is really going on. Actually, I will give a slight theory. But remember that in this series of complaints in the desert, always the same structure: people complain about Moshe, and Hashem takes over the complaint. He says, you’re complaining about me. He listens, he punishes the people. Here’s something very different happens, and let’s hear what happens.

Hashem’s Instructions

What happens is, first Hashem speaks to Moshe: Kach et hamateh [Take the staff], take your rod, your stick. Gather the people together with Aharon, and speak to the rock — vedibartem el hasela [and you shall speak to the rock] — and he will give you water. You will bring water out from the rock, and you will give them to drink, them and their animals. And that’s what he does. He takes them out mei hamerivah [the waters of strife]. So this is a mateh Elokim [divine staff], something that has some kind of powers.

Moshe Strikes the Rock (Pesukim 9-11)

And he brings them together, and he tells them: Shimu na hamorim [Listen now, you rebels]. Hamin hasela hazeh notzi lachem mayim? [Shall we bring forth water for you from this rock?] That’s what he says. And this is Moshe rebuking them, which is something we expect. They’re complaining. He says, you’re complaining all the time. Look, we can get water out of the rock. That’s basically how it should be read, I think.

Or he’s saying, like, maybe he might be saying something similar to what he said mimacharat [the next day] — what do you want from me? Should I give you water out of a rock? We’re in the desert. We’re trying to get to Eretz Yisrael, we’re trying to do something, but you are just being rebellious. That’s literally basically what he’s saying.

And but Hashem told him he’s going to do that. So this is why it becomes interesting, right?

So this is in Pasuk 10. And he raises his hand, he hits the rock twice, and water comes out, and they all drink. So we solved the problem of water.

The Divine Rebuke: Moshe’s Sin (Pasuk 12)

Now, instead of Hashem complaining about the people or being angry at the people, Hashem is angry at Moshe and Aharon. And he says: Ya’an lo he’emantem bi lehakdisheni le’einei Bnei Yisrael [Because you did not trust in Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of Bnei Yisrael]. In other words, Moshe — and I think this is a peshat [straightforward reading] on the chumash [Torah] — Hashem is saying to Moshe: Vayomer Hashem el Moshe ve’el Aharon.

Understanding Moshe’s Failure

It seems like at this point, Moshe put — screamed back or returned the complaint of the people to them. They’re saying, why do you take us to the desert? There’s nothing to drink here. Moshe says, what do you want from me? It’s a desert.

And Moshe forgot that his job was to say: No problem, a desert. That’s not a problem for Hashem. That’s a problem for other people. Hashem doesn’t have a problem.

And of course, it’s not that Moshe didn’t do that. Of course, he himself went with the stick and brought water from the rock. But he was frustrated with them, and he was upset at them for sort of expecting this miracle and being upset that there’s no miracle right away.

Of course, maybe this was originally the plan — they’re going to get water out of a rock. That’s the plan. There’s no other plan. There obviously must have been a plan. But Moshe spoke to them in a way which signified that he is somewhat on their side. He’s somewhat agreeing with the argument that there’s no water in the desert. And what do you want from me? He’s using it to say, like, what do you expect? Why are you complaining all the time? Why are you just being rebellious?

But the tone was that Hashem can’t. And Hashem was upset at Moshe and he said: You did this, therefore you will have the same fate as them. Remember, they were punished not to come to Eretz Yisrael because of the Meraglim — because they did not have the same kind of trust. Because they said we’re not going to be able to.

And now Moshe is saying we can’t go in the desert. Although he’s saying it to them, in some sense he is saying that he’s not worthy. So he’s lost his confidence. He lost his courage. He lost Hashem’s confidence in him. Therefore, you will not bring this [generation into the Land].

Moshe’s Punishment and the Loss of Confidence

But he was frustrated with them and he was upset at them for sort of expecting this miracle and being upset that there’s no miracle right away. Of course maybe this was originally the plan, they’re going to get water out of a rock, that’s the plan, there’s no other plan, there obviously must have been a plan. But Moshe spoke to them in a way which signified that he is somewhat on their side, he’s somewhat agreeing with the argument that there’s no water in the desert and what do you want from me? He’s using it to say like, what do you expect? Why are you complaining all the time? Why are you just being rebellious? But the tone was that Hashem can’t and that Hashem was upset at Moshe and he said, you did this therefore you will have the same fate as them.

Remember they were punished not to come to Israel, why? Because of the miracle, because they did not have the same kind of trust, because they said we’re not going to be able to. And now Moshe is saying we can’t go in the desert. Although he’s saying it to them, in some sense he is saying that he’s not worthy so he’s lost his confidence, he lost his courage, he lost Hashem’s confidence in him, therefore you will not bring this community to the land which I have given to them.

So that’s the punishment and this is why, this is really the parasha that predicts Moshe’s death and Moshe being part of this curse of the desert, part of this curse of the generation of the desert, that they’re not going to Israel, Moshe also not going because of the story of Mei Meriva [the Waters of Strife]. And as the passage finalizes and finishes, these are the waters of strife, the waters of fight that people, the people of Israel fought with Hashem and God was sanctified in them, in other words God in the end did bring water, but Moshe didn’t participate in this correctly and therefore Moshe and Aharon died in the desert.

The Transition of Leadership

So this is a very important parasha which finally sort of kills off the main characters, it’s not that they didn’t die but telling that they will die, the main character is Moshe and Aharon and there will be someone else to bring them to Eretz Yisrael. So that’s the end of this chapter and that’s why I think this piece is this parasha where very clearly the ground is laid for the generations and the leadership of the generations to change and not Moshe bringing them to Eretz Yisrael.

But Moshe is still the leader at this stage, Moshe is still the leader and he’s still the military leader of the people, he’s still bringing them closer to Eretz Yisrael.

The Edom Episode: A Second Detour

Geographic Context and Historical Parallel

Now that they’re in Kadesh, so if you look in the geography you’ll see that from Kadesh if you pass through Eretz Edom, right there you get right to Eretz Yisrael. This is very interesting because right at the beginning of the parasha of Beshalach already, they could have went through Eretz Plishtim when they were afraid, so therefore they had to go around through the desert in a different way. And now there’s one more detour, sort of, very interesting, one more detour where they can’t go through Edom. Moshe and Sefer Devarim has a slightly different version of this story, but this is what he tells us here.

The Diplomatic Mission to Edom

So Moshe sends messengers or we could translate malachim [malachim] I think would be a nice translation, would be ambassadors, always an important messenger, like he carries a message from the king. He sends the messengers to the king of Edom saying, כה אמר אחיך ישראל [koh amar achicha Yisrael — this is what your brother Israel says], so Edom is considered a brother of Yisrael, of Yaakov, so they’re literally treating each other as brother, sibling nations, so he’s asking him for permission as a brother to let them through.

You’ll remember of course that Eisav already asked Yaakov this once in the parasha of Vayishlach and Yaakov refused in a nice way and this is sort of the repercussions of that.

The Appeal to Compassion

And they tell him, look, you know all the hardships that we’ve went through, we went down to Mitzrayim, remember you didn’t go to Mitzrayim, you went to Edom, but we went down to Mitzrayim, our parents, and we were there for many days, the Mitzrayim hurt us and our parents, right, because our parents were in Mitzrayim, we’re just their descendants, but we’ve screamed to Hashem and he’s heard our voice, he sent a messenger, so interesting, he sent a messenger, we sending you a messenger, and Hashem sent a messenger and took us out of Mitzrayim. The messenger obviously is Moshe himself, but he’s speaking in the name of Yisroel, he’s not speaking in the name of himself.

And here we are in Kadesh, next to your border, and we’re asking you, therefore we’re asking you, so they’re sort of like being me’orer rachamim [me’orer rachamim — arousing compassion], they’re trying to arouse the compassion of Bnei Edom, their brother, saying look, we’ve struggled so long, finally we’re getting close to where we’re supposed to get to, let us go through your land.

The Promise of Peaceful Passage

And they promise them, we’re not going to go through your fields, your vineyards, in other words we’re not going to take your food, we’re not going to ruin, right, when an army passes by a land, the first thing they do is they ruin the countryside, they ruin the food and the vineyards, they think we’re not going to do that, we’re going in derech hamelech [derech hamelech — the way of the king], we’re going the highway. Derech hamelech means literally the way of the king, but what this means is like the highway, the king’s responsible for like having highways which don’t go through fields and that, we’re not going to go right or left, until we go through.

Edom’s Refusal

Bnei Edom didn’t trust them, and he said, do not pass, I will come cross you with a sword, in other words, with the military, he doesn’t accept this offer for peace. Of course, it’s hard to say that he’s entirely wrong because, you know, these people are, as we’ve mentioned many times, they’re traveling as an army, they’re not really traveling in peace, and to let an army go through your land is a dangerous thing, it’s not simple, they might have, they probably meant it seriously, that they’re not going to act that way, but it’s not clear what they would give him to make them trust him.

The Second Appeal with Additional Concessions

And they ask him again, which again means something like, we’ll go in the, in the paved ways, we’re not even going to make our way, we’re not even going to go in derech hamelech, we’ll go in some paved ways, and they promise something else, they say, we’ll drink, so first they said, we’re not going to use your, we’re not going to drink your wells, we’ll somehow have our own water or something, now they’re promising even better, no, we’ll use your wells, but we’ll pay you for it, just, we’re not going to do anything, just let us go through with our feet, in other words, we’re not going to bring, what we say, heavy artillery, we’re not bringing along any, any horses, any guns, anything important, we’re just walking through.

The Final Refusal and Military Confrontation

But it didn’t help, Edom said, do not go, and he also followed through on his promise, he went, he came out in front of them with, with a heavy army, the strong hand, in other words, armed, and they showed very clearly, they backed up their threats with actions, and didn’t let the Yisroel pass through.

And therefore, they couldn’t conquer him, they couldn’t fight with him, as it says in Sefer Devarim, that Hashem told Moshe not to fight with him, so it’s not only they couldn’t, it was also, Hashem said that Edom belongs to Edom, we should not fight with them, and therefore, they went around the other way.

The Death of Aharon at Hor Hahar

The Divine Decree

So, now, going the other way, they go from Kadesh, and around Eretz Edom, they come to a place called Hor Hahar, and now, Hashem speaks to Moshe and Aharon in Hor Hahar, and Hashem tells them, Aharon will die. So, ye’asef Aharon el amav [ye’asef Aharon el amav — Aharon will be gathered to his people], Aharon will be gathered to his people, which means, to his dead people, right, to his family, to his, he’s going to go back apart, so, in some sense, when you’re born, you’re separated from your greater family, which includes the living and the dead, you go, you’re dead, you go back where you came from with your family.

Because, he’s not coming to the land, as we’ve discussed five seconds ago, because, al asher maritem et pi [al asher maritem et pi — because you rebelled against My word], because you’ve rebelled against my word at Mei Meriva, so, here, we see, very clearly, Aharon is considered together with Moshe, maritem et pi [maritem et pi — you rebelled against My word], they didn’t follow what Hashem said, or they didn’t believe in him enough, trust him enough.

The Transfer of the Priestly Garments

So, Hashem tells Moshe, take Aharon and his son Elazar, take them up to this mountain, take Aharon, take off Aharon’s clothing, in other words, the bigdei kehunah [bigdei kehunah — priestly garments], put them on Elazar, so, this is very clearly, as we’ve seen, in Parshat Tetzaveh, in Parshat, later, in Parshat Naso, in other places, we saw, very clearly, that the dressing, the kohein, in these clothing, in the bigdei kehunah, is what constitutes, in some sense, his power, his being the kohein, so, this is the succession, you take it off from Aharon, and you give it to Elazar, so, he succeeds him.

And that’s what he does, they go, and they, Moshe takes off Aharon’s clothing, puts it on Elazar, and, basically, everyone, very publicly, everyone sees that Elazar is now the kohein after Aharon, Aharon dies, and they both come down, Moshe comes down with Elazar, they show that Elazar is now the kohein.

The Mourning for Aharon

And we have the report of the aveilus [aveilus — mourning], the crying, they all see that Aharon died, they cry for him, thirty days, all the places, all the people cry for Aharon, this is the reports that we’ve had, for Yaakov, we’re going to have it for Moshe, when an important leader dies, there’s reports of the people crying for him, for thirty days, which is the accepted amount, in other places, it says shiva yamim [shiva yamim — seven days], right, so, that’s why we have shiva yamim, with different levels of mourning, but in any case, there’s this report of the crying of the mourning for Aharon, since he died, and that’s the end of this chapter.

Bamidbar Chapter 21: Fragmentary Narratives at the Threshold

Introduction: The Third Section of Bamidbar

As I’ve mentioned, or I might have not mentioned, so I’ll give this preface to this chapter and many of the chapters or the stories in this part of the book. As we’ve said, this is sort of the third part of the narrative, the third part of the chronology if we say the first part is the first year, the establishment of the Mishkan and the camp around it. Second part would be the beginning of the travel through the Midbar and the complaints and stories that have to do with it. And the third part is the end of the travel through the Midbar and the wars and also complaints and tests and challenges that happened with that.

As we saw yesterday, we already had the deaths of two of the three main leaders of the people during this first generation, all the way from Mitzrayim, which are Miriam and Aharon. So we’re left only with Moshe, so to speak. And of course, Moshe’s death was already talked about in the previous chapter, Moshe is going to die in the desert, not going to take him into Eretz Israel because of the sin of Mei Meriva. So we’re very clearly at the turning point of the new generation. But we still have some parts to go through, some stories and even some conquests and some successes of Moshe at the threshold of the land of Canaan and the land of Israel. So we hear certain successes and certain not fully successes.

The Fragmentary Nature of These Narratives

And as we’ll see, I think one of the best way to look at all these stories is that many of them are fragmentary. We have very little information. Of course, like, for example, the beginning of the story, the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim, the parashat Shemot is at length the story of Moshe overcoming the challenges of Mitzrayim and all the 10 Makkot and all of that, the whole story of the establishment of the Mishkan and the camps around it were told to us in great length. There’s no detail missing or even many details that we say are, we think are superfluous, they’re extra, there’s a huge amount of detail.

But when it comes to this, in particular, this part of the story, the last few wars that Moshe fought, the last few stories that happened, there’s something very, very fragmentary in the way that they’re told and the way that they’re recounted to us. We’re missing sort of most of the narrative. There’s even explicit references in this chapter and possibly in some other chapters to some books or some sources which apparently have more of these narratives and more full, but we don’t have those books or we don’t have those writings or those songs or those sources. So we’re kind of missing the main context, the main part of the narrative of the story. We have only like little parts, but this is what we’re going to read.

The War with the King of Arad (Pesukim 1-3)

The Initial Attack

So the first thing is we hear another war with the Canaanites, the king of Arad. Arad is somewhere to the south of Israel. Of course, the Negev are somewhere there. Not clear when this happened. This is something we saw something very similar already in the end of Parshat Shelach, when the Meraglim went and הכנעני יושב בנגב [the Canaanite dwelling in the Negev], and Arad is in the Negev, and they fought with the people of Israel that went up to the land after the Meraglim, after they decided that they will go. And this might be some repeat or some version of that same story or just another thing that happened again.

In any case, he hears that the Canaanite who lives in Negev, the king of Arad, this is the exact Canaanite that we discussed, hears that Israel came there to Atarim, so some way over there called Atarim. This is some way or some place where they went and he comes to fight with them and he captures some captives. So apparently he was successful, at least in his initial battle, he captured some captives from Israel. So there’s a problem.

Israel’s Neder (Vow)

And therefore, in response to this crisis, what they do is something that we see very many times, not so much in the Chumash, but many times in Tehillim and Tanakh, where one of the things someone does in a crisis is he makes a neder, he makes a promise. Of course, we’ve read in the stories of the Avot many times the concept of a neder, as I’ve told you then already, the main concept of a neder is when someone is in a crisis, someone is in a situation that is hard, he promises Hashem that if we’ll get better, if we’ll get out of this, he will bring a korban, he will do something for Hashem.

So Israel, in general, the collective makes a neder and they say, if you will give this people in my hands, this is a kind of korban we’ll see in Sefer Yehoshua, something similar to the concept of a cherem. In other words, I will not take it for myself, I will give it to you, I will give it like we learned earlier, כל חרם בישראל לך יהיה [kol cherem b’Yisrael lecha yihiyeh — all cherem in Israel shall be yours], it goes to the Kohanim, it goes to the Mikdash, and so on. That’s saying that’s going to be the fulfillment of their pledge of their neder too.

Victory and the Name Chormah

And Hashem listens, וישמע ה’ [vayishma Hashem — and Hashem listened], because Israel is a very nice request. We have a lot of times we listen to the voice of Hashem, but Hashem listens to the voice of the people and He gives ויתן את הכנעני [vayiten et haKena’ani — and He gave the Canaanite], in other words, it’s implied, they win the battle and they make a cherem for the Canaanite, for their cities, and that’s why this place is called Chormah.

The interesting thing is, of course, that Chormah was the exact name of the place where the Canaanite fought the battle and won against the Ma’apilim, the name of the place is mentioned in other places also, so there’s some complication with this word Chormah, there might be more than one place called Chormah, named after the same idea of like Chormah being the place where a cherem was made. It’s giving this name a reason, that it was called Chormah, because this place was called cherem, because it was a neder that the people made.

So that’s one very fragmentary report, it’s not clear what this war is about, I mean obviously later they’re going to go into Eretz HaKena’an and Sefer Yehoshua and conquer also this Canaanite, it’s explicitly mentioned if I remember, Melech Arad or Melech Chormah. So there’s something interesting about this story, there’s Midrashim that tried to deal with what’s going on here and fill in some of the background and tell us what’s happening, but that’s what the report that we have here.

The Complaint, the Serpents, and the Copper Snake (Pesukim 4-9)

A New Model of Response

Now we have one more story of a problem, of a complaint, and a very interesting response. So we’ve discussed several models of the complaints and the response that the Hashem has or Moshe has to the complaints. What we have here is a new kind of model, or maybe the most similar to what happened after Parshat Korach when there was a Maggeifah, and Moshe had a, we could call something like a segulah, some kind of technique to solve the problem, and here also we’re going to have a solution. Hashem is upset and therefore causes a problem and Moshe doesn’t just do teshuvah or doesn’t just beg Hashem to relent, he has a certain solution, a technical solution to the problem and of course everyone knows the Mishnah that discusses what kind of solution this might be to reinterpret it in the moral terms, but that’s what happened.

The People’s Complaint

So what happens is, they go back from Hor HaHar, so remember they were in Hor HaHar, that’s where Aharon died, and they have to go back to go around Edom because Edom doesn’t let them go through. ותקצר נפש העם [vatiktzar nefesh ha’am — and the soul of the people became short], in other words, they become tired, they become maybe thirsty and hungry, but they become tired from the way, they don’t have any more patience to go through, the way is getting longer and longer here, they’ve faced many obstacles and setbacks.

And therefore they speak about Elokim and Hashem and Moshe, their leaders, so they’re complaining against them and they have their regular complaint that they always have, why did they bring us out of Mitzrayim, we’re going to die in the desert, there’s no bread, there’s no food, yes we have some here, they admit that they have some food, apparently the mahn, but similar to what they complained about the mahn in Parashat Beha’alotcha, ונפשנו קצה בלחם הקלוקל [venafshenu katzah ballechem hakelokeil — our souls are fed up with this worthless bread], with this not good bread, with this spoiled bread or not good bread.

The Punishment: Venomous Serpents

And Hashem in response sends נחשים שרפים [nechashim serafim — venomous serpents], so strong snakes, Serafim many times, over here means a snake, it’s a snake that burns, something like a poisonous snake, something like venomous snakes, and they bite the people and many die from these snakes. Of course, we’re going to see in Sefer Devarim, this is one of the very clear attributes of the desert, that there’s venomous snakes in it, נחש שרף [nachash saraf], that’s the kind of animal that you find in the desert, but obviously this was in response to their complaints that the desert is a bad place, so they got from the dangers of the desert.

Confession and Prayer

Now the people come to Moshe and they admit their sin, they say חטאנו [chatanu — we have sinned], they say Vidui, we spoke about Hashem, so this is not b’einei Moshe or b’einei Hashem, he didn’t hear, the people come to Moshe and say, and sort of apologize to him, they say we’ve spoken against you, against Hashem, please pray to Hashem and He takes away the snakes and Moshe prays, but that prayer is not enough.

The Solution: The Copper Serpent

Hashem tells Moshe, take one serpent, in other words one snake, one sort of snake, put it on a stick, kind of a flag stick, flagpole, everyone who was bitten will see it and become back healthy, וחי [vechai — and live] meaning will be healthy, chai can mean live, but chai can mean also become healthy. So that’s what he does, נחש נחשת [nechash nechoshet — a copper serpent], Hashem didn’t tell him to make it out of copper, Hashem told him to make a snake, obviously means like an image of it, but made it out of copper, it’s a nice alliteration, nechash nechoshet, and he puts it on a stick, a nes, a flagpole, something that you hang something, here not a flag, like a statue or some image, and if any snake bites someone they look at it and they become healed.

And this is like I said something mysterious, what does this mean, what does this happen, why did Hashem give him this solution, something mysterious, and also as we can add all kinds of background to understand it, but this is part of the fragmentary nature of these reports, there’s something unclear here, something not very fully explained what’s going on.

Travel Report: Moving Toward the Destination

Now we have a short report, as I’ve given this title to it, it’s a report of firstly a travel report, so some fragments of something which we have the full version of in the end of Parashat Masei, in the end of this book, with all their stops, all their traveling in the desert, and it seems like this point of this is to get them from where they were, from Hor HaHar, they went to Atarim, all these places, all the way to the end, the end goal of this chapter so to speak, or this part really of the book.

The Mystery of the Copper Serpent (Continued)

The copper serpent — nachash nechoshet — placed on a nes (a flagpole or stick, something you hang something on) — not a flag but a statue or image. If any snake bites someone, they look at it and they become healed. This is, as I said, something mysterious. What does this mean? What does this happen? Why did Hashem give him this solution? Something mysterious. And also, as I said, we can add all kinds of background to understand it, but this is part of the fragmentary nature of these reports. There’s something unclear here, something not very fully explained what’s going on.

HaMasa’ot v’HaShirot — The Travel Reports and Songs

Now we have a short report, as I’ve given this title: *HaMasa’ot v’HaShirot* [The Travels and the Songs]. It’s a report of, firstly, a travel report — so some fragments of something which we have the full version of in the end of Parshat Masei and in the end of this book, with all their stops, all their traveling the desert. And it seems like the point of this is to get them from where they were — from Hor HaHar they went to Hasodim, all these places — all the way to the end. The end goal of this chapter, so to speak, of this part, really of the book, is they will arrive at a place called Aravot Moav [the plains of Moav]. That’s the last stop. That’s where the whole important last part of the story happens. Also Sefer Devarim — all is happening in Aravot Moav.

The Journey to Aravot Moav

So they go first to a place called Ovot. From Ovot they went to a place called Iyei HaAvarim, which is in the desert on the face of Moav from the east of Moav. And then they go to a place called Nachal Zered. Then come to a place called Ever Arnon, which is in the desert going out of the border of the Emori. Because Arnon is a river, a famous river in what’s called Transjordan — the other side of the Jordan — where Moav is. And that river was the border of Moav, between the Moav and the Emori. Emori is one of the seven nations of Canaan. So they went there, and apparently there’s something going on with these borders, right? Some of the people they have a good relationship with, some of them they don’t.

Sefer Milchamot Hashem — The Book of the Wars of Hashem

And over here there is a poem, or a fragment of a poem, quoted. It’ll be in Sefer Milchamot Hashem [the Book of the Wars of Hashem]. So now we get to this place called Arnon. There’s a fragment of a poem said, and then the poem is given a location. It said, “the Sefer from the Milchamot Hashem.” So apparently there was a book or a poem, maybe an oral poem, called *Sefer Milchamot Hashem*, and the *Sefer Milchamot Hashem* has some epic poetry about the wars, the conquests, and the challenges that people had on their way.

And it says like this — I think most literal translation — this is: these are names of places, the rivers Arnon. So these are apparently places, or maybe names for the same place, like the delta of the rivers which go to Arnon. All the *eshed* [delta] — they tend towards Ar. So Ar is famously one of the cities of Moav. Finish on the *givul* [border], even goes to the border of Moav.

Shirat HaBe’er — The Song of the Well

And there, there was also the be’er [well]. So here’s the first time we have this account of a well. Of course, one of the big problems of the desert is that there’s no water, and we had the stories twice, right? Over here last chapter and in Parshat Moshe, hitting a rock and making it into — sort of making it into a bar — but it’s not called a *be’er*. Here’s the first time where there’s a *be’er*. And of course, the most literal meaning would be something like: over there in that area they found some kind of well.

“אשר אמר ה’ למשה” [Asher amar Hashem l’Moshe — Where Hashem said to Moshe]: “Gather the people, now I’ll give them water.” This might mean the water, the well in the sense of became a well, but it was really what — the rock that Moshe made into a well? Or it just a well that Moshe somehow dug or discovered there? Remember, the stories of the digging of the wells in Sefer Bereishit — it’s a big deal when you find a well in the desert or in places that are close to the desert where it’s hard to find. So that’s part of the story.

And it quotes another song, and there’s all this “אז ישיר ישראל את השירה הזאת” [Az yashir Yisrael et hashira hazot — Then Israel sang this song]. So “את השירה הזאת” [et hashira hazot] — this is when they first sang this song, but of course we still sing it. It’s a song that’s repeated or sang later, and the same way there’s — was a song about the *be’er*.

The song goes: “עלי באר ענו לה” [Ali be’er, enu lah — Rise, well, and answer to her]. So they’re sort of singing to this well, or about this well, or about this great accomplishment that they found a well. And they said: “באר חפרוה שרים” [Be’er chafruha sarim — The well the princes dug it]. “נדיבי עם” [Nedivei am], which is another word for princes, have dug it. The lawgivers, or the people who are digging — “במחקק” [b’mechokek] can mean can mean someone who digs or makes a ditch or a kind of digging in the earth or in something — “במשענתם” [b’mishenotam — with their sticks].

So there’s some play on words with sticks. Of course we discussed where you have a *shevet* [staff], and I see someone who has a stick. But this stick can be also said as like the stick that sort of like a tool that digs in the earth and makes a well and finds water. So that’s the important thing: how they find water.

The Final Stages of Travel

And now we go back to — this also seems to be written poetically, but it’s also a description of more travels, more stops. They go from Midbar to Mattanah to Nachaliel to Bamot to the final stop, which is the valley in the fields of Moav, with the head of this mountain — Rosh HaPisgah — which from which you can see the entire valley and the entire — the plains over there. “Pnei HaYeshimon” [the face of the Yeshimon] — it might be also a proper name, or also just means the plains. And that’s, as I said, that’s the last place where they’re going to. That’s this poem is describing this, like, last few chapters, the last few stops where they get to there.

The Wars with Neighboring Nations

But we still have some — one, two — one, two more important short reports of wars in this chapter, and we have to talk about them quickly. So similarly to — so we’re reading here about three — this in the previous chapter — three important wars that Moshe led, wars or attempted wars that Moshe led with three different nations around Israel.

First War: Edom (Review)

The first was Edom, which they’ve sent a message and didn’t let them go through, so they passed by him.

Second War: Sichon King of the Emori

Then there was another one. The same thing: they sent messengers, and they sent — they sent messengers to Sichon, the king of Emori. So we’ve heard of Moav and Emori, right? Emori is the one on the other side of the Arnon. And they ask him the same thing: we’re going to go, we’re not going to drink your water, we’re not going to go into your fields, into your vineyards, we’ll go on the king’s highway.

And Sichon did not allow them pass by. Unlike Edom, which didn’t let them pass by and came — of course — across to them, came towards them with his army, and the people — the Bnei Yisrael — passed, sort of lost or retreated. For Sichon, they did not retreat. So Sichon, it comes to them, the place called Yahatz. He fights with them there, and they fight him back. They kill him by the sword, and they take his land. They conquer his land from the Arnon until the Yabok — these are two rivers or the two limits of Sichon’s land. Emori, all with — Bnei Ammon is on the other side, apparently, or maybe where the Yabok is, there’s the limit, the boundary, the border of Ammon. And that’s strongly defended; they couldn’t take that. But they took all of the land of Sichon, which is from Arnon to Yabok.

So they took all these cities and they sat in all these cities. Known as Cheshbon and all the daughter cities of Cheshbon — like the cities around it. Not cities and like suburbs — not suburbs in those days, was not suburbs — but they’re like other cities. Cheshbon was sort of the head city, and the other cities called their daughters. They were all taken by the people.

Historical Background: Sichon’s Conquest of Moav

And this doesn’t give some of the historical note: Cheshbon was this city of Sichon, although it was originally his land. Originally it belonged to the king of Moav, because this whole area is called Aravot Moav, the area of Moav, the plains of Moav. But Sichon has fought a war with the first king of Moav and took in his land, all the way to Arnon.

The Moshlim Poem About Sichon’s Victory

And it quotes another poem: “על כן יאמרו המושלים” [Al ken yomru hamoshlim — Therefore the poets say], or the people say proverbs. Have had a poem, and also this poem is very geographical, full of names of a series of places. And apparently this poem was about Sichon’s conquest of Moav. So the Torah is quoting some kind of Sichon poem, some kind of poem that Sichon was singing about. Or the *moshlim* — we’ll see next, in the next week, in the next chapter — is about Bilaam, who was one of the *moshlim*, one of the ancient poets or prophets that would say poems about the nations around them, around Israel.

So similarly, one of these poems was about Sichon’s great conquests of Moav. And as it says: “בואו חשבון” [Bo’u Cheshbon — Come to Cheshbon]. Cheshbon will be built up. A fire came out of Cheshbon, a fire — and there’s these doublings of as and as, as is common in biblical poetry — a flame from the city of Sichon. It ate the land, the city of Moav called Ar, “בעלי במות ארנון” [ba’alei bamot Arnon — the high places of Arnon], which is again the river that’s in Moav. And ate also the great, the high places of Arnon.

And this poem goes on to say: “אוי לך מואב” [Oy lecha Moav — Woe to you, Moav]. You’ve lost. “אבדת עם כמוש” [Avadta am Kemosh — You are lost, people of Kemosh]. Kemosh was the name of the god of Moav, their god. Their people, or *am Kemosh*, is another way of saying Moav, is lost. His children are fugitives, his daughters are captives. They’re all given to the king Sichon, king of Emori.

And they were also lost. “ונירם” [Vaniram] — they’re either a place called Vaniram, or it’s a word for their kingship — was lost from Cheshbon until Divon, or from Nashmal to Nofach, which is next to Medva. But these are all places and cities that Sichon took from Moav, and Israel now — Israel conquered from Sichon and therefore sat in all these places.

Third War: Yazer

So that’s one more war that we discussed. Now there’s even one more, very short report of a very short war: a place called Yazer. Doesn’t say who lived there — part of Emori, but maybe it also belongs to Sichon, but has a separate report of the war. So Moshe sent spies to Yazer and conquered it, and they say all the daughter cities of Yazer, and conquered it from the Emori who lived there.

Fourth War: Og King of Bashan

One more report, which is the next king. They’ve turned around, they went through Bashan. Bashan is somewhat higher, more north, so to speak, and also in the what is now Jordan, Syria, Golan, places like that. And Og, the king of Bashan, comes and fights with them. It doesn’t say that they asked to go through him. Apparently he just unprovoked — or they were planning to go through him anyways. It’s not clear why.

The War with Og, King of Bashan

This war with Og started, and here apparently Moshe was scared, because we have a report of Hashem telling Moshe, don’t be afraid because I’ve given you, I’ve given him and his people and his land in your hands, and do to him what you did to Sihon, the king of Cheshbon.

So in other words, Hashem is reminding Moshe: look, you’re powerful, you’re able to conquer Sihon, you’ll be able to conquer Og in the same way. And that’s what they do — they hit him, they destroyed him, his children, his nation, until there was nothing left from him, and they took his land.

Arrival at Arvos Moav — The Final Encampment

And that is really — the chapter finishes here. But I think we should do, like I said here, one more pasuk. From there they go to Arvos Moav [the plains of Moav], which is on the other side of the Yarden [Jordan River] opposite Jericho. In other words, from the perspective of the land of Israel, it’s on the other side — what we call Trans-Jordan, or the East Bank, the East Bank of the River Jordan. That’s their last stop, and there we’re going to have the rest of the story is going to play out there.

Concluding Observations on Chapters 20–21

So all of these last two chapters were really condensed and fragmentary reports of the second half, so to speak, of the journey of the people in the desert, and that’s the end of chapter 21.

Bamidbar Chapter 22: The Story of Balak and Bilaam — Fear, Power, and the Failed Curse

The Placement and Structure of the Balak Story

So today we’re reading Bamidbar chapter 22. As we’ve seen yesterday, this chapter I think starts in the wrong place. It starts a pasuk before where it should have really started. The previous pasuk was about the travel of the Bnei Yisrael to Arvot Moav. And now we have the real place where this chapter should have started, where the Parsha’s Balak starts, is that now we have this full story of what happened when they were in Arvot Moav — really the non-war that happened with Moav.

So there’s a very interesting story, very much known both in the Torah itself. There’s a famous story in Tanakh, the story of Balak, the king of Moav, hiring Bilaam, the sorcerer, the prophet, the person that knows how to curse and bless — that’s definitely something that he knew — to curse the Jewish people. And his curse is not working out, but instead him giving blessings or praises of the people.

A Three-Chapter Narrative Arc

Now this story is very weird. Firstly, it goes through the next two chapters — so again, however split the chapters, for whichever reason decided to split it in this place, I’m not really sure why. It goes through the next, sorry, three chapters until chapter 24. It’s one long story. If you were to cut it up, there might be better places to cut it up than where the chapters cut them up. But in any case, I must have said, well, it’s too long, I’ll just have to cut it somewhere.

I’ve cut it up into these parts: the part of Bilaam, Balak trying to hire, Balak trying to hire Bilaam; Bilaam’s interesting side story on the way to Balak, to the location, to the Arvot Moav, where he wants to curse the people; and the entire progress of Bilaam with the people, where he gets, and he says three, and then fourth, different prophecies about the people and about all the nations in between. So those are the main three parts. That’s how I would divide the story into three parts. The chapters, I didn’t divide them in the exact place where I would, but that’s how I would have divided it.

And each one of these internally is also divided somewhat into three or two. There’s always these doublets and triplets in the stories — everything happens three times, or there’s a progression of threes, or twos, or fours in the story. There’s always a progression how the same kind of thing started. So it’s a story very, very, I could say very well constructed — I shouldn’t say that about the Torah, some stories are more well constructed and some are less — but more explicitly, more clearly built out, unlike the previous stories where we had very slight parts, and we can imagine that there’s some story with this Be’er and so on, which has this whole thing, because this is also a story that has a lot of poetry in it, a lot of meshalim, a lot of music. But here we have the full story, the entire narrative, with many details, with many steps, and each part of the story has a very clear logical progress.

Why Does This Story Matter? The Famous Question

But there’s a very famous question that everyone asks when they read this story, which is: why is this interesting? Like some person, some guy, some Balak wanted to curse us and hired Bilaam, turned out he couldn’t curse us. It seems to be giving too much attention to something totally minor and unimportant.

The Answer: The Fulfillment of Shirat Hayam’s Prophecy

There’s various explanations for this, but I think the most simple explanation or the most simple reading of this in this context where we are is, if you remember, as is seen very explicitly in Sefer Devarim where Moshe repeats all his conquests, all his wars that he won, all the battles that he won — Sihon and Og, and Moav, Sihon Melech HaEmori, Og Melech HaBashan. In some sense, all these three main places that they passed now on their way, on the third leg of the story of the book, when they’re on the threshold of the land of Israel.

So it seems like Moav is a very important question: what happens to them, are they happy with us, are they not happy, do they agree with us, are they letting us, are they fighting with us? Midian, Moav, these people, they might be connected, as we’ll see, Ziknei Midian or someone here. In any case, these people seem to be very important.

And it seems to me that the main point of this story, as it starts, ויגר מואב [Vayagar Moav — and Moav was very afraid] from the people, from the army, from Moshe and his people. And that has already been mentioned in Shirat Hayam. Remember, the greatest or the fullest, the fullest epic poem recorded in the Torah is the Shirat Hayam, as we’ve discussed. Sefer Shemot has in a certain way the more complete or the more, we could say, well edited version of the first part of the story, the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim. The last part here, we see, gets into all these fragmentations and questionable things that we don’t understand entirely. But in Sefer Shemot, the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim, completed with the great song, the great epic poem of Yetziat Mitzrayim, of Shirat Hayam, known as Shirat Hayam — it’s really broader than Shirat Hayam, right? It really talks about the conquest of the people all the way until they get to Eretz Yisrael, until they build the Temple Mount.

And Moav figures prominently there. These are the three people, or two of them we just mentioned: Edom being afraid, Moav being afraid, and then Canaan, which we didn’t get to yet in this version of the story. We had the Canaan in Melech Arad, but he obviously wasn’t afraid, but he was routed, so it might be why they’re starting to be afraid.

Raising the Morale of the People

So this seems to be very important. This seems to be important to tell us that all the people in our way were really very afraid of us, and this is probably also to raise the morale of the people themselves. Moshe, as we’ve seen in the last, in the end of yesterday’s chapter, was afraid, and Hashem tells him, don’t be afraid of Og. Obviously he was afraid. These were powerful kings, there were people with a lot of power. So a big part of the story is to say that they do not have power. And in other words, they broke, their spirit was broken even before. There might have been some fight later — there was a fight with Bilaam, with Midian, there was an actual battle — but this important story of Bilaam trying, Bilaam and Balak trying to curse, which is, whatever the meaning of a curse, it obviously expresses a kind of moral or narrative power that they have over us, they could curse us. And the important message of this story is that no, they were afraid, even Bilaam was afraid, or saw the great power, and the great success of the people, and therefore, instead of cursing, he blessed.

So that’s, I think, the most general and most, story that makes the most sense of this story in the context.

The Opening: Balak’s Fear and His Plan

Now we will read the story. As we’ll see, it’s a very structured story. We go through it. So the first story, this is sort of the background, the first part gives us the background, tells us that Balak ben Tzippor, Balak, the son of Tzippor — this is his name — sees. And as a note, as this sort of editorial or narrative note at the end of this part says, Balak is the king of Moav at that time. So that’s who, we didn’t know, the story sort of just says Balak ben Tzippor, we were supposed to know, so it sort of gives us the information at the end. This is the style of the Torah many times, gives us historical information, the background information, and sort of a side note in the end.

What Balak Saw: The Defeat of Sihon

So Balak ben Tzippor sees what Israel did to Moav, in other words, to Sihon, mostly. Remember, from the previous poetry in the previous chapter, Sihon, there was a famous poem about Sihon being even more powerful than Moav, right? אוי לך מואב אבדת עם כמוש [Oy lecha Moav avadta am Kemosh — Woe to you Moav, you are destroyed, people of Kemosh], בני סיחון [benei Sihon — the sons of Sihon], and so on. And now Sihon was destroyed by the people, by Israel, so kal vachomer, obviously, Moav should be afraid.

The Language of Fear: Echoes of Pharaoh

So Moav is very afraid, because they’re great, כי רב [ki rav — because they’re great], because they’re many, because they’re strong, and they’re קץ [katz], they’re, I don’t know how to exactly translate this word, something like disgusted, but I don’t think that’s a very good translation. It means something like very scared. I see someone translating it, very distressed. Of course, this echoes also Pharaoh. Pharaoh had the same kind of fear, ויקוצו מפני בני ישראל [vayakutzu mipnei Bnei Yisrael — and they were distressed because of the children of Israel], the beginning of Sefer Shemot, and also for the same reason, כי רב [ki rav], because they were many of them. So this is like Moav, the great repetition of the fears and threats of the people, that there are many of them, there’s a demographic threat, and they’re obviously not only demographic, they’re also militarily strong.

Moav Consults with Midian: The Ox Metaphor

So Moav tells Ziknei Midian, and there’s some questioning, what is Ziknei Midian doing here, but as we’ll see later, Midian seems to have definitely been connected to this story, so something is going on here. He tells them, and here also there’s a poetic, already a poetic image, a poetic metaphor. He says this people, this community, this great mass, we could translate it, will eat or destroy the vegetation all around us as an ox destroys the green of the field. So an ox goes, eats, and eats everything, he’s very hungry, and this, he’s imagining the people as some kind of big great herd of oxen, and coming and destroying it, nothing green is left, it all becomes brown and destroyed.

So that’s the setting, the stage, similarly to how we had in the beginning of Sefer Shemot. There’s the nation, they’re becoming great, they’re becoming many, they’re becoming powerful, and there’s ויאמר אל עמו [vayomer el amo — and he said to his people], there’s the quote of what the people are saying, why they’re afraid.

Balak Sends for Bilaam: The Messengers and the Message

So now he seems to have a plan, and his plan is, as I said, the first part of the story is, he’s going to send messengers to Bilaam ben Be’or, who lives at the river, probably Pesor, the river Perat, or Pesor might be a plain word of Perat. Now I’m thinking Pesor, Perat, in any case, or a place called Pesor. And where he lives, Eretz Bnei Amo, there’s some difficulty with these words. In any case, he sends messengers all the way to Bilaam. Bilaam is a famous sorcerer, a famous poet, a famous prophet. He calls him, and he gives him this message.

The Poetic Message: A Nation Covering the Earth

He gives him also a poetic message, or a message written in a high register. Tells him what has happened, what is going on. He tells him there’s this nation, people, coming out of Egypt, they’ve covered the color, or the light of the ground, and they’re right here, they’re sitting next to, across from me. So again, there’s the same image of the earth being covered, or the earth being eaten, like an ox eats the grass.

And therefore, ועתה [ve’atah — and therefore], ועתה [ve’atah] in the Torah always means something like, and thus, and therefore. Doesn’t mean and now. I mean, literally means and now, but not like, it’s not about a chronological time, it’s still like, and therefore, come and curse—

The First Delegation and Bilaam’s Initial Response

The Elders of Moab and Midian go with *kesomim* [magical implements] to Bilaam and deliver Balak’s message. This is the first delegation. Bilaam answers them: “You have to stay here overnight, and I will respond to you as Hashem, as ה׳ [Hashem], speaks to me.” He’s saying, “My whole thing is that I speak with Hashem, so I can’t just answer you. You’ll stay here overnight, and I’ll tell you what Hashem says.” And they do that.

Now, interestingly, Bilaam says “Hashem,” but Elokim [God] comes to Bilaam according to the Torah. Elokim comes to Bilaam at night. As God acts in the Torah, He always starts off with small talk, asks people questions — although probably He knows everything, but this is the way of Him starting conversations. He says, “Who are these people?”

Bilaam answers: “Oh, Balak ben Tzipor, the King of Moab, sent them to me.” He repeats to Him the message: there’s this nation that has covered the land, covered the color or the shine of the land, and Balak asks him to curse them — maybe he’ll be able to fight with them and banish them from the land. Bilaam changes the verb from *arah* to *kovah*, but apparently that means the same thing.

Now what does Elokim answer? “Bilaam, don’t go. Don’t go with them. Don’t curse the people. They’re blessed people. They’re My — basically I blessed them — they’re blessed people. It’s not going to go.”

So he got his refusal. He wakes up in the morning and tells Balak’s ministers, Balak’s messengers, Balak’s princes: “Go back to where you came from, go back to your land, because Hashem refuses to let me go with you.”

And therefore, that’s what they do. They go back to Moab and they tell Balak: “Bilaam refuses to come with us.”

The Pattern of Divine Names

It’s very interesting that, again, consistently Bilaam talks about Hashem, the Tetragrammaton. But the person who doesn’t talk about Hashem is the one actually talking to him — it’s Elokim who comes to him. Also, there’s a little change: the ministers of Moab come and say “Bilaam doesn’t want to go with us,” but Bilaam told them “Hashem doesn’t want to let me go, refuses to let me.” They understood that this is him — they translated his theological refusal into a personal one.

The Second Delegation

Therefore we have the second messenger. Again, Balak isn’t impressed by this refusal. He realizes that maybe Bilaam needs to be begged more, so he sends even more honorable, even more dignified princes, and more of them. They come and they respond to his refusal. They say, in the name of Balak: “This is what he says: Do not refuse, do not hold yourself back from coming to me. I’ll give you great honor, anything you ask me I’ll give you, anything you tell me. Just come and curse these people for me.”

And Bilaam responds — because he said he didn’t say that it’s him refusing, he said that Hashem is refusing — he says: “Look, Balak can give me his whole house full of silver and gold, I will not be able to go against the word of Hashem, ה׳ אלהי [Hashem Elokai — Hashem my God].” So very important: Hashem my God. He claims Hashem to be his God, the one who speaks to him. “I can’t do a big thing, I can’t do anything.”

But — therefore, the answer should be refusal. But he understands that just like Balak understands that if Bilaam refuses he can ask him again, Bilaam understands that if Hashem refuses he can ask Him again. So he says: “Look, stay here again another night, and I’ll see what Hashem will add — maybe He will give me some new message.”

And now, again, Elokim comes to Bilaam at night and tells him, changes to a new message, a new answer. He says: “If these people came to call you, go with them.” So here Hashem already knows — He didn’t ask him “who are these people?” He says, “These are the people that came to call you, go. But it’s not that you’re going to be able to do whatever you want. You’re going to have to do the thing that I speak to you.”

So that’s the second version, the second thing. He speaks to them, and Bilaam wakes up in the morning and takes along his donkey, his female donkey, and goes with them.

So that’s what I said: there’s the double part. Twice they sent to him, and the second time he agreed and Hashem agreed, but with this condition that he will only be able to say what He spoke. And he goes with them.

The Donkey Episode

Now there’s a very interesting long story of what happens on the way.

God’s Anger Despite Permission

ויחר אף [Vayichar af — And the anger flared] — Elokim is angry that he’s going. So although He gave him permission, obviously what we see here — and I think that’s the simple reading — not everything, sometimes, you know, like your child asks you something five times, and after, you say “Okay, do it,” it doesn’t mean he really wanted to do that. In the same way, Hashem said, “Okay, they want to go, you go with them,” it doesn’t mean He really wanted it. And He’s upset.

And a messenger of Hashem — so here we have ה׳ [Hashem, the Tetragrammaton] — comes on the way לשטן לו [leSatan lo — to be a satan to him], to be someone that bothers him, to be someone that stops him, to be against him.

Now Bilaam is riding on his donkey with his two servants. The *aton* [female donkey] now sees the *malach* [angel] standing in the way with his sword stretched out in his hand. So the *aton* has some kind of vision — of course, very mysterious, what does this mean even — but the *aton* sees the *malach*. And this *malach* obviously has some kind of miraculous vision, some kind of thing that you could see, but Bilaam didn’t see at first. And now the *aton* saw it, and therefore goes off the way and goes into the field.

The Three Encounters

Now Bilaam doesn’t see the *malach*, so he just sees his *aton* going off the way, and he hits it to get it back.

Now the *malach* — so again, we have this three-time, three-time structure. The second time, the *malach* goes in the way between two vineyards. This is interesting, because this also connects very much with the stories that we discussed earlier, with the request that Bnei Yisrael had to Edom, and then to Moab, and then to Sichon, that they would go in the right way, they’re not going to go in the fields. And here Bilaam is sort of being forced to go into the fields or into the vineyards by this *aton*. I don’t know what the connection is, but I’m noticing.

But now he goes in this kind of way, so there’s different ways. There’s a way that’s between open fields, but now there’s a way between two vineyards, and these both vineyards apparently have two fences, or *gederim* [stone fences], between them. And therefore there’s not a lot of place to move to the side.

So the *aton* sees again the *malach*, so she pushes herself into the wall. And Bilaam, who’s riding on it, his foot, which is on the side of the *aton*, is getting squashed into the wall, so he hits it again. But okay, there’s still — she passed by the *malach*, that’s basically what happened. Although there was a small space, she passed by.

Third time, the *malach* comes and he stands in a place where there’s nowhere to move anywhere at all. It’s an even more narrow path. There’s nowhere to go right or left — interesting language, right? This is language in Sefer Devarim and later, don’t go away from the way of the Torah right or left.

And the *aton* sees the *malach* a third time. So what does she do? She doesn’t continue. She just sits down and she refuses to move.

And now Bilaam is upset. ויחר אף בלעם [Vayichar af Bilaam — And Bilaam’s anger flared]. It’s the start of the story with ויחר אף אלהים [Vayichar af Elokim — God’s anger flared], and he hits the *aton*. “What’s going on with you?”

The Donkey Speaks

Now suddenly, at this stage, ויפתח ה׳ את פי האתון [Vayiftach Hashem et pi ha’aton — Hashem opened the mouth of the donkey]. And again, something very weird, very interesting. The *aton* speaks to Bilaam, and the *aton* tells Bilaam: “Why did you hit me? Three times.”

And Bilaam says, “What do you mean? You’re making fun of me. If I’d have had a sword, I would have killed you.” Of course, remember the *malach* is the one that’s standing with a sword, and the *aton* is thinking, “You have a sword? You might be talking about a sword, but I had a sword.”

And the *aton* answers Bilaam. She says: “Well, I’m your *aton*. You’ve ridden on me from always until this day. Have I ever done something like this to you?” In other words, she’s saying: when you see an *aton* suddenly misbehaving, suddenly not cooperating, you should think, maybe there’s something wrong. It’s not like, you know, we have a *shor mu’ad* [an ox known to gore], right? We know that this animal doesn’t listen. This is a good animal. It’s been serving him well all this time.

So he says no. In other words, the *aton* won. Bilaam — the great, right, the great man of words, he knows how to have words and things for everything — here, his donkey has won a debate with him, a conversation with him.

Bilaam’s Eyes Are Opened

And now Hashem opens Bilaam’s eyes. So first He opened the *aton’s* mouth, now He opens Bilaam’s eyes. And he sees the *malach* with his sword. So now Bilaam obviously understands what’s going on. And what you do when you see a *malach* is you bow down to him.

And the *malach* tells Bilaam: “Why did you hit your *aton* three times?” He says, “It was me. I’ve come here to be something that stands in your way, because this way is against me” — כי ירט הדרך לנגדי [ki yarat haderech legdi]. I think that’s what it means, something like that: you’re going against my will. So he’s speaking in the name of Hashem here. You’re going against Hashem’s will, and I’ve come in some way to stop you.

“And the *aton* saw me, so at least she went to the side from me. Therefore, maybe she went from me — she was right, you’re the one that’s wrong. Now that you see that it was me, that she was respecting me in some sense, going to the side, I should have killed you and let her live.”

In other words, you’re saying that she should be killed for not going in the way? You should

The Malach’s Rebuke and Bilaam’s Apology

You’re going against the malach. She’s at least respecting the malach. And what does Bilaam say? Sorry, I’ve sinned. I didn’t know that you’re the one standing against me in the way. And of course, he understands that this malach is a messenger of Hashem. He’s not apologizing to the malach for trying to go through him. He’s apologizing to Hashem who sent the malach.

And now he understands that Hashem doesn’t want him to go and he tells him: If this is bad in your eyes, let me go back. I’m going to return home.

The Malach’s Surprising Response

And what does the malach of Hashem say? No, no problem. You don’t have to go back home. You can stay here. You can continue on your way. But again, only the thing that I’ve spoken to you, that’s what you will speak. And Bilaam continues on his way.

So this is a very interesting story. If he does want, then why did he send the malach to stop him? Something very weird. And I can’t give a solution for this. But I think this part of the story is to show or to emphasize how strongly Bilaam does want to go. So don’t think that Bilaam was just going to give up. He does want to go. And he’s forced. He’s sort of being played with. Like Bilaam said to the donkey, Bilaam is the one being played with and becoming just a tool in the hands of this malach, in the hands of Hashem.

Bilaam’s Arrival and First Meeting with Balak

Okay, so that’s where I would stop the chapter. I’m going to continue a little bit. So we see the beginning of him coming to Balak. And we’ll stop more or less with this chapter. So we’ll have to start this again tomorrow because this is a really weird start.

Balak Goes Out to Meet Bilaam

So Balak hears that Bilaam came, that messengers must have went ahead and told him Bilaam is on the way. And he goes to meet him in a city called Ir Moav [city of Moav] next to the Arnon in asher biktzeh hagvul [which is at the edge of the border], in this river called Arnon, which we’ve discussed. Arnon was the border of Moav and Ammon.

Balak’s Complaints and Bilaam’s Response

And now Balak, Balak again has ta’anos [complaints]. He’s not happy with Bilaam and he speaks to him. He tells him, I’ve sent for you many times. Why didn’t you come? Is it because I cannot respect you? I cannot honor you?

And Bilaam answers it. Look, I came. So firstly, like why tell me you can’t come? I didn’t want to come, I came. But now, does that mean that I can speak anything? I can’t speak anything. Whatever Elokim, Hashem, our God will put in my mouth, that’s what I will speak.

So he’s sort of answering the two things. It’s not you, it’s not you that can’t respect me enough, that can’t honor me enough. It’s not that I can’t come. It’s Hashem who is controlling me. I will only speak what he gives me in his mouth.

The Welcoming Feast at Kiryat Chutzot

So they come to a place called Kiryat Chutzot. Balak slaughters bakar v’tzon [cattle and sheep], sheep from the herd, and sends Bilaam food. So they make a sort of a party. And in the morning, so that was like the first meeting.

Setting the Stage for What Follows

So let’s stop here. This is the first meeting. So there’s like the stage. Balak comes to Bilaam and there’s the first stage of the meeting where they have a sort of a small argument. But they reconcile. They make a little party.

And then we’re going to have the next, again, three times where each time Balak asks Bilaam to slaughter, not a party for himself, but for Hashem, for korbanot [sacrifices]. And each time, according to that, tries to prophesy. And then we have what happens.

Bamidbar Chapter 23: Bilam’s First Prophecy and Blessing

The Structure of the Bilam-Balak Narrative

So we’re reading Sefer Bamidbar chapter 23, which is the second part of the story of Bilam and Balak. As we’ve discussed, there’s the second major part of the story, which is after the whole part of the first part of Balak sending messengers to Bilam and the whole dialogue between them. The second part of Bilam on the way and the dialogue between him and his donkey and the angel. There is the third part which is really the main part, the central part, which is Bilam and Balak together trying to get Bilam to curse, to give his curses.

We had at the end of the previous chapter, the last chapter, the first meeting of Balak and Bilam, which is really a continuation in some sense of the third part. I said that everything here happens three times, right? He hit his donkey three times. The thing that happened only two times was him having this dialogue or arguing with the messengers of Balak. He came once and he said no and the second time he said yes. But really here’s the third time of that same dialogue because we have Balak himself asking Bilam, well, could I have not honored you enough? And Bilam answering, no, it’s not about the honor. It’s about me being able only to say what Hashem says and so on. That’s sort of the third part.

The Geographic Locations and Pacing of the Story

But that leads us into the main part and this is really where this chapter should start. I think they started it one pasuk after where it should have started. Even if you would have caught it here, it should have started the Vayehi Baboker [and it was in the morning] here in the last pasuk of chapter 22.

Which is that there’s locations and there’s important apparently—I don’t know the geography of these locations very well so it doesn’t mean anything to me—but apparently each of these areas are known places or places which are surrounding the place where the Yidden [Jews] were encamped and so on. So the first place they meet, Balak and Bilam meet in Ir Moav, the city of Moav, and at the border of Moav and wherever the next place is where maybe where Bilam is coming from.

Then they take him to a place called Kiryas Chutzos, which is where they have their first party. He makes a zevach [sacrifice/feast]. He sends Bilam—that’s like sort of the reconciliation, right? We say he’s not really mad at him. He’s inviting him to his party. He’s part of his life, although they had like this little argument a bit before. And then in the morning—that’s where the real main part of the story starts—they sleep over, Bilam and Balak. It’s also important. It also gives a pacing to the story where they keep on sleeping over, but there’s probably some deeper meaning also in this sleeping over.

The First Location: Bamos Baal

And in the morning, Balak takes Bilam to a second place—third, first place if we start counting here from the places where he’s tried to actually give his curses—which is Bamos Baal. Bamos Baal is apparently Bamos in the sense of a high place, a hill called Baal. Baal is of course famously the god of Canaan and so on, the god maybe that’s why it’s named like that. And that’s a place from where we can see some of their people, not all of them. He sees part of them. Apparently it’s a big camp. It’s hard to find like an elevated location from which you can see everything, but he sees some of that. And this is where Bilam is going to sort of look at them and try to give his mashal [parable/prophecy], his prophecy, his curse.

The Sacrificial Preparation: Karbanos as a Vehicle for Prophecy

So the order of this is that Bilam tells Balak you need to build a mizbeach [altar] for me and actually build seven of them and prepare seven oxen and seven rams to slaughter on these seven altars. And this actually reveals a secret to us that we didn’t know in the entire Sefer Vayikra, which talks about karbanos [sacrifices], which is that karbanos are a way to receive prophecy. Right, you want God to speak to you and God to appear to you in whichever way, in whichever modality He appears, one of the ways of doing that is to bring a karban.

We actually did see a sign of this in the story of the Sotah [suspected adulteress] where God reveals if she sinned by way of bringing a Karban Mincha [meal offering]. And I said then that every Karban Mincha really is a way of revealing God’s will in some way. And so Tefilas Mincha [the afternoon prayer], which is a zecher [remembrance] to that—in any case, Bilam commands to have these seven altars with the seven great sacrifices prepared. That will be his way of preparation for prophecy. And that’s what they do. Balak follows him. They both each—vaya’al [and he elevated/offered]—they sacrifice one bull and one ram each on each mizbeach.

How Bilam Receives Prophecy

And now Bilam tells Balak—and here we again have the description of how the prophecy comes to Bilam in a way that we don’t have in most other prophets. Definitely not in the Torah we don’t have for Moshe. We have in a little bit for other prophets in Nach [Prophets].

Bilam tells Balak you stand here. Rashi says stand on your karban, which is apparently a kind of a ritual standing. It’s like stand here, be part of this process. And he will go, go somewhere, go and take some walks by himself. And maybe God will meet me, basically will come across to me and will show me something and I will tell you. So that’s his way of describing how the prophecy will come to him—by some kind of walking, by some kind of meditation, whatever he’s doing, he might speak to him.

Vayelech shefi [and he went shefi]—and shefi is apparently a word, I think a word for this kind of meditation or this kind of preparation that Bilam is doing. To walk in a certain way or walk by himself or walk deep in his thoughts, wherever it is where he meets God. That apparently this is how he knew how to bring the prophecy on him.

God Meets Bilam

And that happens. What he said ulai [perhaps] happens. Vayikar Hashem el Bilam [and Hashem met/encountered Bilam]—God meets Bilam. Vayikar should be translated something like meet or like a chance meeting, but I think that’s the best translation that I can give right now.

And Bilam tells him, look I’ve prepared these seven altars. I’ve sacrificed an ox and a ram on each altar. In other words, when he’s saying, he means to say, okay, like I’ve done my part now you do your part. Right? That’s what he’s saying. He’s like look I’ve given you what you need. So what do you say?

Vayasem Hashem davar befi Bilam [and Hashem placed a word in the mouth of Bilam]. This literally means he put a word in the mouth of Bilam. The Midrash of course exploits the literalism of this saying that it’s like someone putting a—how do you call the thing that you put in the mouth of an animal to lead it or something like that? But this is just an idiom. That means he gave a message, right? I give—to put something in your mouth means I give you a message to give the next person. So he tells him go back to Balak and you’ll speak this. So he has his message.

Bilam’s First Prophecy

And he’s returning. I want to hear the message in one second. Bilam returns to Balak. He’s there still nitzav al olato [standing on his burnt offering], which is like I said part of the process, standing with all the ministers, all the princes of Moav.

Vayisa meshalo [and he raised his parable/prophecy]—and Bilam speaks, this is he raises his mashal, his proverbs, his poem. I’m saying like he starts speaking prophetically. That’s the way it describes it.

The Content of the First Mashal

And what does he do? He gives a prophetic or poetic description of the story of how Balak asked something from him and how he can’t provide it because this nation that he asked him to curse is actually great. And there’s this parallelism here, this dualism, and it’s like all Hebrew poetry or biblical poetry has.

And he starts: Min Aram yancheni Balak [From Aram Balak led me]—Balak has called me or led me from Aram. Melech Moav mehararei Kedem [the king of Moav from the mountains of Kedem]—the king of Moav who’s the same as Balak has led me from the mountains of Kedem. So Kedem is the east where Mesopotamia, where Bilam is from, called Aram, called the mountains of Kedem.

And he asks me: Lecha ara li Yaakov [come curse Yaakov for me], curse Yaakov for me. Ulcha zo’ama Yisrael [and come rage against Yisrael]—zo’ama is another way, means be angry, but some apparently means raise anger against Israel. So we have also this parallelism always Yaakov-Yisrael. That’s the very basic if you want to say something twice. You say use two names. Yaakov-Yisrael are the two names the poetry always uses for the people.

Bilam’s Response: Why He Cannot Curse

Now Bilam responds to Balak’s request in his poetry. Ma ekov lo kabo El [How can I curse what God has not cursed]—what can I curse? God is not cursed. So exactly corresponding to the two things as we saw before. Odah and kovah mean the same thing. So I cannot curse what God is not cursed. I cannot raise anger against what God is not be angering against.

And then he explains sort of why God doesn’t let him curse. Why is God not cursing and describes—remember the blessings of God is not just God sitting there and blessing. Good blessings of God are actions, right? The fact that he gives greatness or gives power to people.

The Vision from the Mountains

Describes God’s blessing: Ki merosh tzurim er’enu [For from the top of rocks I see him]—also, there’s a parallelism here to Bilam describing himself as coming from the mountains of Kedem. He says I’ve seen him from the heads of the great rocks, of the great hills, great mountains. Umigva’os ashurenu [and from the hills I behold him]—geva’os usually is smaller mountains or larger mountains. And I see.

Hen am levadad yishkon [Behold, a people dwelling alone]—I see a people resting or encamping by themselves, in other words stronger than everyone. Uvagoyim lo yitchashav [and among the nations it does not reckon itself]—bagoyim there doesn’t have to count other nations. In other words, he’s stronger than them. He’s not afraid of them.

Their Multitude and Greatness

And he says they’re also great people. There’s many of them. Mi manah afar Yaakov [Who can count the dust of Yaakov]—who can count the dust of Yaakov? So there’s a lot. Afar might mean something like sometimes we see when there’s a great army they walk and there’s like dust coming out of their feet because there’s a great march. Umispar et rova Yisrael [and the number of the rova of Yisrael]—I don’t know. There’s a problem with how to translate the word rova, but it must be a parallel to afar, like the maybe like the quarter where they quarter themselves or something like that.

The Wish to Share Their Fate

And he says—then he ends by saying he wishes to be like them. Tamos nafshi mos yesharim [May I die the death of the upright]—may I die. I think yesharim again, this is a parallelism. Utehi acharisi kamohu [and may my end be like his]—acharis is the end of someone, the end of a person’s life. And may I die correct, straight death and have my end being like that. In other words, I wish I would be like them. They’re going to have a good end.

Like many times in Tanach we see acharis means having a good end. Death is a little weird here because death is not a good thing, but what it means to say is if you have a great life, then you have a good death. That’s really what he’s talking about.

Balak’s Reaction and Bilam’s Refrain

Now this was Bilam’s first prophecy and Balak, of course, is not very happy. Screams at him. What have you done to me? I’ve asked you to curse my enemies and you’ve blessed them. And Bilam answers what is going to be his refrain all the time: I’ve told you already I can only speak what Hashem will put in my mouth. That’s what I keep—what do I keep to speak?

So now—so that’s the first cycle.

Bamidbar Chapter 23 — Bilam’s Second Prophecy and the Setup for the Third

And he says, then he ends by saying he wishes to be like them. תמות נפשי מות ישרים ותהי אחריתי כמהו [Tamot nafshi mot yesharim, tehiy achariti kamohu] — again this is a parallelism. *Achris* is the end of someone, the end of a person’s life. And may I die a correct, a straight death and have my end being like them. In other words, I wish I would be like them, they’re going to have a good end. Like many times in Tanach we see *achris* means having a good end.

Death is a little weird here, because death is not a good thing. What it means to say is if you have a great life, then you have a good death. That’s really what he’s talking about.

Now this was Bilam’s first prophecy, and Balak of course is not very happy. He screams at him, “What have you done to me? I’ve asked you to curse my enemies and you’ve blessed them.” And Bilam answers — what is the refrain going to be all the time? I’ve told you already, I can only speak what Hashem will put in my mouth. That’s what I keep, what I keep to speak. So that’s the first cycle.

The Second Cycle: A New Location at Sedei Tzofim

Second cycle, Balak tells Bilam, you know what, maybe they’ll take you somewhere else, you’ll see him, you’ll see some of him again, just like before they only saw some, but some other angle, maybe you’ll curse me from there. So apparently, it’s not clear what this changing of, like I said, changing geographical locations is supposed to help, but maybe he sees something else, maybe he understands that Bilam sees them in a certain way and that causes him to prophesy like this. He’ll go somewhere else, he’ll see them from a different angle and a different way, he’ll be able to give a curse.

So he takes them to another place called Sedei Tzofim in Rosh HaPisgah. Rosh HaPisgah is also where Moshe died, right? Pisgah might be the proper name of a mountain — we say Pisgah in the sense of a mountain, not a peak, but I think originally Pisgah is just the name of a place.

The Ritual Repeated

And same thing they do again, there’s seven altars, ox and ram in each altar. He tells the same exact thing to Bilam: stand on your *olah* [burnt offering], I will be *ikareh* [I will be met], right? So I’ll be the *nifal* [passive form], what happens to me from the Hashem *yikra* [will meet]. I will prepare myself so Hashem should meet me, I will be meeting towards him.

And the same thing, Hashem meets Bilam and he puts something in his mouth and he tells him this is what you will speak to Balak. And he comes back, same exact words, he’s standing on his *olah* with all the *sarei Moav* [princes of Moab], and Balak asks him, okay, what did Hashem speak?

A Subtle Difference: Balak’s Question

So this is something he didn’t have before. Before, the first time he just faced the *machaneh* [camp], he just starts to speak. Now he already told Balak, Balak, that I will only speak what Hashem speaks to me. So Balak is like, okay, so what did Hashem speak to you? And he starts again, he starts his prophecy again, and he basically has the same, repeats the same thing again, but also relates to the fact that this is the second time.

The Second Prophecy: God Does Not Change His Mind

Addressing Balak — A Demotion in Status

He starts again, he says, first he addresses Balak, he says, קום בלק ושמע, האזינה עדי בנו ציפור [Kum Balak veshema, ha’azina adei beno Tzipor] — stand up Balak, I’m here, the son of Tzippor, listen to me. So again, first he was *Melech Moav* [King of Moab], was the second of Balak, now he’s just the son of Tzippor. So this might be a little demotion for Balak in this language, like the first one was addressing him as the king of Moav, now he’s addressing him as the son of Tzippor.

The Theological Core: God’s Unchanging Nature

And he says, you think that you’re going to get God to change his mind? God is not a man who lies or says something and then makes it false, because he doesn’t follow through. He’s not a man who changes his mind, who regrets. A person, he speaks, says, and he doesn’t do, or he speaks, he doesn’t follow through on what he did, because he changed his mind. But from God, he has taken a blessing from God, this is what God wants to take, he will not return it. God didn’t change his mind, you think you’re going to change his mind by taking it to another angle, it’s the same thing.

Shifting Perspective: From the People to God’s View

And now he speaks more about the perspective of God. In the previous one he only started with the greatness of the people where they come from, and now he’s really speaking from the perspective of God, because remember the subject of this poem is more about God not changing his mind, about God actually loving Yisrael and Yaakov, and not wanting to change his mind.

He says, לא הביט און ביעקב ולא ראה עמל בישראל [Lo hibit aven b’Yaakov v’lo ra’ah amal b’Yisrael] — He does not see evil, he does not see sin in Yaakov, he doesn’t see madness, evil, we can think about how to exactly translate the word *amal* in Yisrael. ה’ אלקיו עמו ותרועת מלך בו [Hashem Elokav imo, utru’at melech bo] — Hashem, his God, is with him, and the *teru’ah* of his king — so here the king is not the king of Moav, the king is *melech*, which is a parallel to Hashem Elokav, or Elokav meaning his king, his God is a similar thing, he’s their leader, is with him, so Hashem is with him. His *teru’ah* might also literally mean like *teru’ah*, like his horns, his shofar that he blows is with them. Basically God is with them, he doesn’t want to see evil with them.

God’s Historical Relationship: The Exodus

And he’s not only being with them from now, remember you said, אל מוציאם ממצרים [El motzi’am miMitzrayim] — yeah, like Rashi noticed, it’s not *am yatza miMitzrayim* [the people left Egypt], *El motzi’am miMitzrayim* [God took them out of Egypt], God took them out of Mitzrayim, this *El*, this Havayah, with the greatness or the raisedness, the highness of *re’em*, which is apparently some kind of strong or tall, beautiful animal, like a kind of ox apparently.

Magic Cannot Touch Them

Now you try, you think you’re going to come with some kind of magic, some kind of rituals to curse them, כי לא נחש ביעקב ולא קסם בישראל [Ki lo nachash b’Yaakov v’lo kesem b’Yisrael] — there is no *nachash* [divination] that works on Yaakov, they’re stronger than that.

A Difficult Verse

כעת יאמר ליעקב ולישראל מה פעל אל [Ka’et ye’amer l’Yaakov ul’Yisrael mah pa’al El] — Now we will tell to Yaakov. Now this is a passage that is a little harder to read, what he seems to be saying is, again, connecting to the theme, it’s *El* that is the one that takes out the Mitzrayim, it’s the *El Hashem Elokav*, that’s *imo*, so you can’t tell Yaakov, you can’t go against, because this is *ma’pol El* [the activity of God], this is the God’s activities, that’s the best I can do for now.

The Lion Imagery: Israel’s Power

The last two lines of this poem, it goes back to the way he described it in the first poem, and describes the power, the great courage and power of this nation. הן עם כלביא יקום וכארי יתנשא [Hen am k’lavi yakum v’kh’ari yitnasa] — *lavi* and *ari* are two words for a lion, maybe a young one or an old one, I don’t know, he stands up like a lion, and it will not sleep until he eats what the lion eats, like *teref* is a lion that devours, conquers other animals, and drinks the blood of his enemies. And that’s also, so there’s this parallel between eating and drinking, of course nobody drinks the blood of their enemies literally, but this is an idiom for winning a war and killing.

Balak’s Clever Counter-Argument: Just Be Silent

So now Balak is already upset, and he doesn’t respond, *matas* [what have you done], because he already knows the answer, he already knows the answer to the question he asked last time, I’ve asked you the curse and you’ve blessed, he knows the answer, the answer is Hashem told you.

So Balak tells Balak [sic — Balak tells Bilam], you know something, I have a solution for you. Okay, you know something, God doesn’t want to curse them, okay, I can’t go against you, you can’t go against that, but who forced you to bless them? At least just be silent, if God only wants to bless, just be quiet.

Bilam’s Response: A Positive Commandment to Speak

And Bilam answers, no, you didn’t understand what I said. I didn’t only mean to say, Hashem is always, Hashem means I will keep, I will not go against Hashem, that’s true, but besides from me not being able to go against Hashem, I also have a positive commandment, whatever Hashem tells me to do, I have to do it, it’s like a *mitzvah* [commandment], I will do. So you asked me to get out of the problem by being silent, like doing a pocket veto, that’s not going to work. If Hashem tells me to say something, I must say it.

Setup for the Third Cycle: Rosh HaPeor

Okay, now Balak is not discouraged yet, he’s still trying a third time. Balak tells Bilam, okay, let me take you to another place. Now we already understand that it’s God that we have to placate here, that we get it, maybe we’ll take you to a third place, maybe we’ll be direct, maybe we’ll be correct in the eyes of God, and you’ll curse him, curse the people for me from there.

The Interpretive Possibilities of Location Changes

So again, it seems like these places are somehow supposed to show the weakness of the people, maybe as we see, Balak, Bilam is continuously being impressed by the weakness of the people, or by the strength of the people, and we could also interpret this if you want, spiritually he’s seeing their good deeds, they’re being good people, maybe from the other side, he’ll be able to see some weakness, he’ll find. We can interpret this in strategic terms, he’s looking for a way to get in for a kind of weakness, and then apparently understands that what God is doing is also the strength that they have, so he’s going to find some weakness, some angle to get in. Or you can interpret this spiritually as finding some sin or some problem, like we said, *l’habit aven b’Yaakov* [to see sin in Yaakov], maybe we’ll find some *aven*.

The Third Location: Rosh HaPeor

So that’s what he does, he takes them to a third place, Rosh HaPeor. And Peor apparently is also the name of a mountain, and of course we know that there’s also Baal Peor, the Baal of Peor, that’s the literal meaning of it, right, the God called Baal, Baal is just a word for *adon* [lord], right, the Lord of Peor. V’hanishkaf al pnei hayeshimon [And overlooking the Yeshimon] — from which there’s a view of the *yeshimon*, and of this plane called Yeshimon.

And the same process, the seven *mizbachot* [altars], with seven oxen, seven rams, and they do that. And now we are going to stop, because the chapter stops here, for whichever weird reason, so we will stop also, and continue the third prophecy and the fourth, which is not really part of the story, because there isn’t the whole process in it, in the next chapter.

Bamidbar Chapter 24: Bilam’s Third and Fourth Prophecies

The Third Location: Rosh HaPe’or

We’re reading today Bamidbar chapter 24, but we have to go back a little bit to the end of the previous chapter. We’ve discussed we’re up to the third time where Balak and Bilam are trying the same thing. He took him to a third place, Rosh HaPe’or, from where he can see some of the people.

Actually, it doesn’t say “some of the people.” It says that he could see the people. Wait, it says — yeah, it doesn’t say that he could see them at all. It says Vayishkof al pnei hayeshimon [and he looked out over the wasteland]. So interesting. Before, until now, it was places where he could see some of the people. Here apparently he could see the people, as we’ll see. It says fairly clearly that he saw the people. Maybe from here he could see everyone. Maybe this is a higher mountain or a higher peak where he could see everyone.

And they do their same process with their seven altars, their seven korbanot [sacrifices]. They do all of that and now there’s a change.

Bilam’s Change of Approach

One would expect from the previous two times that Bilam goes and does his process, his meditations, his sorcery tricks in order to get the nevuah [prophecy], but he doesn’t do that. And that’s where this chapter starts.

Bilam saw — he already learned his lesson. This is also similar to all these third times. The third time he already realized. He saw in the third time that Hashem — it’s good in the eyes of Hashem. Hashem wants to bless the people. He doesn’t want to curse them. So he doesn’t even try. He doesn’t even try to do as he’s done the time and the time before likrat nechashim [to meet divinations] — that’s the nachash [sorcery/divination] that he tried to do. Apparently that was a way of him trying to get a prophecy. And apparently he also had a way of trying to get a prophecy that will be bad somehow for the people. He doesn’t try.

And he turns his face to the desert, which is the direction in which he can see the people. He raises his eyes and he sees the people. He sees Yisrael shokhen lishvatav [Israel dwelling according to its tribes]. You see them camping each with their shvatim [tribes]. And ruach Elokim [the spirit of God] is on him. So now he has the prophecy that he’s tried to get other times and other ways. He has it also directly now.

Sometimes I think that maybe the seeing Yisrael shokhen lishvatav itself gave him the inspiration here for his prophecy. And in some sense, we’ll see that he talks about it.

Bilam’s Self-Introduction in the Third Prophecy

So he starts like this. He raises his prophecy. He starts his prophecy, his proverb, his poetry. And this is what he says. Now again, it’s different than the previous two times. The previous two times it started with Balak. It started with praising Balak, with the greatness of Balak, the king of Moab who asked him to do this thing. Here he already knows that he’s not going to get what he asked. So he starts with himself in this prophecy. And in the last one, the fourth one, he does not start with presenting Balak. He starts with presenting himself.

And he starts in the style of poetry. He says, says, says — this is the words of Bilam, the son of Be’or, hagever shetum ha’ayin [the man of the shetum eye]. I would imagine that this is something about him having a good eye, although usually many mefarshim [commentators] read it as a similar eye, meaning something like a closed eye or covered eye. But that would be weird because he should be praising himself. So it must be some verb that somehow means that he has open eyes. He has good eyes that he can see well. He can see the future. He can see the reality and so on.

And then he repeats himself and he says, these are the words of shomei’a imrei El [the one who hears the words of God], and not only hears, but also sees. So that’s interpreting the shetum ha’ayin, I think. He sees machazeh Shaddai [the vision of the Almighty] — he sees the vision of God, Shaddai being a poetic word for God. It’s almost only used in poetry. Nofel [falling] — he falls and his eyes are open, his eyes are revealed. So nofel might be a description of prophecy where he will fall and somehow prophesy in that kind of bodily state or something, like the vision falling on him.

The Beauty of Israel’s Encampment

And what he describes is exactly what he’s seeing. He saw Yisrael, the camp of the people, and he says, Mah tovu ohalekha Ya’akov, mishkenotekha Yisrael [How good are your tents, Jacob, your dwellings, Israel] — again, the doubling of Ya’akov and Yisrael.

And describes them with nature images. They’re like streams or maybe valleys, like a nachal [wadi], like moving or turning and twisting, like gardens planted on a river. So there’s this image of a strong river or something like being very lush or fertile or something like that. Ka’ahalim [like ahalim trees] — like these trees called ahalim. Ahalim is a kind of tree that has a good smell or kind of plant, nata Hashem [that Hashem planted]. This is something we’ve had — we have several times in Tanakh — gardens, or in other words, wild plants where there’s beautiful trees or beautiful plants are considered — Hashem, nature naturally planted them there. Ka’arazim [like cedars] — like strong cedar trees which are planted on the water. So again, they have a certain strength, a certain sustenance, they stay there, they’re not moving.

Water Imagery and Future Progeny

And now, as he’s working with the water imagery, he says, Yizal mayim midalyav [water will flow from his buckets], let his water drip or pour from his vessel, from his deli [bucket], and vezar’o bemayim rabim [and his seed in many waters] — his children, his zera [seed], which is a kind of water, like something comes out of him, in many waters. In other words, so this stream of people coming out, they will go — and now he’s talking already about the future, about the many children. So it’s talking about the people having many children. They have these tents, and they’re planted in history, in reality, in a very strong way, in a very powerful way, and they’re multiplying.

The King Higher than Agag

And then he describes their military success, of their kingdom, of their state. Vayarom me’Agag malko [His king will be higher than Agag] — will win someone called Agag. Vetinase malkhuto [And his kingship will be exalted]. This is, of course, not very clear who is this Agag. Later we’ll see, he talks about Amalek very clearly. This might be a reference or a prophecy about Shaul [Saul], the first king of Israel, who killed Agag, the king of Amalek. And Amalek was said to be a very powerful king and a very powerful tribe, so it’s a great praise to say that their king will be stronger than Agag.

And as we’ll see a moment later, he’s going to be explicitly talking about the future. Here he’s not yet talking about the future, so it might be less clear that this is what it means. Maybe it means someone, other person called Agag, or maybe it should mean something like veyarom mehagag malko — Agag might mean something like a roof, or being higher. His king is higher. In any case, it’s a description of his kingdom, of his warriors and his kings being powerful and strong.

The Exodus and Military Might

And he goes back to discuss the story that this whole story started with. This is again, sort of a repetition of what we started with. They went out of Egypt, and again he says, El motzi’o miMitzrayim [God brought him out of Egypt], keto’afot re’em lo [like the horns of a re’em for him] — again he has these heights like this re’em, this very powerful and beautiful, strong animal.

Yokhal goyim tzarav [He will consume the nations, his enemies] — so eating again is an image for military conquest. He breaks their bones, vechitzav yimchatz [and with his arrows he will smash them] — with his arrows he destroys them, he smashes them.

The Lion Imagery

And again the imagery of a lion. Kara shachav k’ari ukhelavi [He crouches, lies down like a lion and like a lioness] — he lies down like a lion, like a lion again. Mi yekimenu [Who will rouse him?] — who can make him stand up? In other words, when he decides to rest somewhere, when he decides to take over a place, to conquer somewhere, nobody can stand up like a lion. When a lion is laying, lions have this thing — they lay, they stand and wait for their prey, and nobody is going to go and bother him.

The Climactic Blessing

And now he finalizes with the sort of the main thing. Mevarechekha varukh ve’orarekha arur [Those who bless you are blessed, and those who curse you are cursed]. Of course this is not only about whoever talks blessings about you. It means whoever wants you well, whoever helps you, whoever is part of helping you. This is of course very explicitly the berachah [blessing] that Avraham was given, and also explicit reference to what Balak wanted. Balak wanted to curse him and then said, well if I will curse him, I will be cursed myself. I would rather bless them and bless themselves, like he’s finished earlier, I would love my part to be with these people.

So now that this happened, so this is like the final win of the blessing over Balak’s plan to curse them.

Balak’s Fury

So Balak is really mad. Vayichar af Balak el Bilam [And Balak’s anger burned against Bilam] — he’s really mad at Bilam. He claps his hands, which is an expression of anger — interesting. And he tells Bilam, what’s going on? I called you to curse my enemies, and behold, you blessed them already three times!

So therefore, it goes back all the way to his first thing. Remember the first time Bilam came to him, and the second time he sent the messengers, he told them, look, I can honor you as much honor as you want. He says, well, how about now you run back to where you came from. You go back to where you came from. I’ve told you that I will honor you, but here, Hashem has denied your honor. Right? You’re the one saying the whole time, Hashem doesn’t let. Okay, so look, you’re not getting any honor, because you’re not doing what I hired you for. I hired you for one thing. I’m not going to pay you for doing the opposite of what I hired you.

Bilam’s Defense

And Bilam answers the same exact thing that he’s kept on answering. And in some sense, he might be saying, well, I do deserve still some honor. Right? Because he’s saying, I’ve already told you, all the way back when the messengers came to me, I told you, Balak can give me his whole house of gold and silver, I still can’t go against what Hashem says, to do anything good or bad from my own heart, on my own part. I can’t decide myself to do a blessing or a curse. I have to do it in prophecy. Whatever Hashem speaks, that’s what I will speak.

So you’re being angry at me — it doesn’t really make sense. You should be angry at Hashem. Right? You shouldn’t be angry at me. And saying you won’t honor me — you really should honor me, because you’ve hired me as a prophet. This is the prophecy. What can I do? And I didn’t decide it.

Transition to the Fourth Prophecy: Be’acharit Hayamim

And now, Bilam says, you know what, it’s true that I will go back. He seems to maybe gave up on getting paid. He goes back. He says, I will go back to my people, but let me tell you, let me tell you what this nation will do to your nation be’acharit hayamim [in later days].

Understanding “Acharit Hayamim”

Which everyone gets translated as “the end of days.” I don’t think that is warranted by what the pasuk says. Acharit doesn’t mean the last days. It’s not like the world is going to end. What it means is, not now. Like he already started in the beginning — at the end, lo atah [not now] — he’s going to say that here, clearly. Or in the beginning, he said, tehi achariti kamohu [let my end be like theirs]. And the whole thing of a prophet is that he can see what will happen in the future, not necessarily today, tomorrow, in the longer term.

So he’s saying, I will tell you what will happen. You think you started up with them, you’re going to conquer them now, you’re going to make a war, I will destroy them, I’ll banish them from my land — this is not going to happen. The opposite is going to happen. They’re going to banish you, and all of your neighbors. And he describes in this prophecy, the greatness of the kingdom of the Jews.

The Expanded Prophetic Formula (Pesukim 15-16)

And he starts again, he starts a new prophecy, a new oracle, so to speak, and he starts again, in the same way, the same exact six lines, or three lines that he had before, just with one that was I think missing in the earlier one. He says, this is the words of Balaam, the son of Baal, the one who hears — that part, what was missing before. Here it has the full verse, so to speak: he hears the words of God and he knows the knowledge of Elion.

So El and Elion are two names for God — the El, the strong one; Elion, the higher one. People say also this was literally names, they called the God Elion or El. In any case, that’s how it has to be read here, right? We say El Elion, as if Elion is just the title of God, but it seems here that Elion is also sort of the name. He was referred directly as Elion, because otherwise the parallelism doesn’t work.

He sees Merzeh Shaddai — he sees the vision of Shaddai — and he falls with his eyes open.

The Star Prophecy: Israel’s Future Conquests (Pesukim 17-19)

And here he says, he talks about explicitly what will happen in the future. Er’enu v’lo ata — I see him, not now. I see him another way of saying see him, the Lord could have not closed, right now, not today, maybe not tomorrow, but in the future.

A star will come out, will direct itself out from Yaakov. V’kam shevet — and again, shevet means literally a stick, but a shevet, a group of people from Yisrael. And what he will do is destroy — mochatz pa’atei Moav — he will smash the signs, the limits, the borders of Moav. V’karkar — and also will destroy, some word that means something like destroy or smash or crumble — kol bnei Sheis, all children of Sheis.

Which it’s interesting who Sheis here is. Moav, we know who it is. Sheis, we know the Adam has a son Sheis, but that doesn’t seem to match here. Maybe there was some group of people, or maybe this is another way of saying Moav, I’m not sure.

The Conquest of Edom

And then he talks about not only about Moav, because that would work for the parallelism, if Sheis, bnei Sheis, is a word that Moav called himself by. And then he says, and also Edom, Edom will be an inheritance, yerusha, for Yisrael. Obviously, yerusha, Seir oyvav — and Seir, which is another word for Edom. So again, Edom and Seir, just like this Yaakov and Yisrael. Yisrael is Edom and Seir, and who are the enemies of the people. Remember, they tried to go through and Edom didn’t let, right?

In the future Yisrael, Yisrael will conquer, they will make power, they will be the winners. V’yerd mi’Yaakov — and a leader, a governor will come out of Yaakov. V’he’evid sarid me’ir — so it will destroy what was left over from Ir. Ir again is the name of Moav, maybe Ir Moav, or Ar, might be also one of the ways that Moav itself was called. But maybe the word ir, the word ir of course means a town, a city, but also there was a city called Ir, or Ar, and might be similar, and it means that will destroy that.

So that’s what he talks about — Yisrael versus Moav and Edom, for sure, explicitly, whoever bnei Sheis are.

The Oracle Against Amalek (Pasuk 20)

Now he talks about Amalek. Vayar es Amalek — so Balaam goes to watch as Amalek. Vayisa meshalo — he raises his mashal again, he says another oracle. And he says, reishis goyim Amalek — the first nation of Amalek. So the first might mean the strongest. Of course he was also the first to fight with Yisrael, and all the way back, so might mean that. They once fell to Amalek, they lost somewhat that battle. V’achariso adei oved — and his end will be entirely lost, as his end tends towards being lost.

And again this reinforces the point that Agag, we’ve read before, this is talking about Shaul, and later David, which destroyed, which won the battle with Amalek.

The Oracle Against the Kenites (Pesukim 21-22)

Then there’s Kaini. He sees Kaini. Now Kaini was people who lived next to the area of Amalek. Of course it’s mentioned also in Avraham Avinu’s prophecy — v’es haKaini, v’es haKnizi, v’es haKadmoni — it’s mentioned. Might be also connected with Yisro’s children, might have become part of this Kaini, not clear if they were entirely Kaini.

And it says like this: eisan moshavecha — your place where you sit is strong. V’sim basela kinecha — and you’ve put your, kain means literally like your nest, the place where you sit, the place where you belong, you’ve put in a rock, in a strong rock. And that might be a description of literally the places where they lived, which were high, high mountains or rocky places.

But this will also not last forever. In the same way as Amalek, you started off strongly, but in the end you will be destroyed. Ki im yilba’er Kayin — Kayin, in the end, yilba’er, Kayin, Kayin will be eaten up. V’le’er is like another word of saying achla, right, destroyed, like v’shilach has be’era, burnt, or not necessarily burnt but destroyed, eaten up. Ad mah Ashur tishbecha — till Ashur will take you captive. So this is another name of a nation mentioned here, Ashur, apparently conquered these people called Kayin in the end, and they destroyed them.

The Vision of Future Empires (Pesukim 23-24)

Vayisa meshalo vayomar — and he has another start again, his oracle. And he says, oy mi yichyeh misimo Kel — who will live from when God does this? In other words, he’s saying, he’s prophesying, seeing a bunch of destroy, a bunch of doom for all these nations, he says, it’s good that I’m not living then, right, because who will live in those times?

This is the first person who said something like, we know from the Gemara, yeisei v’lo achmineh — people, prophecies, prophets that see bad prophecies, they say like, I don’t really want to live to see this, but it will be woe to who will live to see this.

The Ships from Kittim

And he continues to say that this caused apparently the next, one more conquest. This is like a prophet looking into the future and seeing how all the nations that seem to be very strong, very well established, and well defended borders and all of that, there’s always an end to every empire, everything happens, in the end, everything falls, and everything is taken over by the next one.

V’tzim miyad Kittim — there will be tzim, apparently ships will come from Kittim. Kittim is islands, wherever that is, maybe Rhodes or Cyprus, some places where there’s islands. V’inu Ashur v’inu Ever — and they will destroy or they will torture or they will afflict, Ashur and Ever. Ashur being what we just discussed, Ever also, Ever the Mesopotamian kingdoms. V’gam hu adei oved — he himself, so these Kittim, whoever they were, they might be, some say that this is a reference to the Romans who came with ships over the Mediterranean and destroyed these empires, or someone else, Greeks, whoever it is, it will also be destroyed in the end.

So this is him looking into the future and saying, oh, this empire takes over that one and that one and that one, and the end of the Ever, they all get lost, all get destroyed.

Conclusion: Bilam and Balak Depart (Pasuk 25)

These are the end of Balaam’s oracles, Balaam’s prophecies. Vayakam Bilam — and he does what Balaam said, told him, go back to your place, so he goes back to his place. And Balaam also goes on his way, goes back home to where he came from, I guess.