The sun has set.  The clouds are blue with pink streaks.  This is what I am looking at as I start to write about this week’s parsha (Torah portion).  The parsha is called Balak.  He is the Moabite king, and he is afraid of the children of Yisrael.  So he enlists the help of a man of god named Bilim, to curse the children of Yisrael so that Balak can drive them off.

After much persuasion, god give Bilim permission to go and say only what god tells him to say.  Bilim goes, and after chatting with his donkey and an angel who wants to kill him, he finally meets up with Balak.  Balak takes Bilim to three places and they make offerings to god at each of those places.  And each time Bilim blesses the people that he is hired to curse.  Needless to say, this does not go over to well with his employer who gets angry with him and they part… but not before Bilim tells Balak what the children of Yisrael will do to his people, and others at the end of days.

The parsha does not end here.  It ends with the men of Yisrael being seduced by the daughters of the Moabites, and at least one Midianite woman, into worshiping their deities.  This leads to a plague that kills 24,000 and only gets stopped by Pinchas, the grandson of Aharon (Moshe’s/Mose’s brother), when he impales the Israelite who just made a show of going into a tent to sleep with his Midianite girlfriend.

A vicious parsha to say the least.

I was looking for something really profound to share with you-all.  The only thing that was coming was a comparison between Avraham and Bilim.  I didn’t want to write about this because it didn’t feel sexy.  However, when I finally broke down and said I will,  fireworks suddenly started going off outside.  So this must be what haShem (god) wants me to write about.

And it makes sense.  You see, I was acting like Bilim – looking for something good according to what I wanted.  Avraham was simply doing what haShem asked.

And yet, it is hard to see this from the text.  For example, when Avraham is told to sacrifice Yitzhak (Isaac), he gets up an saddles his donkey and they travel with two youths.  Likewise in our parsha, when haShem gives Bilim permission to go to Balak, he gets up and saddles his donkey and goes with two youths.  And god talks with both of them.

So, what is the difference between them?  Why is one considered good, and the other evil?

The answer to this can be found in the talk of blessings and curses.  It is clear that Avraham is doing what haShem wants him to do because nothing harms Avraham.  The Torah tells us that god says whomever curses Avraham will be cursed, and whomever blesses him will be blessed.  When it comes to Bilim, our parsha quotes Balak who tells us that whomever Bilim blesses is blessed and whomever he curses is cursed.

This is not a case of being active or passive.  Avraham is not passive by any stretch of the imagination.  He took on, for example, and defeated an army from multiple kings with only 318 handpicked men.  Rather, to quote Bilim in his final prophecy about Yisrael, is making like a strong, brave, and courageous soldier.  In other words, he stood up for his convictions in following god in all things – even if it meant sacrificing his own son.

For this, haShem became the shield for Avraham and protected him from the curses of others by turning the curses back on the curser.  And likewise, those that blessed Avraham were rewarded by being blessed.

This is opposed to Bilim who tried to use haShem to force his will on others:  Whomever he cursed is cursed and whomever he blessed is blessed.  Does this make Bilim powerful?  It does in the eyes of Balak.  However, as we read this week and next week, Bilim isn’t so powerful.  He can’t curse whomever he wants to curse, and he gets killed (a form of curse) by those he tried to curse (how ironic that it is the offspring of Avraham) as we will read next week.

I remember Rabbi Gedalia Fleer teaching that you can’t tell a good person from a wicked person by their actions.  Both get up in the morning and get dressed and have breakfast and go to work.  Avraham looks evil for trying to kill his son.  Bilim appears good for he is only trying to help a people concerned about being overrun.

However, god knows what is in the heart of a person.  God knows if you are doing what your ego desires, of if you are trying to follow the part of yourself connected to god.  And I think we can see it too, if we look beyond the surface and see what is shining out of the person.

If you care to read what I wrote about this parsha last year, click here.

About the Author

Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.