The power of the story - really, the power of Torah and Torah storytelling specifically - is the powerful lessons imparted through example. And what one feels a lot of the time when reading Torah is that paradigms are set forth, always mixed (always!), of course with varying degrees of middot. No one is pure evil; no one is pure good.
But with Balaam, there certainly seem to be a whole lot of examples of what not to do, including do not
1. Try to cajole G-d, argue with G-d, or "try again" already knowing what the answer will be
2. Act for self-honor or, equally badly, money
3. Deal with the evil, especially evil leadership with unlimited funds
4. Anger easily, especially anger with those who have helped, served, and been a companion for one's entire life
And there are so many others.
There are a few commentaries that rely on the less than wholesome relationship Balaam supposedly had with his donkey. I don't think the Torah is going there. But when he savagely beats his donkey - already, that should not be acceptable to us - the story gets downright sad when we learn that the donkey had been with him since he was really a baby.
The evil are not only violent, as we see here, and easy to rage, but also insipid, impetuous, ungrateful, and narrow-minded. The list goes on. Perhaps blind to the obvious truth standing right in front of them is an apt way of summing things up - as the Torah quite literally tells us. And it does so repeatedly - we should just get the message after three times!
The road block isn't a blockage - it's an angel of G-d, directing us to another path. The blindness, the tragedy, the sadness - that's all in not seeing that it is an angel guiding us the entire way, sometimes even against our will, and sometimes even the Voice of H' directly. It's all there the entire time, but rage, honor, and other negative forces make us blind to it. Stop. Pause. Breathe. Look deeper. The angel, the Voice - they are ever-present.
Comments
Post a Comment