Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Who Exactly is Bilaam?

Thank you Rebbe Zev for pitching. Again, we want to give a mazel tov to Rabbi and Mrs. Poston and the birth of a grandchild. They should have much, much nachas. Today's sheer is dedicated for a refuah shleimah for Chaim Shimon ben Elka. May he have a refuah b'soch sh'ar cholei Yisrael. And an aliyah l'nishmas Tzibel bas Avraham Chaim and Tzaddik ben Dov Ber. Again, may their nishamas have an aliyah in the merit of their haskafos Torah. In addition, Rebbe Shmuel and Mrs. Gancher is here, Carol and Gancher are sponsoring tonight's sheer l'iluy nishmas their son Binyamin Yisrael ben haLevi. Again, all of us remember the struggles that Binyamin went through and we just know that his share in olam ha ba is extremely, extremely high and very, very great. And this is his second yahrzeit this Thursday, Thursday the 10th of Tammuz and all of us are sharing in your pain and hopefully the good memories as well. Also dedicated by Reuven and Sheila Gayson in honor of the upcoming bas mitzvah of their daughter Eidel Tirtza Gayson on 13 of Tammuz. Shira Gayson, I'm sorry. The Gayson family I happen to know from Silver Spring. Reuven's father, Dr. Allan Gayson, was a great, great tzaddik, really one of the most beloved people in the community. And the Reuven was actually, I believe, a classmate of my my son Moshe. So, we go back a very long way and they should have much much mazel and bracha on the bat mitzvah of their daughter on the 13th of Tammuz. And finally, once again, tonight's class is sponsored by an anonymous donor and uh Mr. and Mrs. Miss Anonymous, uh we thank you very much for all of your support. Uh we are now in the 40th year of the desert. One doesn't realize that parshas chukas, last week's parsha, kind of skipped over 38 and 1/2 years. It's it's it's really very interesting. Uh we're given so much detail about the first year after the Exodus, which included matan Torah and it included the ego, and the second year began the Michigan, and then we had the sin of the spies, and the Torah kind of skips everything over, and in the 40th year, last week, we read about Miriam's death, we read about Aaron's death, and we read about the gazera of Hashem that Moshe Rabbeinu would also die without going to Eretz Yisrael. So, we're all the way now in the 40th year. The rest of the Torah is the last year in the in the desert. And the incident that is recorded here is that the king of Moab, Balak, is afraid uh of the Jewish people and he hires Bil'am, who is known as a professional sorcerer, to curse the Jewish people so that they would be destroyed. And the basic story is that uh Bil'am went with the intention of cursing, and he went to three different locations, but every single time he wanted to curse Bnei Yisrael, it turned into a blessing. One of those blessings is actually a very famous pasuk that appears in the siddur at the very beginning of davening, "Ma tovu ohaleiha Yaakov, how goodly, how beautiful are your tents, Yaakov, mishkenotecha, your dwelling places, Israel. Now many people don't say it like I myself don't say it but if you look at a sitter it actually is the first page of the Shacharit davening that when you walk into show you say Matovu Ohalekha because there is a medrish that says that Bilam's reference to Ohalekha uh in addition to the tents of the Jews themselves in the desert is a reference to the shuls and the batei medrish where you daven where you learn Torah. Now the Maharsha was actually against of the recitation of Matovu because the Maharsha says why should we appropriate Bilam's words to praise God? Bilam is a bad guy. Bilam is a rasha. But you know in some ways it's the other way around really. Number one those are the words that Hashem put into Bilam's mouth. That's those are not the words that Bilam wanted to utter. And uh bekhlal if they're a beautiful beautiful praise of the Jewish people then it's proper that it would be incorporated into the davening. So there actually is a machlokes of minhagim should you say Matovu or should you not say Matovu? But nevertheless the pasuk itself is from uh is from Bilam. Now it's interesting if we try to compile a profile of Bilam. Who is Bilam? We really have two different descriptions of Bilam emerging from Chazal. Description number one is Bilam was an awesomely great person. Chazal describe him as the navi that God gave to the nations as equivalent to Moshe Rabbeinu for the Jewish people. The medrish tells us that the umos ha'olam would have a claim to God if you would have given us a prophet as great as Moshe Rabbeinu we too would have been righteous. So God answered that complaint ahead of time by giving them the prophet Balaam. So, there is this idea of Balaam equal to Mosha. Balaam equal to Mosha. There is, however, a big problem with that. Balaam is Balaam and Mosha is Mosha. I mean, the nations are making the I mean, what would the nations say? If you would give us somebody as great as Mosha, we would be righteous. So, God gives them Balaam. You see, you're not righteous even though I gave you Balaam. Well, they could still say, "Yeah, you gave us Balaam. You didn't give us Mosha." Meaning, "How do you expect us to become good?" So, there actually is a very deep idea here. Balaam didn't start off life as Balaam. And Mosha didn't start off life as Mosha. These are two people that God chose. Two people with a very elevated soul. Mosha for the Jewish people. Balaam for the for the nations of the world. God gave them both extraordinary gifts. Amazing talents. Tremendous levels of prof- of prophecy and insight. So far, they're both the same in that level. The question is, what do you do once you reach that pinnacle of power, insight, understanding? You know, the famous statement of the British political science scientist Lord Acton, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." A man that is given superpowers can become easily corrupted. Can become arrogant. Can become so consumed with his sense of power. That's what happened to Bilam. Moshe Rabbeinu took these gifts and used them to serve Hashem and the Jewish people. So, you see, Hashem did give the Yemos haOlam somebody who potentially could have been Moshe Rabbeinu, which was his own bechira. That was mekalel him. So, seen in this way, it's it's somewhat similar to our discussion of Korach 2 weeks ago. It's very, very similar. One side of Bilam is the great prophet to whom Hashem gave power to curse and destroy. And the other is the person who is consumed with his lust, with his ta'avah, with his arrogance, with his ga'avah. And once again, as I said about Korach being a tragic figure, Bilam is a tragic figure as well. Because Bilam was destined for greatness. But Bilam was destroyed by the flaws that are within him. Okay? So, that's the understanding that Bilam was both a navi equivalent to Moshe. And Bilam is the prototype of the rasha. Now, it's very interesting that in Midrashic literature, Bilam appears and reappears in different guises or disguises. According to one view, Bilam is none other than Lavan coming back for act two. Lavan, Lavan who cheated and deceived Yaakov now comes back as this master sorcerer. Now, you have to understand, whenever Chazal identify a person as being somebody who lived hundreds and hundreds of years ago, there really is a machlokes. Do we really mean that Lavan like lived for hundreds of years? Or do we mean that they shared their souls? That Bil'am is a reincarnation of Laban, etc. You know, so that that's generally a machlokes. We also find in the Gemara that Bil'am in later times is sometimes used as a kinuy, as a nickname or a pseudonym for Jesus of Nazareth, Yeshua. So, for example, the Gemara in Gittin talks about Bil'am burning in Gehennam, and the context is fairly clear, without getting into all the details, that it's it's not a reference to the Bil'am of the Torah. It's really a veiled reference to Yeshua, to Jesus. Now, there too, it's not entirely clear if the original text Chazal themselves equated Bil'am to Yeshua, or this may have been a censorship thing. Meaning, as you know, the Catholic Church very, very heavily censored the Gemaras, forcing different names to be replaced. So, again, I'm not clear, I have to research a little bit. Is it that Chazal originally said uh Yeshua, or, you know, whatever it is, Yeshua Hanotzri, and the censors just changed it to Bil'am, in which case there's no theological message in that, or Chazal actually considered Yeshua to be a reincarnation of Bil'am in some particular particular way. By the way, this notion of censorship, I don't I mean, I don't want to get up too much off topic, is actually very, very uh fascinating. Uh because there's actually a manual, the Catholic Church issued a manual in the Middle Ages about words that are supposed to be taken out or changed. And they would employ Jewish apostates who knew Hebrew, who had converted to Christianity, and they're and for most most of them were ignorant, but their job was to censor. So, I once saw that I I couldn't verify this, but I once read that in the forbidden list was the word The word was taken by the church to be pejorative and instead of it said akum. Now, akum is an abbreviation oved kokhavim u mazalot, someone who worships the stars and the planets, in other words, a pagan. And if you read the Gemara, you'll often see the word akum or spelled out oved kokhavim. But many say oved kokhavim was the censored phrase that was used instead of because the Catholics figure if you change every reference to to oved kokhavim, uh you're only condemning, you're only criticizing pagans and you're not criticizing Christians. So, oved kokhavim is not the authentic reading and that's why you'll often find in the Rambam that the Rambam uses the word or nakhri rather than oved kokhavim unless he's talking about avodah zarah. I mean, there is laws of avodah zarah. So, what's interesting is uh it's very very funny that this was such an automatic reflex that the word is bad and you got to change it to oved kokhavim that even when the Gemara quotes a verse describing the Jewish people as a kadosh, a holy nation, they changed it to oved kokhavim kadosh, which means they didn't know what they were reading. They just saw it in the Maga. I see the word you got to change it to oved kokhavim. Okay. So, you have a similar process with Bil'am and Yeshua, perhaps. Okay. But Bil'am is in the Yeah. Beautiful. Which one? This is not a question in the Talmud. Bil'am and the Jesus. Uh then there's poshei Yisrael. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't say Jesus explicitly there either. It says poshei. Yeah, yeah, there are two There are reference to Bil'am and a reference to poshei Yisrael, which many say that could be Yeshua, but yeah, you're correct. In Gittin itself, uh you're right. Bil'am is separated, but there are other texts which only say Bilh, they don't mention Kosha Israel. Okay. So Bilh kind of comes back from the past as Lavan and Bilh reemerges in the future as Yeshua. But be it as it may, Bilh is said to have a great talent. And we'll talk about the nature of that talent, that his curses tended to take place. Now, uh the Hafetz Chaim used to say an interesting word. If the king of Moab is afraid of the Jewish people, why does he hire Bilh to curse the Jews? Why doesn't he hire Bilh to bless his nation, that his nation should be impervious? Right? Ask for a bracha, don't ask for a klala. So there are two answers that are given. First of all, maybe Bilh didn't have the power of bracha. Now, although it through this the Chumash says that Balak said, "I know that whom you bless is blessed and whom you curse is cursed." But maybe that's just hyperbole. It could be that Bilh was only given connection to the dark negative forces and not to the positive forces. That's one answer. Bilh couldn't do brachos. But the Hafetz Chaim gives a different answer. The Hafetz Chaim says, "This is the nature of those who hate the Jews. They don't care about their blessing. They just want the Jews to suffer." Meaning to say, it doesn't even occur to Balak to Balak to ask for blessing. Balak just wants curses. And indeed, this is the mahalach of anti-Semitism throughout the world. I mean, look at what Hitler himself did to Germany by his campaign against the Jews in terms of people who left. He lo- he lost Albert Einstein. I mean, lost great great great great talents, but it made no difference. The iker is to get rid of the Jews even if that destroys the country and the society in in in many many ways. That's the nature of hate. But what's interesting is Balak hated the Jews. Balak was afraid of the Jews. But, it's interesting that Balaam is not described, I mean, other than connecting him to Laban and Yishka, but in terms of the basic shot of the Chumash, Balaam is the mercenary for hire, meaning Balaam's motivation is not the same as Balak's motivation. Balak hates the Jewish people, is scared of them, wants them destroyed. Balaam wants money for the job. Which means, theoretically, had Moshe hired Balaam, he would have gone over to Moshe's side. They say that that's even the meaning of the name Balaam could be Balaam. He has no national affiliation. He is the cool, calm professional who does his job and doesn't really care. You know, I I come from the legal profession, so I You think what? This is the negative image of the lawyer. The lawyer will represent, you know, any side as long as they get paid for it. And Balaam was the mercenary. So, Balak is the anti-Semite. Balaam is the mercenary who just does his job. And apparently, when it comes to cursing, it's pretty effective. Okay, so that's kind of general. Now, uh let Say again that The Torah says that he knew the exact fine I yeah, but I'll get to that, yeah. I'll get to Balaam knowing the exact moment of why his cursing was effective. That's what we'll get to that. But, before I begin my my main share, I just want to share with you a bit of a humorous sport from the Apter Rav. The Apter Rav um was uh a great Chassidic rebbe of the 19th century. He's not the Apter rebbe, the Apter Rav, cuz he was the reb of Apta tov, which was a town in Poland. And he was known as the Ohev Yisrael, the lover of Yisrael, because indeed his book on Chumash is called Ohev Yisrael. And in every parsha he tries to derive lessons of Ahavas Yisrael. So somebody asked him, "Where do you see Ahavas Yisrael in the parsha of Balak?" Now in truth, I don't even understand the question because all of the beautiful things that Bilam says about the Jewish people shows how worthy and cherished we are. So it's not that much of a kasha, but listen to what the after rebbe said. He was asked, "Where is there a remez to Ahavas Yisrael in parshas Balak?" So he says, "Ah, very simple. The very name of the parsha is a remez to Ahavas Yisrael. Because let's take Balak. The vays is v'ahavta. Uh the lamed is l're'acha. And the kuf is kamocha. So the word the pasuk v'ahavta l're'acha kamocha is m'rumaz in the word Balak. So somebody said, "Well, rebbe, I mean, you know, not really. Uh first of all, v'ahavta is a vav and this is a vays. Okay? L're'acha, okay, is lamed. And kuf is not kaf. Kamocha is a kaf and this is a kuf. So how could this be a remez to Ahavas Yisrael?" So he says, "Ah, you see, when you love Ahavas Yisrael, you don't look at things too closely." He says, "That's the whole point. You want to look closely to be sure it's m'duyak? When you love, you overlook a lot of things." So he says, "That was the remez to v'ahavta l're'acha kamocha." So again, you know, it's uh something to think about, you know, we're we're approaching the three weeks in which we have a focused mourning on the churban Beis Hamikdash. And we know that the second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, because of hatred and polarization. So, it's already a time to begin I mean, the truth is we should think about it all the time, but especially this time of year, it's the avas Yisrael time of year where we should be especially cognizant of the need to have unity and care and concern uh for each other, for the whole Jewish people. Uh we have to work together, as Rav Kook used to say. If the Bayit Sheini was destroyed because of sinat chinam, we have to have an avat chinam, meaning an avah that goes beyond even rationality, uh in order to rebuild the Beit Hamikdash. Okay. But now, let me just raise a very simple question. The Torah says Balak, the king of Moab, was afraid of the Jewish people, and therefore he hired Bilam to curse them. Now, what is he afraid of? If you remember in last week's parsha, uh as we're trying to enter Eretz Yisrael, we wanted to pass through the land of Esau, the land of Edom to the south as a shortcut. The said no, and God commanded us not to wage war with them, and we had to go around. Now, for some reason the narrative in Chukat is incomplete, but if you look in parshas Devarim, you see another thing. After we circled the land of Esau, and now we're east, we want to cut through Moab, which is north of Esau, to get through the land. And Hashem commanded and the Moabites refused to let us go. They did not give us food or water, even though we offered to pay. And God said, "Do not wage war against the Moabites. They are the descendants of Lot, and this is not land you are permitted to conquer." So, there was a specific divine command. We're not allowed to conquer Moabite territory. We're not allowed to enter into war with Moab because that's the merit of Lot's or actually the merit of Abraham that protected continues to protect Lot. Uh and we had to circle Moab. We had to go around it. So, the question is very simple. Why is Balak afraid of the Jewish people? There is a divine command that we're not allowed to even enter Moab. And tell Balak we're not allowed to wage war. It's a very good question. So, there are a few answers that are given. One simple answer is, you know, oh yeah, but maybe Balak didn't know about that. Balak sees a huge group, 3 million Jews, 600,000 men from 18 and up who are near his land, so he's afraid and maybe he's not yet aware of the fact that there's a command that we're not allowed to enter Moab. So, maybe he didn't know. But, the Shem Mishmuel, again, a great Hasidic rabbi, gives a very, very nice answer of what Balak is afraid of. And this would actually be an answer to the Chofetz Chaim's question of why is Balak looking for a curse instead of a blessing, right? Chofetz Chaim answered, that's an anti-Semite for you. But, I think the Shem Mishmuel will give us another answer. And his answer was the following. We know that the way the Jewish people connected to God in the desert is a fundamentally different modality than the way we're going to connect to God once we come to Eretz Yisrael. The desert is a spiritual cocoon. The desert is a supernatural existence that is not subject to the normal rules of cause and effect that we see in daily life. Our manna comes from heaven. We have the well, first the well of Miriam and then afterwards Moshe hit the rock. We had that well for the rest of the time. Our water travels with us. We are surrounded with clouds of glory. Everything is lamalama nateva, above the laws of nature. The hand of God is open, clear, absolute. There is no ambiguity. You're living in the tangible presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu every single day. Now, by the way, that has a cost because since there's no concealment of God, so every avera has an immediate response. That's why you do this avera, thousands of people die. In other words, there's immediate reward, immediate punishment because the whole idea that we get away with things for a long time, that comes from the world of concealment, the world of ambiguity, the world of uncertainty. When you're living in a world of perfect clarity, like clockwork, there's going to be this cause and effect. So, the midbar represents the highest level of the open miraculous revelation of divinity in the world. Once we come to Eretz Yisrael, although Baruch Hashem, God's providence is much stronger in Eretz Yisrael than it is everywhere else, but you're living in a world of nature. You no longer have the traveling well. You have to dig wells and the like. You no longer have the manna, you have to plant your grain and you have to harvest it. You have to build cities, you have to dig ditches, you have to have an army, you have to wage war, uh you need uh lawyers and accountants and doctors and and business people and and and everything. In other words, the godliness that was so apparent in the desert is going to be living is going to be existing in a level of comparative concealment. The world of hester panim, the world of concealment, the world of ambiguity, the world of confusion. And that can have two effects. That can have the effect of making you arrogant, in which all of your successes you will attribute to you, and that the Torah warns you about. When you come to Eretz Yisrael and you are victorious, and you will say, "Kochi v'otzem yadi", your heart will become haughty. "B'shachacha et Hashem Elokecha", and you will forget God, and you will say, "Kochi v'otzem yadi", it is my strength that did everything. So God warns us repeatedly in the Torah. The book of Devarim primarily about not being arrogant, not attributing your success to your own endeavors. So that's one danger. And another danger is the opposite. If a person doesn't see God in their life, they can become despondent. They can become depressed. They can feel they're all alone in a dangerous world. Okay, either way. But the point is, the midbar represents the open, revealed presence of God. Eretz Yisrael represents a divinity that is functioning in much more of a state of concealment and the like. So says the Shem Mishmuel, Balak is not afraid that the Jewish people will invade his country. He in fact knows, the Shem Mishmuel says, that the Jewish people are going to bypass Moab and not invade this country. He's not afraid of his country's security, his people's safety. He's afraid of the Jewish people reaching the land of Israel. His goal is to stop them from reaching Eretz Yisrael. That's why he has to curse them, because he Moab Moab doesn't need a blessing, cuz they're not in danger. But by all means we have to stop them from coming to Eretz Yisrael. Why? Because like this. As long as the Jews are living in a spiritual cocoon, the fact that they live holy life, a life of obedience to God at least in the good the good times, is not a mussar it's not a reproach to the Moabites. Because the Moabites can say, "Hey, sure. They can be tzaddikim because they have man. They have be'er. They have clouds of glory. But we live in the real world. We have to have diplomacy. We have to have politics. We have to have army. God cannot expect us to live by the Torah when our conditions are so different and we have to confront the real world." So, it's as if the Moabites are saying, "Yeah, let the Jews stay in Kailo. Let the Jews stay in Yeshiva. Let them stay in the desert. Because as long as they're in the desert, they have no message for us. They have no mussar for us. There is no chastisement that they give us. Because they're living an artificial life that's not confronting real problems. So, Balak is perfectly happy to let the Jews stay in the desert forever. Let them have their man. Because then they're irrelevant to our trials and our tribulations and our challenges. But what is Balak afraid of? Once the Jews come to Eretz Yisrael and once they set up a society and once they build buildings and have, you know, lawyers, doctors, accountants, businessmen and they try to create a society that at least at its best, we haven't always lived up to that. That today we haven't lived up to it. But at its best, we show that the Torah can guide us even when you're living in a world where God's presence is concealed. At that point, everything that the Moabites and the other nations stand for is refuted. At that point, they've lost their excuse. They can no longer say, "Oh, the Jews can't teach us anything because they're living a different type of life." No, they're living the same type of life that you're living, and they still keep the Torah. So, you too can keep the Noahide laws, the morality of Noahide. Right? So, the Shem Mishmuel says what Balak was afraid of was not that his nation would be attacked. He was afraid of the Jewish people entering the land of Israel. And therefore, his goal in hiring Balaam was not to bless the Moabite nation, but to curse the Jews that they would be unable to enter Israel or enter Israel. And again, the Shem Mishmuel goes on with the idea that the whole goal of the Torah is not to separate from the world, but to show that even as we engage in the world, we can bring the Torah into showing us how to do this. This was really the essence of Rav Hirsch's philosophy later. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch in the 19th century called Torah im Derech Eretz. Now, many people just take one little aspect of that to say, "Oh, Rav Hirsch was in favor of going to college." Well, first of all, that that was true, but it may not even be true today because college today is not the same as the German university of the 19th century. The German university of 19th century may have had its anti-Semitism, but it was a moral place. People dressed sanely. You didn't have drug and alcohol problems. There was not indiscriminate sexual relations. So, it was an educational institution. So, Rav Hirsch maintained that secular education was a proper thing. Today, in other words, the big sakana in the 19th century was, "Oh, I don't want my child to read Spinoza." You know, heretic. Today, you know, I'd almost say, "How lucky I would my child would do in college if he reads Spinoza." He's not reading anything. He's doing doing all sorts of other stuff. So, so the truth is to extrapolate from our first that the first would endorse the secular university of today is actually a bit of a jump. He actually might not. But, the idea of endorsing a secular education is part of a much larger point. And that is the Torah does not tell us to escape engagement in the world. The Torah says, "Engage in the world and bring the values of the Torah into your business, into your society, into your understanding of even secular culture to kind of know what to accept and what to reject based on Torah values." So, it's not an equivalent. He certainly wasn't saying that secular culture is equivalent to the Torah. But, he was saying that secular culture, number one, can enrich your understanding of things. But, number two, you can take the Torah and make a world that is productive and successful, but based on the eternal principles of God. Because Torah Chaim, a Torah of life, quite literally, our first says, means a Torah that can be taken into every aspect of life. Fact, again, I don't want to again get into too many digressions, but as as each point comes up, it's something to think about, you know, when the first chief rabbi of Medinat Yisrael was not Rav Kook. Rav Kook died in the '30s before there was a state of Israel. Rav Kook was the Rav Rashi under the British mandate. Technically, he was called the chief rabbi of Palestine, which was the name then. Uh but, the first the Rav Rashi of Ashkenazi Rav Rashi, at least, was Rav Yitzhak Herzog, who of course is the grandfather and the then the namesake of the president of Israel, uh Rabbi not Rabbi, but President Isaac Yitzhak Herzog, who by the way I have to say that although he's not 100% Orthodox, but you know, he's very very traditional and um he's doing a good job. He really has remarkable talents and it seems to be there's a Zechus Avos that is following him uh in the position that he's in as a peacemaker uh and and the like. Uh but one of Rav Herzog's projects, Rav Herzog was both a phenomenal Talmud Chacham. He was didn't go to yeshivas, kind of self-taught from his father. He's not He's not a product of the yeshiva system, but a great great Talmud Chacham. He was also a great legal scholar. He had a law degree and he actually wrote a really magnificent two-volume book. Uh actually it was four volumes, but two volumes never got published. So two out of the four uh it's called Main Institutions of Jewish Law where he compares Halacha with British law. And he draws a lot of a lot of comparisons. So if you are a student of law uh you can get a tremendous amount of It's a very technical work. It's not It's not a an easy reading book and it's not so much a philosophical book. It's a but it's a very detailed comparison of certain Well, obviously he he doesn't talk about things like Shabbos or Yom Tov. Uh he takes like the civil law of Judaism, the court system and the laws of damages and laws of guardianship and laws of inheritance and property and he draws comparisons. And the truth is that's a very good way to learn things. We learn very We learn best when we compare, when we you know, you understand Jewish law better when you compare it to a secular law system. So it is uh that's part of my excuse for going to law school. I mean, I need an excuse, so that's one one of the excuses. That I can come up with sometimes. Not all the some people say it's an excuse, but okay. Uh but be it be it as it may. So one of Rav Herzog's projects was this goes back to the you know, early '50s, right? Right after Hakumat Medina, is he wanted to figure out how a modern state could do everything a modern state has to do within the confines of Halakha. How do you set up a police department, a fire department, uh electricity, water systems according to Halakha? And he commissioned a number of different scholars to work on discrete areas to kind of create a Halakhic state. Not in the coercive sense. He was not interested in Kfiya, that's it. That was not his issue. But he said, "A Jewish state, we ought to be able to find within Halakha a way that you can have a livable model of how a government would function." Uh and this has been a pretty neglected enterprise, actually, because essentially, even the Haredim, we just say, "Yeah, yeah, okay." Uh let the government do whatever the government does, and then, you know, we'll protest whatever it is, but we don't really think about, you know, how do we get electricity? How do we get water? How how do you have an army? How do you have a police department? We kind of let let the Hilonim do it or or whatever it is. But Rav Herzog was not happy with that. Rav Herzog wasn't happy with passing the buck. Rav Herzog looked for Halakhic ways of how a modern state could function with the needs that a modern state has. Um some work was done in this. Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, who was a great Dayan who died a few years ago, actually wrote a book that was out of print for many years called Hilkhot Medina, where which is actually a a series of essays. Of course, all of this is dated because technology has changed in such amazing ways, but you know, this is a work from the '50s that talks about police and fire and security systems and then all these different things, water, electricity, and how halakha would allow them to be generated. Uh so this goes back once again to the shame again I was digressing a little bit. This goes back to the shame Shamshiel's point that the Jewish presence in Eretz Israel was designed to show that we can bring Torah into actual life and we don't need to withdraw or escape. Right, the midbar was an escape from reality in many many ways. Granted by God. But life in Eretz Israel is you're in the real world. And that's what Balak didn't want. Balak did not want a Jewish presence in Eretz Israel that was confronting real world challenges with the idea of the Torah. Right, so this is the very beautiful thought of the shame Shamshiel as to and this also answers why Balak needed the Jews to be cursed. He didn't need a blessing for his people. They have to be cursed that they couldn't enter Eretz Israel. Now, as you mentioned earlier, uh the Gemara in Berakhot explains what was Balaam's extraordinary talent? Right, Balaam had this power of cursing. Why did he have a power like why? So the Gemara in Berakhot says quite an amazing thing. The Gemara in Berakhot says there is a small little millisecond of time in which God has anger in the world. A time of charon af. It's only for a very short time. The Gemara says uh it is only a rega. That's what it says in Tehillim, ki rega be'apo. God's anger is a rega. Rega in modern Hebrew is a second. But the Gemara says the duration of a rega is k'memo re. The amount of time it says to say the word rega is how long a rega is. So, I don't know if anyone has a stopwatch here. Um it's probably less than a second, right? Rega. I don't know, but it's certainly not more than a second. Less than a second? No, like 200ths of a second. Okay. Well, I don't know if Yeah, I don't know if it's that short, but okay. But, the rega is very short. There's high rain often the world, and it's said if you know when that time is and you curse it's like, you know, you're pushing the the nuclear bomb button, so to speak. But, once the window is closed you know, your cursing is not going to be effective. So, baruch Hashem, you know, we don't know when that is. But, the Gemara actually says during that short amount of time the comb of a rooster, the red comb of a rooster turns white with fright. Just white for a second. The Gemara gives a story that Rabbi Meir had enemies that he wanted to curse. Interestingly enough. And he was determined to figure out that time. So, he took a rooster he tied it to the leg of his bed, and he was staring at the rooster. Now, I don't know how that works because unless somehow he he didn't have to blink I mean, the blink of an eye, you've already lost it. But, whatever. He was staring, and what happened was he fell asleep at some point. He missed it, and then he realized, you know, Hashem does not want us to work that way. Like, I'm thinking it's if this is connected to another story about Rabbi Meir where it says Rabbi Meir wanted to curse his enemies that they should die. And if you remember his wife, Beruriah, a wise woman said to him it says in Tehillim kuf dalet baruch nafshi, 104 yitamu chata'im min ha'aretz, which means sins should be destroyed. You don't pray for the death of sinners. You pray for the death of sin that they should do teshuvah. So, I'm wondering if they're kind of connected. Rav Meir apparently had people that he really wanted to get rid of. He tried to do it with this called Eidan Rishka, the time of fury. It didn't work, and then he tried to do it his own, and Beruriah talked him out of it. It's like that. I'm not sure, but there seems to be a common idea here of Rav Meir wanting to use cursing and uh not being successful at doing it and realizing that this was not the proper halakha. Balaam's talent was Balaam yada l'khaven et ha-sha'ah. He knew the exact moment. Now, let me digress once again, though, and just ask you another question, and that is what is the purpose of that? Meaning, why is there this millisecond that God has fury in the world? What does that contribute? So, Rav Gedaliah Schorr writes, he brings from other sources that this infuses the human personality on a subconscious level, the neshama, with fear of God. He He points out that most people I mean I mean there are, you know, psychopaths and there are truly evil people like Hitler, but most people, even if they're immoral, have some sense of conscience. They feel guilty. Something bothers them when they cheat, when they hurt people, and the like. What is the source of that conscience? So, it's as if Hakadosh Baruch Hu puts a little bit of strong acid into the world, which is diluted because it's only a tiny little part of the day. It's like, you know, you dilute acid, you know, 200 times or 500 times. Hashem dilutes the acid. But, the awareness of that acid puts the fear of God in my heart, which in turn is the source of conscience and guilt that puts a boundary on immorality. Meaning, people will go Mo- Again, most people, there are exceptions. People will go up to a certain limit, but they won't go beyond it. And what keeps them from going beyond it is that Yiras Hashem that they absorb from the Eitz HaDaas. So, God doesn't want to create a a world where that is too powerful a force because then it would become overwhelming. So, God dilutes it by making it a tiny little fraction. But, the downside is, if you tap in your curse in that particular moment, it can be very, very devastating. And that was Bil'am's power. So, Tosfos asks a very simple question. This time is so small, less than a second. What type of curse would you be able to utter that would fall within the window? By the time you say the words, it's gone. Right? So, how How does Bil'am work here? All right, what was Bil'am's success? So, What if your curse like this is 5 minutes, you know, in space? You can say anything you want. Automatically, you know, it's Well, oh, okay. The question is though, the question is you have to you have to say a curse statement. Meaning to say, uh, I curse before the time, I curse after the time, and I'm in the middle of a speech. You know, if you only count what I said in the middle, you know, maybe you're not going to get anything at that point. So, Tosfos gives two answers. The first answer Tosfos gives is, as long as you started in the window or you know you know you know you you started let's say you started before but as long as you started in the window then even if you didn't finish till afterwards you get in. It's like a bank right? The bank closes at the 1:00 but if you get into the into the office at 5:00 to 1:00 you know they'll take you you know they'll allow the line usually they'll allow the line to be finished because you got in under the wire. So God says as long as you begin your curse before or while the window is open you can finish it. That's answer number one. By the way it's brought down that Hasidim use this as kind of a spurious justification. You know one of the problems among some groups of Hasidim not all is that they don't always keep the time of Krias Shema and even the time of Shmone Esrei. Like you know they you know that Shmone Esrei the Krias Shema has to be recited in the morning by the end of 3 hours of the day and Shmone Esrei by the end of 4 hours of the day and be the average Shmone Esrei of Shacharis could be until chatzos but there is a zman. So when you're talking about 3:00 in the afternoon it's kind of late you know etc. So some Hasidim make the make the argument that as long as you start of course that sometimes they don't do that but as long as you start before the zman is up you could finish even afterwards because they make a kal vachomer. We know that God is much more generous and benevolent than he is in in cursing. So if even a curse will be effective as long as you start it on time kal vachomer davening will be effective if you started on time. But okay but halacha we don't we don't pasken that way. Okay. And as I say and besides there are As a woman it's not time bound. She actually has an ability that's greater than me. And that's I mean because she's not time bound. Well yeah but there there is a there is a a machlokes that some say that a woman does have an obligation in tefillah and tefillah may be an exception to the time-bound exemption. Tefillah may be one of the many exceptions to that. Okay, so that's answer number one Tosafos says that as long as you start early it gets in. But answer number two says there is a short curse that you could say that would be under the buzzer. And that is the word kalam. Kalam is kaf lamed mem sofit. Kalam just means destroy them. Kalam has the same number of sym- of syllables as rega. So, as a result, you could say kalam in the time of a rega. And therefore, Bilam would say kalam and that's like pushing the nuclear button and people would be would be destroyed. All right, so that's uh the second answer of Tosafos. So, there's a thought from the Chasam Sofer that's beautiful, very interesting. And he says kalam, which means destroy them, kalam l'chala otam, destroy them, can actually be a rashei teivot. Could be an abbreviation. Could be an acronym for three words. The kaf can be either kaved, which is liver, or klayot, kidney. I'll discuss the the references here. The lamed is lev. And the mem is moach, which is brain. Now, why is that a curse? Why would the curse be kaved, lev, moach? So, the Chasam Sofer explains that the kaved, the liver, again, uh how this fits with modern biology is not so clear, but the kaved is described as a seat of of uh desires and ta'avah. And the kidneys as well is connected to sexual arousal. Lev is generally the seat of emotion. Moach is our mind, which is our intellect and our sense of morality and our understanding of right and wrong. Now, what is the relationship between the mind and the emotions and passions and yearnings? There are two ways this relationship could exist. One is the emotions and the yearnings take over the mind. And the mind becomes a prisoner in order to advance your emotions and your tyvas and your yearnings. Right, let's take for example the entertainment industry. The entertainment industry is filled with very brilliant people. They are smart. Uh they create these special effects and they create these magnificent shows. But all of their intellectual energy is devoted to feeding the tyvas and the sexualities and the like. The moach is subordinated to the animal passions. And that's the ultimate curse. What Bilam is saying when is when Bilam's curses come in. So, literally it means be destroyed. But more symbolically it means may your mind be a slave to your passions and your tyvas. Right? Kalayam, may kalayot and and layv should be sholet. Should rule over moach. And that is the greatest curse that a human being can have that their mind gets hijacked to advance the degraded and degenerate typhus and desires that they have. Now, it's interesting. I would just add to the Hatam Sofer. Why would Balaam think of that as the ultimate curse? Because that is who Balaam is. Essentially, Balaam's greatest curse is, "May you be like me." Balaam was a person with a great mind, prophetic ability, but Balaam used his mind to advance his lust and his jealousy and his power and his tyva. But here's the thing. Balaam is smart enough to know how destructive that is. Meaning, Balaam, because of his talent, is not blessed with the gift of obliviousness. Sometimes, you know, they say knowledge can hurt. It doesn't go hellish. Yosef da'as, Yosef maro. As you grow in knowledge, you grow in pain. Balaam understood what a train wreck he was. And Balaam's curse is, "May you suffer like I suffer. May you be a person whose brain, whose mind is literally hijacked by the incessant, non-stopping yearnings for power, for money, for ga'avah, for arrogance, for acclaim." Because Balaam knew how destructive that was, and he didn't feel he had the ability to even stop. Now, the Ksam Sofer says the opposite of Kolem, take the same letters, go in reverse, is Melech. Who is a king? Moach lave koved or koleos. The mind, your intellect, your morality, rules over your emotions and your passions. Because the true Melech is not a Melech over others. The true Melech is a Melech over himself. Pirkei Avos says, "Eizehu gibor?" Who is the courageous, valiant warrior? Hakoves es yitzro. One who conquers that gives you heart. Khazal what it brings. There is a certain general was coming back from a victorious war. And people were giving him a parade, ticker tape parade. And a wise man went over to the uh general and said, "You have You have been successful in fighting a little war. Now you must fight the big war. The big war is within myself." Moshel beruacho me lo che'ir, Melech says in Mishlei. He who rules over his spirit is greater than the one who conquers a city. The Gads the Makor, that is the biblical source. Right, everything in Pirkei Avos actually has a source either in the Torah or in the Vilna Gaon's commentary in Pirkei Avos will always give you a part the pasuk upon which Pirkei Avos is based. And the Vilna Gaon says, uh very simply, that the source of the idea, "Eizehu gibor hakoves es yitzro" is the pasuk in Mishlei. Moshel Baruch Ho. You like idea. You see? And that is why you find the word Melech appears over and over again in all of Bilam's brochos. Melech Melech Melech because he says that's the meaning. The Torah says Hashem reversed Bilam's klala to a brocha. Says the Chasam Sofer, he wanted to say kalem and Hashem made it melech melech to be that the moach. Now, the Baal HaTanya uses this phrase many many times in the safer Tanya. HaMoach sholet al halev. The mind must control the emotions. HaMelech uh uh yeah HaMoach sholet al halev. But, I just want to end with this idea that there are two different understandings of what does it mean the moach sholet al halev. There is a lower understanding which eventually should morph into a higher understanding. The lower understanding is on the level of self-control. Meaning, I have passions. I have desires. But, my sense of morality controls me. I get restrained. I want to do something. I want to murder. I want to rape. I want to steal. I want to say lashon hara. And I'm filled with these desires. But, I control myself. Now, that's a very high level. That is a very high level. That's covetousness throw. And uh we shouldn't disparage that. That is a great great great level. Uh but, it's not the highest level because you're still struggling with negativities. You still have this desire for bad. But you control yourself. That's one level of the moach, your morality and your intellect control the turbulent emotions. But the alter Rebbe says there's another level in which your moach actually educates your emotions. So that instead of feeling I mean, let's take lashon hara. Uh we normally define lashon hara as a sin of speech, meaning I have all these negative thoughts about you, I will control myself. Okay, and that is necessary. But the ultimate goal is not that I should have all these negative thoughts about you, but I control myself. But eventually I educate myself not to think so negatively about other people. And by the way, that's the only long long-term strategy that's sustainable. Because if you're going to live your whole life full of negativities and your avodah is simply to bite your lip, your lip is going to be pretty bloody after a while, and at some point, like a pressure cooker, you're going to explode. So the real end game here is not so much to have these negative feelings, but I control myself, but rather the moach can actually educate the emotions. So there is a lower So So the phrase "a moach sholeit al a lev" has a higher meaning and a lower meaning. The lower meaning is self-control in the face of negative emotion. The higher meaning is the moach can educate the lev. In fact, uh what we had this week, we had of course uh Gimel Tammuz. We had the uh yahrtzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and really this is something that every every Jew should think about uh the Rebbe represented and uh uh what he taught us, what he continues to teach us in so many ways. Um but uh the reason why Lubavitch Lubavitch is just a city, a town, but the reason why with the Alter Rebbe called his Hasidus Chabad Hasidus Chabad is Chochma Bina Daas is because the Alter Rebbe held very very much that we shouldn't be creatures of emotion, even good emotions. Like we shouldn't like go to a Kabbalat Mincha and get so excited by it. But rather the other way around, our intellect should direct our emotions, right? So instead of starting with the emotion right, other Hasidus tended to start with the emotion and sometimes even end with the emotion. Uh the Alter Rebbe held, maybe because he was a Litvak, it's interesting, yeah. A Litvishe Hasidus, technically. Um uh that you actually use your mind to educate your emotions. And he actually had the whole system is about training yourself to be a certain type of person by the use of the Sechel, by the use of understanding, understanding Torah, understanding yourself, trying to understand to the best of our limited ability the nature of God and through that, the emotions get changed. That's why it's important to realize a Malach Shelo Yad'u Lo Leiv is not a negation of emotion. People say, "Oh, you're just a computer. All you are is a brain." No, no, no. Rather, a Malach Shelo Yad'u Lo Leiv means the emotions themselves get transformed and educated and elevated through the Malach. So yes, you feel powerful emotions, Simcha, Yiras Hashem, Ahavas Hashem. You feel those emotions. But they come from the Malach. Okay, the Alter Rebbe was suspicious of emotional arousal per se. The reason why he was suspicious because emotional states come and go. You get emotionally aroused, but then it passes. It's not a It's not a permanent thing. But what comes from the moach can actually be a permanent part of your mitzius. Like what did they say? Uh I once read that one of the early talmidim of the Alter Rebbe once felt a little bad because he saw a chassidim of another chassidus that seemed to be so enthusiastic. And he said to the Rebbe you know, their fire is burning within them. So the Alter Rebbe said, "It's not their fire that's burning. It's the fire of their Rebbe that's burning within them. I want you to have your fire burning within you. And your fire burning within you has to come from your moach. Right? They have somebody else's fire in them. Okay, so so be it. May he live and be well and may he be blessed and may he live a long and good life. Uh and once again, it ties into the parsha because Balak, I'm sorry, not Balak, Bil'am was a person whose emotions ruled the moach. And we have to be people whose moach rules the emotions. So, have a good Shabbos. Thank you for coming and call to order. Yeah. Uh so how did you know they were going to Eretz Yisrael? Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. Uh I think we have to assume that like people knew that. They knew there was a a certain I mean after all, you're dealing with a big nation there. 600,000 men and altogether there may be 3 to 4 million people. And then you have an erev rav that's that's you know, several times that. So news spreads at some point, you know, and this is over 40 years. At some point, you You the news gets out that this is where they are they are heading. So, I think that's a safe assumption. Okay, thank you again. Thanks for coming. If I tell you my name, you tell me your name. Cuz it's the only way I'll tell you my name. If I tell you my name, you tell me your name. Cuz it's the only way I'll tell you my name. Yes, your majesty. Yes, I