Balak: The sin of not pausing to reflect
Rav Johnny's original thoughts on the weekly parsha
Having not seen the angel of God standing in front of him, and having then hit his donkey for stopping, God then enables Bilam to see the angel – at which point the angel then speaks directly to Bilam saying: “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come forth as an adversary because your way is perverse before me. The donkey saw me and turned aside before me these three times. Had she not turned aside from me, surely now I would have killed you and kept her alive.” (Bemidbar 22:32-33)
To this, Bilam then replies: “I have sinned; for I didn't know that you stood in the way against me. Now therefore, if it displeases you, I will go back again.”
When reading passages like this, we often assume that the ‘sin’ which Bilam mentions relates to the end of the verse where he references his acceptance of Balak’s mission to curse the Jewish people.
However, the Malbim offers a different explanation, claiming that the sin of Bilam was his failure to pause and reflect on what was taking place around him:
‘I have sinned for I didn't know – this means, I have sinned by not knowing that you were standing in my way, for had I paid attention, I ought to have sensed that there was some cause preventing my donkey from its way, and I would have meditated about this until I would have realized that an angel is standing in the way.’
This itself is a powerful lesson which each of us can learn from – namely that we should all pause and reflect before we act. However, as the Chafetz Chaim explains, this lesson is not just implied by Bemidbar 22:34; instead, it is visibly evident from Bemidbar Ch’s 22-24.
As we know, within Sifrei Torah there are gaps between various words and verses which are known as Petuchot & Setumot and which, as Rashi explains in his commentary to Vayikra 1:1, reflect the times when Moshe took a break from God’s dictation of the Torah to reflect, contemplate and process the word of God.
However, as the Chafetz Chaim points out, for almost the entire span of Parshat Balak there are no such gaps. The question is - why?
The Chafetz Chaim answers that Moshe wished to show us how Bilam’s sin emerged from his failure to pause and reflect, and so he visually depicted this message by writing Parshat Balak as a dense text without any Petuchot & Setumot (nb. this explains the statement in Bava Batra 14b where we are told that ‘Moshe wrote the portion of Bilam.’ Based on the insight of the Chafetz Chaim, this means that Moshe chose how to write the portion of Bilam by not leaving any gaps in the story to teach us that Bilam’s failure to pause & reflect was spiritually disastrous).
Perhaps we may wonder why it was this lesson, above and beyond so many others, which inspired Moshe to such an extent that he took an active role in writing this story.
My suggestion is that the story of Bilam reminded Moshe of, or perhaps was meant to be analogous for, what had recently occurred to him when he hit the rock rather than speaking to it (see Bemidbar 19:11).
Just like Bilam, Moshe didn’t truly follow what he was asked to do. And just like Bilam, instead of pausing to reflect, Moshe reacted - with the consequences of his actions being spiritually disastrous.
Accordingly, the story of Bilam is - in many ways - Moshe’s story, and this is why the story of Bilam is written as it is, and why we are told that ‘Moshe wrote the portion of Bilam.’
Shabbat Shalom!
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