Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello my friends, and welcome back for this week's episode of the Practical Parasha podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen and I hope you are well. I apologize for missing last week. It was just a busy week. Thank God my family and I, we moved into a new house, so that's exciting.
[00:00:18] So with all the hullabaloo I wasn't able to put out an episode. But I'm back here again this week with some great ideas for this week's Parsha. I hope you enjoy. And before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, or just would like to reach out just to say hello, please feel free to introduce yourself. My email address is Rabbi Shlomo konkohnmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:00:48] This week's Parsha is Parshas Balak.
[00:00:51] Now in many years, Chukas, which was last week's Parsha and Balak, are read together. This year because it was a leap year, we had extra month of Adar. As I've mentioned on other episodes, the parshios are read separately. So this week is just Balak. Now Parshas Balak really tells us the story of how Balak, who was the uh, king of Moab, became scared of the Jewish people.
[00:01:23] He was frightened that they would overtake them. And obviously this was unfounded. The Jewish people weren't looking for battle. But instead of trying to make peace with the Jewish nation, Balak, the king of Moab, decides to hire the world famous sorcerer and wizard Bilaam, who actually was a prophet. He did have a level of prophecy, not on the same, uh, you know, much different than Moshe, than Moses, but he was a prophet. And the Talmud talks about why he, this evil man had prophecy.
[00:02:04] But the, uh, Parsha tells us how Balak, instead of trying to make peace with the Jewish nation, he hires Bilaam, um, to curse the Jewish nation, to curse the Jewish people.
[00:02:15] And the Parsha really details the back and forth, the storyline of Balak hiring Balaam, um, to curse the Jewish nation.
[00:02:27] And each time he goes to curse the Jewish people, a blessing comes out. And this happens a few times a, uh, back and forth of, you know, trying to curse the Jewish nation.
[00:02:40] And God makes it that curses come out.
[00:02:44] And finally after, you know, his plan is not working, he's trying to curse the Jewish people. And every time a blessing comes out, he realizes that Hashem, that God hates Zenus, he hates immorality, and unleashes a plan to send the daughters of Moab to entice the Jewish Men of, uh, the nation of Israel. And his plan does work to a certain extent, until finally Pinchas comes and slays Zimri, the leader of the tribe of Shim', on, who's also committing an immoral act.
[00:03:24] And everything stops.
[00:03:27] Now, just going back to the story of Balak the king of Moab and Balaam the wizard.
[00:03:34] There's a back and forth here, you know.
[00:03:37] Balak sends messengers to Bilaam um. First he refuses, and then he finally acquiesces. And then finally, and the Parsha tells us how God, how Hashem comes to Bilaam um in a prophecy and tells him not to go.
[00:03:53] And finally he lets him go, which is interesting.
[00:03:57] But on his way, when he finally is on his mission to curse the Jewish nation, there's a very famous episode that happens to him, a miraculous episode, that as Balaam um the wizard is going to curse the Jewish nation, he's going on the road.
[00:04:16] And the pasuk, the verses tell us that a malak, an angel, blocks the way that Bilaam and his donkey are traveling on.
[00:04:26] But only the donkey sees this angel with a sword outstretched.
[00:04:34] The donkey stops and Balaam um hits the donkey.
[00:04:41] Happens a second time. The donkey stops, hits the donkey. And finally, when he hits the donkey a third time, the donkey talks and says, why are you hitting me? And the Parasha tells us how the angel appears to Balaam um. And he says, you know, I didn't see that there was an angel there. I have sinned and I'll read the Pasuk.
[00:05:03] The pesukim read as follows. Hashem opened the mouth of the donkey and it said to Bilaam, what have I done to you that you struck me these three times?
[00:05:12] Balaam said to the donkey, because you mocked me. If only there were a sword in my hand, I would have now killed you. So Bilaam is talking back to his donkey, saying, I would have killed you if you, you know.
[00:05:25] Psukim. Continue. The she donkey said to Bilaam, am I not your she donkey that you have ridden all your life until this day? Have I been accustomed to do such a thing to you? He said, no. Then Hashem uncovered Bilaam's eyes and he saw the angel of Hashem standing on the road with a sword drawn in his hand. He bowed his head and prostrated himself on his face. The angel of Hashem said to him, for what reason did you strike the she donkey these three times? Behold, I went out to impede, for you hasten on a road to oppose me. The shidonkey saw me and turned away from me these three times as the angel speaking, had it not turned away from me, I would now even have killed you and let it live.
[00:06:06] Balaam said to the angel of Hashem, I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing opposite me on the road. And now, if it is evil in your eyes, I shall return. So the angel was stopping him from going on his evil mission to curse the Jewish nation.
[00:06:27] Now, it's actually interesting, the verse of this back and forth, this storyline. The donkey talks to Bilaam. Miraculously, Bilaam um speaks back to the donkey, angry at the donkey, till finally Hashem makes it that he sees this angel with his sword. And the angel speaks to Balaam, asking him what he's doing. And finally the conversation finishes with Balaam um saying, you know, I've sinned. I didn't see you there and I've sinned.
[00:06:57] The question about this storyline is as if me and you would go to the zoo or our dog would start talking to us, or, you know, any animal would start talking to us.
[00:07:11] We probably would just faint on the spot. We wouldn't believe what we're thinking. You know, maybe we know about Mr. Ed, but if a horse would start talking to us, a donkey would start talking to us, we wouldn't believe it. We'd be in total shock and, you know, it probably would shake us to our core.
[00:07:26] But what does Bilaam do when a donkey miraculously talks to him? He talks back to the donkey, he screams at the donkey. It's as if nothing has happened to him, as if nothing has phased him and he keeps going on his way.
[00:07:43] Right. This is not a normal reaction. This is not something that normally happens.
[00:07:48] An animal doesn't talk, donkeys don't speak, and Balaam um just casually screams back at his donkey, why did you do this? Keep going.
[00:07:59] It's interesting.
[00:08:01] And finally we see that when the malak. When the angel approaches and confronts Bilaam about what happened, he says, I have sinned. He says, I didn't know you were there.
[00:08:12] What's the I have sinned that Bilaam um is referring to over here? You find we understand his reaction that he didn't see the angel.
[00:08:22] But what's the meaning of this phrase that he has sinned? Why is that in the conversation he explained himself. So what is the sinning that we're referring to here? There's different explanations that we can understand this pasuk with, but I want to focus in on one specifically.
[00:08:38] The Mobbem explains that when Balaam um said I have sinned, he was referring specifically to the fact that, that he didn't recognize the messages that were coming to him.
[00:08:51] A donkey spoke and how did he respond? It was as if nothing had happened. It went right in one ear, went out the other. It didn't faze him one bit.
[00:09:02] And the lesson here is something very powerful.
[00:09:06] Rabbi Fran brings down in his sefer that there's an expression we know from contemporary society in America.
[00:09:13] Wake up and smell the coffee.
[00:09:15] Sometimes you have people that things hit them right in the face but yet they're not realizing the truth of the matter.
[00:09:22] Things, you know, there's things coming right at them. Information or a, uh, reality, but yet they're somewhere else, they're not getting it, they're not getting the picture, they're not realizing what's happening around them.
[00:09:35] And Bilam um, when the donkey spoke to him, how did he react?
[00:09:44] Nothing didn't phase him one bit and he kept going. And even all the other things that happened to him, you know, Hashem spoke to him and it still didn't faze him. All these things didn't faze him. It was as if nothing had happened. And that's what he was referring to, that he sinned. He failed to recognize the messages that Hashem uh, was directly sending to him.
[00:10:06] And I think this is a very powerful message for us as well. You know, there's a famous story that we know. When the Israeli army took control of Jerusalem in 1967, it was a very emotional moment when the Jewish soldiers came to the Kos al Hammuravi, the Western Wall, after, you know, over 20 years, there had not been a Jew that had been there to daven there, to pray there. And finally the Kosell had been liberated from the Jordanians.
[00:10:35] And it was a very emotional moment.
[00:10:38] Soldiers were crying. These battle hardened soldiers were overcome with emotion and tears.
[00:10:44] And there was one unit specifically where there was a soldier who was a non religious soldier. And it wasn't that he was just non religious, he was anti religious. He would get into arguments with the religious soldiers and have debates and, and it was very clear what his position was.
[00:11:00] And when his unit, when they came in to be one of the first ones to liberate the kosel, the, you know, the religious soldiers or people had that religious background were overcome with this emotion and were crying.
[00:11:14] And the other soldiers in his unit noticed that he, this irreligious and maybe anti religious soldier was also crying. They said to him, why are you Crying, you know, the co cell, it doesn't really mean to you anything.
[00:11:28] Why are you all emotional?
[00:11:30] And he said, ani boche al shani loboche. I'm crying because I am not crying. He was smart enough to realize that his lack of emotion wasn't because of his bravery or his attitude, but it's because that he didn't know.
[00:11:52] He knew that he didn't know. He knew that he was missing something out in his own heritage.
[00:11:57] And it bothered him. It bothered him because it didn't bother him. And he recognized that he had the clarity and the thought to see that moment, to see the truth of the matter.
[00:12:09] And I think the very powerful idea that we can get from this, from Bilaam especially, is that Hashem, God is always sending us messages. You know, people say, oh, you know, God doesn't talk to me. God doesn't talk. You know, he's away. He's not dealing with things. No, the answer is, it's God is constantly sending us messages.
[00:12:28] And really the question is that, uh, do we have the glasses on or do we have our hearing attuned to seeing them and to hearing them?
[00:12:37] That's the question.
[00:12:39] Because to either willfully or, you know, just out of, of ignorance ignore the messages is a sin. And that's what Balaam, um, was recognizing at that moment, that even the most miraculous thing that happened to him, a donkey talking, he ignored it and kept going as if nothing had happened. And I think the message for ourselves is that when we're going through life and things are happening all around us, we have to have the right lenses on, the right glasses on to see the messages that Hashem, uh, is sending us, because he is sending us messages.
[00:13:17] Many times people always say, oh, why do all these bad things happen to me?
[00:13:21] Right? We only, unfortunately, sometimes people only are recognizing Hashem when the bad things happen. Right? God the terrorizer. But what happened when all the good things happened to you? You didn't ask Hashem about that then, right? Who gave you all the good things? Who gave us all the good things? It was Hashem.
[00:13:40] And the point is, is that we need to process the things that happen to us in a spiritual lens to look at the world around us and to try to look at it as messages that Hashem is sending to us. You know, maybe the phone is not ringing that God is calling you, but sometimes he has his messengers call you directly and give you that message. And it's not sometimes, it's all the time. It's just how in tune we are to the world around us because we are living intentional lives. We're not just living in a random, uh, world where things just happen. Everything is part of the divine plan. And it's up to us to tune in and to focus, to look at the messages and to try to go forward and do the right thing. Now, I'm not always saying we're going to have the answers, to know why things happen and, you know, what's the reason for things.
[00:14:32] But we have to think. We have to think and recognize. And I think it starts by recognizing the good things that happen to us are not just coincidences and the bad things as well. You know, this past week, someone called me up, you know, talking about current events. One of the fellows that I study with, a friend of mine, Scott, he called me up, he says, what did you think, Rabbi? What do you think about the events from this past weekend? And he was referring to the Trump assassination attempt and the fact that the bullet missed the former president by millimeters. Had he not turned his head that moment, he would have been dead.
[00:15:12] And what I told him was as follows. I said, definitely, we believe that every bullet has an address.
[00:15:19] And it's always nice when things work out the way you want them to work out or not the way you want it. But things that work out, quote, unquote, well, they work out. We see how it worked out well.
[00:15:29] But it's also recognizing the divine providence and that Hashem, uh, is running the world even when things don't go our way, even when things, you know, seem to not be going right. Because that's also part of Hashem's plan as well. It's not just when the good things happen and you made the bus and you made the plane. It's even when the bad things happen. Because ultimately, on an intellectual level, there's no bad in the world. Everything is for our benefit.
[00:16:01] Everything that G D does is for the good.
[00:16:04] So it comes out that everything is part of the plan, everything is part of the mission, and it's up to us to internalize it, to take in those messages so that, God willing, we can continue going on the right path. The second idea I want to share with you takes us to the third attempt of Bilaam, that he tried to curse the Jewish people. And a blessing comes out. The verse reads as Matovo olachiach of Mishkan hasecherel. How goodly are your tents, O Yaakov, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel, Kinnachalem, um nituyohar ka ahalem notah, uh, hashem ka arosem alemoyim, stretching out like brooks, like gardens by a river, like aloes planted by hashem, like cedars by water. Now, the Gemara in Brachos, the Talmud of Brachos tells us that what's the connection from Oyalim Lenachalim, that it says two words in there. It's translated. Oyalem is literally translated as tents. And nachalim, uh, is considered like, translated, uh, as rivers. And the first reads as follows.
[00:17:16] Stretching out like brooks, like gardens, by river, like tents, right? Pitched. So what does this tell us? The Gemara tells us as follows. And this is.
[00:17:27] It says. What does this mean? It says laimar lach. It's to teach you just as brooks, a river, right? A fresh water source, a spring, elevate a person from a state of ritual impurity to a state of ritual purity. M person goes into a, uh, mikveh, right? And a stream is kosher for a mikveh, right? If it's from a natural source. So adami kafchova kafs chus. So too, the tense of Torah can elevate a person from the scale of guilt towards the scale of merit. And this was part of the blessing, right, that accidentally came out of Bilaam's mouth. Now, the chavatz chayim explains on this verse, he says that we learn from Bilaam something very, uh, extraordinary and very powerful.
[00:18:15] That Balaam was an expert. He was a prophet, uh, for the nations of the world. And he was an expert in how to curse. He knew how to curse, to give curses, to send curses. He was this wizard.
[00:18:29] Now we can learn something very powerful about words.
[00:18:35] What did he try to do? He tried to curse. He tried to say bad. And what came out good came out.
[00:18:42] And, uh, the Chavzhayim brings down this verse that just like the spring makes someone pure, so too, right, tense can, uh, make someone from. Tip the scales to the good side.
[00:18:59] Now, when, when the Torah tells us about Oyalem, when there's a reference to Oyalem, um, it's always reference to learning Torah. Usually that's what the reference is to when we refer to tense. It means the tense of studying Torah. Now, the Chavez Chaim explains that when it comes to speech, speech is a very powerful tool that a person can do more destruction by speaking a half hour than action, meaning the amount of sinning someone could do by speaking lashon hara, by speaking evil speech for a half hour is way more than the amount of action that's needed to sin a whole day, right? If a person wanted to do different sins, it takes time and it takes effort and sometimes it takes resources to actually do the sin. But so it takes a lot of time. It's not just, you know, you can't just do 100 sins in a half hour, but when a person speaks with his mouth, right? The amount of averos, the amount of sins, the amount of destruction that can be caused just from talking for a half hour is way more than any action that can be done. And I think it gives us into an insight for a minute that the power of the mouth, the power of the mouth, it can be used for bad. And on the flip side, which takes us to this verse of this week's Parasha, it could, could be used for good.
[00:20:19] Because if we study Torah, if we use our mouth for good things, so then we're going to be using it in the proper way and we're going to be pushing the scale towards the side of merit. Because when we use the mouth for Torah study, for davening, for speaking nice to people, we're going to be tipping the scale to the side of merit. And ga forbid, if we would use it for the bad, we wouldn't use it for the proper purposes. It could tip the scale to the side of not good, to the side of Chov, which comes out not good for us. And I think the lesson here is that we have the ability to use our mouth for either good or bad. We can lift people up through the things that we say or we can put them down through, through the words that come out of our mouth. And I think we see from this week's parsha connecting to Bilaam that he used his mouth for bad purposes, but still Hashem made it to protect the Jewish people that only good came out. And I think the idea is that we have to realize the power we have in our speech. And I think it's especially hard because we're in a society, we're in a world where people say that I could say what I want, I could say how I feel, I could say whatever I want about people. That's the society we live in. But that's not correct. You can't just say what you want. You have to be cognizant of people's feelings. The mouth can do greater damage than even, uh, sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will Never hurt is 100% false. Words hurt more than sticks and stones because the damage of, uh, sticks and stones can be healed. And sometimes the damage of words can never be healed. And I think we have to take this message. We have to internalize it to, God willing, use our speech for good things. And when we use it for good things, we'll tip the scales in the right direction to be lekaf zhus, to have it for merit for ourselves. It should serve as a merit for us and to help us become the best people we can be. So with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to me@rabbishlamokon kohnmail.com have a great day.
