Harry Potter and Voldemort, Batman and the Joker, Brutus and Cassius, Pinky and the Brain, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Lydia and Elizabeth Bennett. These are some of the greatest character foils in literature and pop culture of the last half a millennium. For a foil pairing to really work, they need to have both noticeable commonalities and significant differences.
Months ago, we discussed one such foil pair in Tanakh, נח and נח .אברהם and אברהם are both צדיקים, both singular in their respective generations, both believers in Hashem in a pagan world. But חז״ל clearly indicate their belief that נח doesn’t hold a candle to his descendant אברהם, whom Hashem calls אב המון גוים, replacing נח as a father to all nations.
This week, the Torah unveils another dynamic rivalry, a tale of two prophets, the story of בלעם and משה. Though they never meet directly in the Torah, there are striking parallels between the two men, even from the text of the Torah itself. Both have a Midianite past; both men embark on a mission far from their homes to help a nation free itself of a dangerous foe. Both are told by Hashem that they must say only that which Hashem instructs them. משה is told at the burning bush:
וְעַתָּה לֵךְ וְאָנֹכִי אֶֽהְיֶה עִם־פִּיךָ וְהוֹרֵיתִיךָ אֲשֶׁר תְּדַבֵּר׃
And now go I will be with your mouth and instruct you what to say
While בלעם is told:
ק֖וּם לֵ֣ךְ אִתָּ֑ם וְאַ֗ךְ אֶת־הַדָּבָ֛ר אֲשֶׁר־אֲדַבֵּ֥ר אֵלֶ֖יךָ אֹת֥וֹ תַעֲשֶֽׂה׃
Rise and go with them, but only the things which I say to you shall you do
Both are interrupted from their activities by supernatural events, Moshe by a burning bush, בלעם by a talking donkey. Both are prophets who speak directly to Hashem; and both engage in both cursing and blessing Israel. But חז״ל take this parallel much further. For example, the מדרש suggests that בלעם and משה were two of the only people ever born already מהול, already circumcised. The Torah at the end of ספר דברים states:
ולא קם נביא עוד בישראל כמשה
There never arose another prophet in Israel like Moshe
The ספרי infers that there may never be another like משה in Israel, but there was another like משה outside Israel – בלעם. In fact, the מדרש says that בלעם was מעולה בחכמתו יותר ממשה, much wiser than משה, leaving the nations of the world no right to complain that had they only had their own prophet, they would have been just as righteous as Israel.
The גמרא in בבא בתרא asserts that משה wrote his book, meaning ספר דברים, and פרשת בלעם, the story of בלעם. The ירושלמי even says that משה wrote all five books of the Torah and פרשת בלעם. Why in the world would we think otherwise? Is the story of בלעם not part of the Torah?
Explains רבינו גרשום, since בלעם’s prophecy was as great as משה’s, we might have thought that בלעם wrote it! Rav Chaim Soloveitchik further suggests since בלעם was of even stature to משה, his prophecies were considered Torah even before they were included in the text by משה!
Moreover, the ירושלמי in ברכות says that פרשת בלעם would have been read every day as part of שמע קריאת if not for the burden it would place on the public. According to this פרשת בלעם ,גמרא is on par with שמע as a canonical part of תפילה and קבלת עול מלכות שמים!
The craziest connection between them comes from a story as recorded by ילקוט שמעוני. According to this בלעם ,מדרש was originally one of פרעה’s advisors and is credited with masterminding פרעה’s decree to wipe out all male Jewish babies in Egypt.
בלעם later hears that משה, a survivor of this genocidal executive order, plans to kill בלעם so he flees to Ethiopia. While in Ethiopia, he convinces the capital city to fortify their walls and surround the city with a moat filled with scorpions. He then leads a rebellion against the king and instigates a standoff between the Ethiopian army returning from war against the Aramaeans and the residents of the fortified capital city.
Meanwhile, משה flees from פרעה and ends up joining the side of the Ethiopian army, against בלעם and the city’s residents. When the Ethiopian king dies, they appoint משה, who successfully leads a siege on the city without killing a single member of the city. בלעם again flees from משה, absconding from Ethiopia back to Egypt. In other words, according to this משה ,מדרש and בלעם even ended up on opposite sides of a civil war in Ethiopia!
The more of rabbinic literature you read, the more striking the parallels between משה and בלעם’s lives. The מדרש even ascribes to בלעם a desire to die in the same divine manner as משה, as he says in our פרשה:
תמות נפשי מות ישרים ותהי אחריתי כמוהו
May I die the death of the upright, may my fate be like theirs!
And yet, for all their similarities, how different do they turn out! משה talks to Hashem with priesthood, blessing, sacrifices, and Torah, says the Midrash, while בלעם begins with lots, magic, sorcery, and lewdness. משה is the ultimate אוהב ישראל, who described Israel as countless as the stars, whereas בלעם is the ultimate שונא ישראל, numbering them like the dust of the Earth.
The מדרש explains that it is not a coincidence that shortly after בלעם’s blessings we find משה’s rebuke. It is likened to a king who appoints two officers to supervise his son. The officer who hates the prince blesses and flatters him, and encourages his bad behavior, leading to the sin at the end of the פרשה with the princesses of מדין. But the one who loves him rebukes him and tries to ensure he stays on the straight and narrow path to righteousness, just like his Father. What went wrong? How did these two men, with similar backgrounds and similar strengths, end up so different?
בלעם seems to admit that he must listen to Hashem’s command and sometimes even seems less resistant to G-d’s will then משה. How did בלעם become the paradigmatic prophet of paganism and a שונא ישראל, when he seems to have had the prophetic potential to have received the Torah himself? How could someone with direct communication with Hashem fall so far from what he could have been?
The truth is, this question is not limited to בלעם; it applies to any religious figure, or religious person, who is caught perverting his leadership for other purposes. Think of שלמה המלך, Rabbis Mordechai Elon, Shlomo Carlebach, Ezra Sheinberg, Baruch Lanner, Barry Freundel – these are people who dedicated themselves to the Jewish People, to serving Hashem, and yet, they are accused or convicted of horrible things.
These past two weeks, we have all heard about the 26 Orthodox Jews, 13 couples, arrested on charges of defrauding the federal social safety net, taking welfare while making millions. But they’re not alone – someone I worked for, who had donated millions of dollars to start an organization that could help reduce the tuition crisis in Jewish education, was arrested not long ago for running a Ponzi-like scheme out of his hedge fund, defrauding customers of billions of dollars. It makes me ill to think that I literally ate food purchased from stolen money every day for a month, working for his organization in his hedge fund offices.
How does this happen? How do people close to G-d, people who represent G-d, prophets and scholars and בעלי צדקה and חֲרֵדִים בְּמִצְוַת אֱלֹקינוּ, how do they fall so far? Yes, part of it is that we all have תאוות and some people fall to them. But these aren’t minor mistakes – these are major scandals, crimes committed with premeditation over years of abuse and immoral behavior. How did בלעם become בלעם and not משה?
The answer is perhaps in yet another contrast between them. The מדרש says that there were ways in which משה’s prophecy was greater than בלעם’s prophecy and ways in which בלעם’s prophecy was greater than משה’s. משה spoke to Hashem while standing, while בלעם bowed; משה spoke to Hashem פה אל פה and פנים אל פנים, mouth to mouth and face to face; בלעם did not. On the other hand, בלעם knew when and about what Hashem wanted to speak; משה did not. בלעם claims to be יודע דעת עליון, to know the intentions of G-d, whereas משה asks, הודעני נא את דרכיך, teach me your ways – משה does not claim to know of what G-d has in mind.
In other words, while משה’s prophecy was characterized by humility and intimacy, בלעם’s was characterized by hubris and cunning. Maybe the difference between משה and בלעם is that משה allowed his personal connection with Hashem to influence not only his actions but his attitude, to deeply affect his personality. He had the humility to know his own limitations, to initially refuse leadership, and to stand up to G-d when necessary, to confront the people even when it was unpopular. But בלעם never learned that lesson, never incorporated his spiritual experiences into his character, his personality, his worldview. He thought of his relationship with G-d as a tool, as a means to achieve his personal needs and desires, as a way to manipulate his fate, not as a responsibility, as something he dare not think he deserves.
Our identities as religious people give us a lot of power, power that can be used to either inspire the world or to abuse the weak and vulnerable. The rabbis and Orthodox lay leaders who exploit their position, who put on the mask of someone who knows G-d to serve their own needs, are not only profaning G-d’s name; they are שונאי ישראל, cold and cynical. All of us, as representatives of Hashem, whether lay or rabbinic, who do His work every day through Torah and מצוות and acts of kindness, must let that spirituality, that godliness, that רוח ה׳, influence us and humble us, and be mindful of the dangers of religious power. In doing so, may we be less like בלעם and more like משה, a community that exemplifies righteousness and integrity.
דורש לנפשי 