By Rebbetzin Lauren Levin
Two men saddled their own donkeys despite having servants. Both men embarked on their journeys accompanied by two servants. Both men were given a command by God and had it taken back by an angel. Both men carried out the word of God. And yet their stories are so different… Abraham and Bilam.
Bilam, the protagonist of this week’s sedra is unique. He is a prophet, not Jewish, and is called upon by the nation Moav to go and curse the Jewish people. Abraham was also a prophet, but the ilarity when we see them both saddling their own donkeys. He notes that the same action stemmed from opposite emotions; Abraham was motivated out of love to do the will of God, and Bilam hurried to saddle his donkey out of hate for the Jews. How powErful love and hate can be. One can cause such great good, and the other such terrible evil.
There seems to be a more general comparison as well though. A central theme in both stories is doing the will of God. In the binding of Isaac, Abraham was given a command by God. The story tracks how he went about following this command despite the personal cost involved. The dissonance between his own desires and love for his son and the directive he has been given by God are all too apparent through the text. This task is really testing Abraham’s belief system about which ‘agenda’ takes precedence in the world: that of humanity or that of God. Bilam’s test is extremely similar, except he is almost blissfully ignorant of it. He has to learn the hard way: his donkey seems more perceptive and intelligent than him; he cannot articulate curses and has to admit that God is controlling his speech. Yet as he utters some of the most beautiful blessings of all time, he too realises the theological principle he is being taught. We do not control the world and even the elements that we think we can control. Everything is in the hands of God.
It is fascinating that we have in Jewish ritual a legacy from both the binding of Isaac and from the non-Jewish prophet Bilam. On Rosh Hashana we blow the shofar, reminding us of the ram that Abraham offered in place of his son. We start the New Year recognising that our task as Jews may not always be easy. Our desires and ambitions may sometimes conflict with our heritage and our moral responsibilities. The shofar, shaped in a curve reaching up to the sky, reminds us to follow the legacy left to us by our forefather Abraham.
Similarly, Bilam’s blessing ‘Mah tovu’ became codified as a daily prayer in the siddur to be said upon entering the synagogue. Upon facing a new day, we are given the opportunity to learn from where Bilam failed; to open our eyes to the hand of God in everything we touch and in every situation we encounter.