Reb Neuberger: Parshas Pinchas – The Loudest Sound in the Universe

 

THE LOUDEST SOUND IN THE UNIVERSE

 

Dear friends, we are in the midst of the Three Weeks and we are concerned. All around us, frightening events are occurring. It says in Tehillim, “Yimotu kal mosdai aretz … all the foundations of the earth collapse ….” (Psalm 82) This is happening globally and locally.

 

Last week, there was a terrible collapse in Miami. As I write, there are people trapped under the rubble. Here was an “ordinary” building.  People were living in it and trusting in it. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, it collapsed.

 

Our daughter Yaffa reminded me that, after the events in Meron, I wrote the following:

 

Why is the Redeemer called “Moshiach?”

 

“Moshiach” means “anointed,” as it says, “Shmuel took the horn of oil and anointed [Dovid] in the midst of his brothers, and the spirit of Hashem passed over Dovid from that day on.” (I Shmuel 16:13)

 

The King of Israel is anointed with shemen zayis, olive oil. Why olive oil?

 

“Just as the destiny of the olive tree [is fulfilled] at its end, so the destiny of [the Children of] Israel is fulfilled at their end … And Rabbi Yochanan said: Why are the [Children of] Israel compared to an olive tree? To tell you [that], just as the olive tree does not release its oil except [when its fruit undergoes] crushing, so Israel as well … will not return to the right path except through crushing.” (Menachos 53b)

 

At this moment, we are all feeling crushed.

 

I have often wondered why our Morning Prayers begin with the Akeida.

 

The Akeida is so difficult to understand. How can we relate to this? Avraham Avinu was about to make his son into a korban, a sacrifice. This is something that we cannot imagine. How can the Akeida be the cornerstone of our existence? How could it be placed at the very beginning of our daily communication with Hashem when it is something to which it is almost impossible to relate?

 

I had a thought about this recently, and suddenly it began to make sense.

 

What did Avraham Avinu do at the Akeida? He went against everything he desired and believed in. He completely broke himself and everything he stood for to follow the ratzon, the will of Hashem.

 

Our Father Avraham taught us that -- when it comes to our desires and our “agenda” -- if we want to serve Hashem, we also have to break our own desires and substitute Hashem’s will for our own will. The same phenomenon is seen in this week’s Parsha in the actions of Pinchas ben Elazar ben Aharon ha Kohain, who risked his very life to save Am Yisroel.

 

This is the primal lesson for all the Children of Avraham Avinu. As we see the culture around us collapsing, literally, physically, spiritually, this is the thought that can sustain us. Even though we are tied to this culture as a result of our Golus, we can break away from it. It means uprooting ourselves from everything we are used to, but we can follow the example of our Father Avraham and Pinchas ben Elazar and attach ourselves to Hashem.

 

How can we apply this concept to our lives?

 

What if I hate someone?

 

Say someone is talking during davening, and I am angry at this person. But I am not allowed to hate another Jew. The fact is that I can go and speak to this person directly, with kindness, in a positive way. This is correct behavior (assuming the person would accept it).

 

But there is something more: Why did I hate him in the first place? OK, he did something wrong, but did I have to hate him for it? This is a problem with me, not with him.

 

This is the root of of sinas chinom, unwarranted hatred between Jew and Jew. This is the sickness that destroyed the Bais Hamikdosh, which continues to prevent the Bais Hamikdosh from being rebuilt to this very day. This is what is keeping us in Golus!

 

How do we deal with this, my friends? I can tell myself he is wrong, but why do I have to hate him?

 

This is what we can learn from our Father Avraham. We can uproot from our heart that which separates us from Hashem. We can look inside and understand that the quality we hate in our brother is in our own heart. Talking during davening is no good, but if we hate him for it is because we have the same sin in us: the disrespect for shul, the disrespect for Torah, the same rebellion against Hashem which caused him to talk during davening.

 

Avraham Avinu was willing to go against something inside himself when he saw that Hashem desired a certain behavior from him. We can try to uproot from ourselves our personal agenda and substitute the will of Hashem.

 

As soon as I realize that I hate my brother Jew, then I can start working on myself to cleanse myself of the quality I see in him. Uprooting undesirable qualities from ourselves may be the hardest thing in the world. I remember hearing that Rabbi Yisroel Salanter zt”l said, “The loudest sound in the universe is the sound of a habit being broken!”

 

Every night, before we go to sleep, we say “Master of the universe, I hereby forgive anyone who angered or antagonized me or who sinned against me ….” That is how we can fall asleep peacefully and allow our neshoma go up to Shomayim to be refreshed and comeback to us in peace the next morning. It all begins with a “din v’cheshbon,” a spiritual accounting of our true state of mind.

 

We become obsessed with our emotions and desires, but what we really need to do is substitute the agenda of Hashem for our own agenda. The other person is not at fault. I am at fault. He is not the problem; I am the problem.

 

I can control my anger, my obsession, my appetite, my desires, my temper, my selfishness. I can be a follower of Avraham Avinu and Pinchas ben Elazar. This is the road to Redemption, the road to Yerushalayim, the road to the Bais Hamikdosh and Moshiach. This is the derech that will bring Shalom to the world.

 

May we see it soon in our days.

 

 

GLOSSARY

Golus: Exile

Derech: Road, path through life

Rabbi WInston: Parshas Pinchas – "mitzvah zealousness"

IN NEXT WEEK’S parsha the Jewish people will actually go out and fulfill the mitzvah at the beginning of this week’s parsha, to take revenge against the Midianite people. Revenge, as the Torah teaches, is not something we cannot usually take on our own, so this one had to be G–D-sanctioned.

Bilaam will once again be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He will be in Midian collecting his fee for his advice to send Midianite women into the Jewish camp to lead the Jewish people astray. In the end, Bilaam was responsible for 24,000 men from Shimon dying from plague, and 176,000 receiving capital punishment for worshipping Ba’al Peor, and he was paid for each “casualty.” 

His victory was short-lived, however. Shortly after that, the Jewish army showed up led by Pinchas, who personally ended Bilaam’s short life at 34 years. After being exposed as a fraud by G–D, he was confronted by Pinchas who was able to kill him, despite Bilaam’s mastery over magic. 

When Balak had first invited Bilaam to curse the Jewish people, he had mentioned that he knew that whomever Bilaam cursed was cursed, and whomever Bilaam blessed was blessed. At least that is the way it looked to others because of Bilaam’s track record. They didn’t know that, as the Talmud explains, Bilaam just knew the moment in the day that   G–D judged people, and how he was able to use that information to then either curse or bless a person. 

That secret was spilled in last week’s parsha, thanks to Bilaam’s pride and greed. Had he simply said no to Balak, his reputation might have stayed intact; he would have just looked choosy about his clientele. 

Instead, Bilaam took up Balak’s offer, and it quickly became clear that Bilaam had no control over anything, not even the mouth of his own donkey. Even his magical “powers” could not save him from his “timely" death at the hands of Pinchas, who killed him with an ordinary sword. 

PINCHAS WAS MORE than just Bilaam’s executioner. He was his antithesis. Everything wrong in Bilaam was right in Pinchas. Even though Bilaam is usually compared to Moshe Rabbeinu, which is really no comparison at all, and even though Pinchas was not a prophet, still Pinchas and Bilaam are more polar opposites than Moshe and Bilaam.

It is true: Chazal say that when the Torah states, “no prophet ever arose again like Moshe within the Jewish people,” it implies that one did arise among the nations, and that was Bilaam. But so many commentators have tried to explain what this means since Bilaam’s prophecy never matched Moshe’s. As Rashi points out, the only reason why Bilaam even had prophecy was for the sake of the Jewish people. Moshe deserved it in his own right.

In any case, Pinchas, after last week’s parsha, became a prophet as well. And not just any prophet, but Eliyahu the prophet! According to Kabbalah, the soul of Eliyahu Hanavi descended and joined Pinchas’ own soul, and spiritually transformed him into the famed heralder of the final redemption. It had been Bilaam’s desire, even without prodding from Balak, to prevent the final redemption. It was always Eliyahu’s to advance it.

Therefore, when the Torah says at the beginning of this week’s parsha:

Pinchas, the son of Elazar, the son of Aharon Hakohen, has turned My anger away from the Children of Israel by his zealously avenging Me among them, so that I did not destroy the Children of Israel because of My zeal. (Bamidbar 25:11)

it is explaining how Pinchas became the antidote for Bilaam. Enemies of the Jewish people do not just spring up. As we learned from Amalek at the end of Parashas Beshallach, Jewish enemies attack in response to some pre-existing spiritual lacking in the Jewish people. It is this that must be fixed before the enemy can be subdued once again.

In other words, though Bilaam praised the Jewish people for their modesty right before he caused them to lose it, the potential for the latter already existed. Bilaam didn’t create that potential; our enemies never do. They just exploit it, and undoing their damage means fixing the spiritual breach.

This being the case, G–D’s praise of Pinchas was not meant only for him. G–D was not just saying that Pinchas merited his reward because of what he did. G–D was, is, telling all of us that what Pinchas did is something all of us must do on a daily basis to stay safe from the potential Bilaams of history. So far, there have been many, and there might be more to come, G–D forbid.

It’s like germs. You can get angry at germs all you want and curse the day they were created. But the reality is that they only grow in certain environments, which is something that can be controlled to some degree. It can be assumed that if we’re not going to make an effort to keep a place clean, germs will develop, spread, and perhaps even cause sickness.

This is the general message of Parashas Bechukosai and Ki Savo. As the Talmud states, reward and punishment come in the next world (Kiddushin 39b). The Torah is telling us in these two parshios how evil automatically festers if we don’t constantly work to keep it from Creation. The chaos from which evil results grows in spiritual “dirty” environments, something that we were given Torah to control (Shabbos 88a).

But it’s a BIG job keeping the world spiritually “sterile.” The good news is that:

Someone who wants to purify themself, they (Heaven) help them…If a person sanctifies themself a little, they sanctify them a lot. (Yoma 38a)

THERE ARE BASICALLY two ways for a Jew to perform mitzvos, either as an obligation only, or as an act of zealousness. The difference is obvious from the way the mitzvah is performed. As an obligation, the effort to perform a mitzvah is minimalized. A person usually does as much as they believe they must to avoid punishment, but not more. They either forget or don’t know that it is a person’s heart that G–D truly desires. 

For such people, the goal in life is usually personal pleasure. Comfort is the priority, which they tend to confuse with pleasure. Therefore, life becomes a series of decisions designed to minimalize personal discomfort, which means a reductionist attitude toward Torah and mitzvos.

At the other end of the spectrum is mitzvah zealousness. For this smallish group of dedicated Jews, a mitzvah is a unique and invaluable opportunity to express their love of G–D. When we love someone, it gives us pleasure to give them pleasure. For zealots, the goal of life is to give G–D pleasure, and any personal pleasure they might derive from doing a mitzvah is just a nice by-product. 

A mitzvah stops becoming a mitzvah when you do it for your own reasons. The Talmud says that a person who does a mitzvah as a mitzvah is greater than someone who does the mitzvah for their own reason (Kiddushin 31a). It even goes so far as to say that a person who does a mitzvah for the wrong reason is better off not having been born. Ouch. The only exception is someone who does a mitzvah for the wrong reason with the goal of eventually doing it for the right reason.

When Bilaam says repeatedly that he can only say that which G–D allows him to say, which made him sound pretty frum, he said it as a complaint, not as an admission of G–D’s mastery over him. More than likely it was G–D who forced Bilaam to even admit that! In a word, Bilaam was completely selfish. 

Pinchas lived the opposite life. Even the most basic task, things that might not even be considered mitzvos per se, he did as a servant of G–D. His life was not his, but G–D’s. From his perspective, everything he had belonged to G–D, and everything he did was really just G–D working through him. He was grateful just to be alive, and even more grateful to have opportunities to do meaningful things with his life. In a word, Pinchas was completely selfless.

At the end of the day, it was Pinchas’ selflessness that killed Bilaam’s selfishness.

IT IS VERY hard to be selfless if you grow up selfish. The truth is, we all struggle with this, because we are born selfish. We are born with a yetzer hara which constantly markets selfishness, and we only get our yetzer tov, our good inclination by Bas or Bar Mitzvah.

It’s like walking on flat land until that major spiritual turning point, and then hitting the base of the mountain. The rest of life is the process of climbing a mountain of selflessness until we finally reach the age at which the struggle becomes irrelevant. A certain age, a person is usually too tired and worn down to work on themself anymore; they will either be a grouchy old person for the rest of their life, or a person who gives off chayn and draws people to them. 

It is interesting that the word “share” has become so dominant in today’s culture. Sharing is one of the main things a child has to learn as they leave their self-centered private world and head out into the world of other people vying for the same things they value. A child’s ability to willfully share with others is a great step forward for the rest of their life, and their service of G–D.

Someone even cleverly created the catch phrase, “sharing is caring.” It elevated the idea of sharing from being only something socially necessary, to being an expression of our concern for the welfare of others. The only problem is that many may still wonder, “Who says I have to care about others, or put them before me?” Such people usually only share when it is convenient for them to share.

The answer to the question comes from understanding that caring about others is part of a more fundamental truth, a love of truth. It is our goals in life that tell us what to take and what to give, when to be “selfish” and when we must be selfless. The only way to get that right is if a desire to do right drives them. 

That was Pinchas. The grandson of Aharon Hakohen, he was raised on truth. He was taught from the beginning that there is nothing more meaningful than knowing truth, and more importantly, living by it. This trait told him how to approach any situation in life he had to deal with, small or large, easy or difficult. The Torah calls his act one of zealousness. Pinchas would have just called it an act of truth.

The Talmud warns that just in advance of Moshiach’s arrival, truth will literally be missing from the world (Sanhedrin 97a). You can’t strive for truth if you don’t know what it is, or believe that it exists, and that can only result in selfish behavior. 

Unfortunately, the attitudes of the world tend to spill over into the Torah world as well, and that will affect how we behave towards mitzvos, and one another. 

When that happens, then the craziness of “Shittim” at the end of last week’s parsha returns to us as well. Then the Bilaams, Balaks, and Amalekim rise up all over the world, and society crumbles and breaks down. The good news is that it takes just a couple of Pinchas-like people to set the world straight. 

Any takers?

 

Rabbi Kahana: An Age of Fear is Ushering In

 BS”D 

Parashat Pinchas 5781

Rabbi Nachman Kahana

An Age of Fear is Ushering In

As a rav who lives in the shadow of the Temple Mount, I am frequently asked to reveal the deep secrets of the Creator (of which my knowledge is equal to that of my neighbor – the taxi driver) when He brought the Covid-19 pandemic upon humanity.

Indeed, neither I, nor to my knowledge does anyone else living today, have entrance to the “pargoud” (mechitza, separation) between the conscious world and the beyond, but some Torah individuals might have a premonition of what is to come.

I believe that the onset of the pandemic signaled a watershed in contemporary history. It was HaShem’s way of informing the Jewish nation and humanity that it is no longer “business as usual”. What was until now, is over. Humanity has entered its final stage called עיקבתא דמשיחא – the difficult era which will climax with the appearance of our Mashiach. A time when disasters like those which occurred in Meron on Lag Ba’omer, the collapse of the galleries in Pisgat Ze’ez, and the collapse of a building in Surfside Florida, with the loss of many Jewish lives, the results of the Earth’s warming as in the northwest USA, and many other world-wide chaotic events.

It will usher in an age of universal fear.

Last week I wrote about the devastating effects that fear can have on an individual and on a nation and added that this week I will write about fear as a tool which HaShem utilizes at times to achieve His desired objectives.

Potpourri of Dilemmas & Barriers

Among the potpourri of dilemmas and barriers which stand between us and the creation of a Torah-centered Medina, is the presence of too many inappropriate and negative peoples in our land.

There are the close to 400,000 gentiles who arrived here mostly from the former Soviet Union by virtue of the distorted Law of Return. The Law permits entry and citizenship to any goy who has at least one Jewish grandparent and was molded after the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 which defined a Jew as such (if Hitler chose to define who is a Jew, it is insanity and national suicide to let him define who is a Jew for our Medina).

For the most part, these 400,000 (and increasing daily) gentiles have no desire to convert. They are happy to receive the benefits of the Jewish Medina but refuse to accept the major condition of conversion, the observance of the Halacha without qualifications or conditions. Years ago, one could not find a butcher store that sold chazir (pork), but today they abound in every city where these goyim live.

Then there are the 2 million or so Arabs who are found in every corner of the land. There are professions which are monopolized by Arabs, such as in the building trades and service centered professions including the upkeep of hospitals; so that when they strike the hospital must close. The Negev is home to the Bedouin, whose way of life is a cancer endangering the sovereignty of the State.

Then the 80,000 or so foreign illegals, mostly from Africa, who are protected by our progressive Supreme Court which prohibits their expulsion, and who are increasing at a very fast rate in order to create facts on the ground which would make their expulsion impossible.

To round off the slate, there are the Jews who seek to divest our society of every feature of Judaism, in order to make the Medina into a country of all its citizens with no Jewish features.

All these together, under a democratic form of government, create a major threat to the Jewish nature of our country. In these circumstances, the situation is in the hands of Hashem. He must get involved and expel these subversive elements from our land, which as of now appears to be beyond our ability.

How will our Father in Heaven go about doing so?

Possibly, Hashem’s tool will be an over-riding emotion of fear which will arouse the internal enemies of the Jewish nation to “run for their lives”. It could be fear of impending war, or economic breakdown or other chaotic situations. At the end of the process, the remaining population will have the responsibility and privilege of establishing the next Bet Hamikdash commonwealth.

The last Mishna of tractate Sota informs us in some broad details of what to expect in this period which could last for 5 or for 50 years, or more.

Worldwide inflation, where products will be abundant, but money will be scarce or lose its value. The traditional bonds of the immediate family, and certainly of the extended family will disintegrate. Elders will lose the respect due to them. Daughters will challenge mothers. Torah scholars will lose their elevated status. 

It will be a time when humanity will cease to have confidence, their resourcefulness, and will lead to the time when all the world will recognize HaShem as the sole source of salvation.

To close on a positive note.

This week I received the following message from close friends who have just come on aliya from Florida:

“Just came across a quote from the new ANU Museum which is the rebuilt old Beit Hatfutsot in Tel Aviv:

“Being Jewish means knowing how to pack quickly”.

This quote summarizes my feelings about having made Aliya. I have nothing to pack to go to my home in Israel. Unlike the generations before me, “packing” meant for a Jew forced to leave his temporary home to go to a yet unknown, but more secure place in the world. Having made Aliya, home is now the secure place my ancestors and my people sought but never obtained with certainty and permanence.

This year in Yerushalayim, B “H’

The message is clear and vibrant: we have come home to Eretz Yisrael and will never be exiled again.

About some 50 odd years ago I visited the Tel Aviv home of the editor of the national-religious Hatzofeh newspaper. I remarked on his impressive, quantitative and qualitative library which covered three walls. He then related an incident with a holocaust survivor in that very room. The survivor was taken aback by the quantity of volumes and asked, “What will you do when you will be forced to run away?” He answered that it is not an issue, because there is no reason to fear because we will never have to run away from this land.

The message is clear and vibrant: we have come home to Eretz Yisrael, and we will never be exiled again.

In closing: I see a period of time when the people in Eretz Yisrael will be challenged to choose between remaining or leaving to “save their lives”, as I experienced during the three weeks prior to the Six Day War. We lived in Kiryat Tzanz, Netanya, and there was a steady stream of taxis taking families to the airport.

At the time we had two children and were ridiculed for not “escaping”. I told all our detractors, that HaShem will bring about great miracles of victory which we will experience, while you will see it on TV two continents away. And so it was.

In the period of time prior to the Mashiach, all the foreign and alien elements will “escape” and the land will be filled with the lovers of Torah and the Land of Israel.

JLMM.

Shabbat Shalom,

Nachman Kahana

Copyright © 5781/2021 Nachman Kahana

Rabbi Winston: Parshat Balak – “That could never happen in America!”

AS THE EXPRESSION goes, “Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.” 

The story of Bilaam is a classic example of how someone can want something so badly that they endanger themselves to get it. The story of Bilaam and Balak is a classic example of how people can confuse hope with reality, and lose everything as a result.

On a speaking trip to the States about a decade ago, I was confronted by someone from the audience. I was trying to explain how what happened in Europe to the Jews could happen to the Jews spread out across the Western world today. He didn’t like that, and protested saying, “That could never happen in America!”

So I asked him, “You know that for a fact, or you HOPE that it is true?” He paused to think for a moment, and realizing that he had not based his opinion on solid evidence, he backed down…somewhat. 

Realizing that he wasn’t going to abandon his opinion that quickly, and that others in the audience shared it, I asked him why he thought American Jewry was safer than pre-Holocaust European Jewry. He cited some observations and opinions, but each one had its parallel in pre-Holocaust history, and his argument lost its steam. 

After that, I explained how antisemitism is not just another form of racism, but something more supernatural, and therefore, less predictable. I gave examples of how quickly in the past host populations have gone from being civil and friendly to their Jewish communities to being antisemitic and hostile. The argument, I had thought and apparently others as well, was pretty conclusive.

However, I did not hear from the “protester” the rest of the evening, nor did he stay around after to ask questions. I have no idea where he went after in his thinking, whether he took to heart what I had said, or just forgot about it once he left the talk. Unfortunately, it is only natural to not take danger seriously until it is too late to stop it, like when they come knocking on the doors to take Jews away.

At the right time, hope is an asset that can lead to great results. At the wrong time, it can be a death trap. Bilaam had really hoped that somehow he would be able to overcome all the obstacles to cursing the Jewish people, and become even more famous and richer. Instead he failed miserably, losing his reputation and then finally his life.

Likewise, for a decade as Hitler, ysv”z, rose to power, European Jews hoped that he would never become strong enough to make good on his plan to rid Germany, and then the world, of Jewry. And as the situation worsened, they had hoped that it would it would turn around for the better. Little did they know just how much worse it would get.

HE HADN’T HOPED blindly. Bilaam had understood that there were things he had to do to try and influence the outcome, to increase the odds that his hope could become reality. For example:

In the morning Bilaam arose, saddled his she-donkey and went with the Moabite dignitaries. (Bamidbar 22:21) 

From here [we learn] that hate causes a disregard for the standard [of dignified conduct], for he saddled it himself. The Holy One, Blessed Is He, said, “Wicked one, their father Avraham has already preceded you, as it says, ‘Avraham arose in the morning and saddled his donkey’” (Bereishis 22:3). (Rashi)

So what? Avraham was not the first or last dignitary in history to have saddled his own donkey. What difference does it make if Bilaam did, and why is that another reason to criticize him? 

Because, unlike Avraham, Bilaam was full of himself. He was egotistical that it was particularly unusual for him to degrade himself so. Furthermore, Avraham was on his way to do an act of great self-sacrifice, and saddled his own donkey to show his zealousness to fulfill the will of G–D. Bilaam was zealous to change the will of G–D, and go against it if necessary. 

So why did Bilaam do it? Because his distorted perception of reality told him that if wanted to overcome the merits of the forefathers, he had to mimic them in his own way, for his own purpose. This is why he is called “wicked one,” because there is little more wicked than taking something that is meant for good and using it for bad. 

Like building altars and offering sacrifices on them. In those days when gentiles did that, it was usually for idol worship. Balak and Bilaam offered sacrifices to G–D, normally a very holy and righteous thing. But Balak and Bilaam did it to curse the people that G–D had blessed, a very unholy and evil thing. 

That was Balak and Bilaam. The Jews of the Diaspora have built shuls, chadarim, yeshivos, and chesed organizations for the right reasons. But these cannot become reasons to stay in golus when the time has come to leave, because then these start to exist for the wrong reasons. In Europe, most of them were destroyed, and there were some horrifying cases when Jews died trapped inside of them.

Sometimes we can “use” mitzvos to buy favor with G–D, and even use them to avert an “evil” decree. But other times doing so can have just the opposite effect, in particular if a decree is already set in motion. Then they can even worsen the situation.

WHILE WE CELEBRATE Bilaam’s failure to curse the Jewish people, we tend to forget his success. It was his plan to send the daughters of Midian into the Jewish camp that led to 24,000 from the tribe of Shimon dying from plague, and 176,000 being executed by the Sanhedrin for idol worship. 

Though Bilaam was killed in the soon-to-follow battle against Midian, his “legacy” lives on past him until this very day. So many Jews today who reject Eretz Yisroel have no idea that the materialism that stands in their way of making aliyah, or even just wanting to, was Bilaam’s doing long, long ago.

The Shem M’Shmuel explains that the goal of Balak and Bilaam was to keep the Jewish people from crossing the Jordan river as a nation. Had all 600,000 males between the ages of 20 and 60 crossed the Jordan at one time and conquered and settled it together, the Sitra Achra would have been neutralized. As a result, the final redemption would have occurred, and evil would have been destroyed. It would have been the end of the likes of Balak and Bilaam.

They already knew they could not destroy the Jewish people, as the defeat of Sichon and Og made clear. They learned that they could not curse the Jewish people, as Bilaam’s failure revealed. The only option left that had any chance of working was to make the Jewish people their own worst enemy, and historically that always seems to work.

That means getting the Jewish people to sin. If the Jewish people can be enticed to sin, then G–D will stop protecting them and they will become vulnerable to “natural” forces of destruction. It might be an invading army, or might be a plague, but either way, G–D will do something to express His displeasure about the spiritual deterioration of the nation.

Even though Bilaam was from Midian, as was Balak before he was “hired” to be king of Moav to deal with the “Jewish Problem,” Midianite women were chosen for a specific reason. The negative spiritual reality that drove their way of live was ta’avah, an innate desire for material pleasures. It was Midian's specialty, and Balak and Bilaam knew it was the one “klipah” (negative spiritual trait) that could make Eretz Yisroel look less appealing to a Jew than the Diaspora.

THEY GOT TO witness one part of their plan working. The tribe of Shimon acted promiscuously with Midianite women and 24,000 died by plague. Others were enticed to idol worship, and 176,000 were executed by Bais Din. Had Pinchas not stepped in and killed Zimri in his famous act of zealousness, the numbers would have been a lot higher.

What they did not live to see was the tribes of Reuven and Gad, with half of the tribe of Menashe, later asking to live on the east side of the Jordan. All kinds of reasons are given for what they had been thinking, to make such a request after the original episode of the spies doomed them to 39 extra years in the desert. But the bottom line was a material one: the land east of the Jordan appeared to them to be better suited for raising their cattle.

Boom! That was it! The fulfillment of the dynamic duo of destruction’s plan. The requisite 600,000 males did not settle the land together, the redemption did not occur, and Reuven, Gad, and half of Menashe were the first tribes hauled off into exile when it finally came. And here we sit today, thousands of years later, waiting for the final redemption. Once again, materialism is the key issue for many who reject aliyah.

Some would argue that aliyah is a “Zionist thing,” and feel justified for avoiding it. The Zionists just made aliyah more fashionable in recent years, but aliyah has always been a Jewish thing, and the tendency to allow materialism to cloud the issue, a Bilaam thing. Ya’akov Avinu made that clear when he gave this world to Eisav on a silver platter, and only took what he “earned” in Eretz Yisroel down to Egypt with him. 

It’s not that Bilaam caused the Jewish people to like materialism. It is only human to do so. It’s that he got the Jewish people to like it so much that it could become more important than the spiritual. “I would never be able to have as many guests for Shabbos, or feed them as well,” an anti-aliyah person told me once, “if we moved to Eretz Yisroel!” 

And therefore?

Hachnasas orachim—having guests, as the Talmud says, is like welcoming the Shechinah, and a hugely important mitzvah, especially on Shabbos and Yom Tov. But making Shabbos and Yom Tov in Eretz Yisroel is Shabbos and Yom Tov on an even higher level. Besides, as we learn from Avraham Avinu at the beginning of Parashas Vayaira, if a person wants guests badly enough, G–D will make it work. 

That goes for any mitzvah as well. It doesn’t really make sense that G–D would help a person move to His favorite land and then deny them a chance to do mitzvos while there. If anything, aliyah might mean a shift in priorities and an emphasis on different mitzvos that we have been used to focusing on. In the end, the only thing that counts is, that we have done what G–D wanted us to do, not what we wanted G–D to want us to do.

Therefore, even though Balak and Bilaam are long gone, their plan still lives on. And who knows, perhaps they have reincarnated, just as the generation of the desert and the Erev Rav have, to strengthen their old plan. And if we’re going to continue to be our own worst enemy, then we do Balak’s and Bilaam's work for them, and pay the price for it as well.