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balak קָלָּב
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of the Low
of the Lowof the Low
In the portion of Balak, Balaam, a sorcerer and heathen prophet, is
hired by Balak the king of Moab to curse the Jews. Legend had it that
whoever was blessed by Balaam would be blessed and whoever was
cursed by Balaam would be cursed. According to tradition Balaam
was the spiritual counterforce on the side of impurity to Moses (Sifrei
on Deuteronomy 34:10). The Midrash relates that the nations of the
world came to God and said that if they had a prophet of Moses’
stature they too would be as holy as the Jewish people; to test them,
God gave the nations Balaam as their prophet. Ironically, Balaam’s
prophecies contain some of the most glorious praises of Israel in the
entire Torah as well as extensive prophecies about the Messianic
era.
In the written text, Balaam explicitly tells Balak that even though
he has hired him to curse the Jewish people, he can only utter what
God “puts in my mouth.” He seems to have no sinister motives in
prophesying about the Jewish people; however, the oral tradition
paints an entirely different picture. Indeed, a close reading of the
text reveals many subtle and not so subtle allusions to Balaam’s true
desire to curse the Jews. For one, his frequently repeated claim that
he can only prophesy what God tells him to seems to indicate that
he wished the situation were reversed. Indeed, every time he blesses
the Jews, he asks Balak to give him another chance to curse them.
That God would have chosen such an individual – an impure vessel
– to utter some of the most sublime praises and prophecies is very
perplexing.
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And God spoke to Moses, saying: “Pinchas, son of Elazar,
son of Aaron the cohen, turned back my wrath from
the children of Israel, when he was zealous for my sake
among them, so I did not consume the children of Israel
with my vengeance. Therefore [I] say: Behold, I give him
My covenant of peace. And it shall be for him and his
offspring after him an eternal priestly covenant, because
he was zealous for his God and he atoned for the children
of Israel.” (Numbers 25:10-13)
As a reward for his actions Pinchas is awarded a covenant of peace
and is appointed a cohen. This might appear surprising since as
Aaron’s grandson one would have expected him to automatically be
a cohen. However, those children born to Aaron’s sons before they
were appointed cohanim remained levi’im. Only Aaron, his sons,
and those children born to them after the appointment were deemed
cohanim.
Since no other individual in the entire Tanach is awarded “a
covenant of peace,” we can assume that such a covenant is special
and profoundly meaningful. However, receiving such a reward
for murdering Zimri and Cozbi seems quite paradoxical, a true
oxymoron. Only in light of the bigger picture does the effect of
Pinchas’ actions become apparent. Pinchas not only kills Zimri
and Cozbi, and in so doing halts a deadly plague that threatened to
destroy the entire Jewish people, he also causes a major paradigm
shift in the relationship between God and the Jewish people. For
forty years the Jewish people constantly rebelled against God and
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