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Orchard of Delights
of his soul root) was reincarnated in Elijah. Taking over where
Pinchas left off, Elijah audaciously challenged the priests of Ba’al
on Mount Carmel to a public test that would prove who was the
true god. Each side would construct an altar to its respective deity.
Whichever deity would successfully rain down fire from heaven to
light the altar would prove it was the true God. After the priests of
Ba’al spent an entire day imploring Ba’al to rain down fire with no
success, Elijah doused God’s altar with water three times, prayed
to God briefly, and was immediately rewarded by fire raining down
from heaven and consuming his offering. The people responded by
enthusiastically recognizing God. In arranging this test, Elijah acted
quite boldly because he built an altar outside the Temple environs,
which ordinarily was forbidden; however, he judged the Jewish
people’s overwhelming attraction to Ba’al worship sufficient motive
to justify this onetime infraction. Apparently God concurred, and
the strength, commitment, and zealousness of Nadav, Avihu, and
Pinchas, shone through Elijah at this climactic event.
Elijah, at the end of his life, ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot
and was transformed into an immortal heavenly being. Thus the fire
that Nadav and Avihu longed to bring before God came to fruition in
the fiery chariot of Elijah. Although the acts of Pinchas, Nadav, and
Avihu lasted but a few moments, their individual souls began a process
ultimately leading them to immortality. This point is important for
it teaches us that a single act, performed by a single individual, can
have an enduring impact. Our mystical tradition teaches us that
all our actions affect the upper worlds and create energies that can
last a lifetime, many generations, or, as in Pinchas’ case, transform
a soul so fundamentally that spiritual transcendence eventually
occurs. In the Divine realms, past, present, and future take place
simultaneously. Similarly, the soul, rooted in God, can, when focused
and actualizing all its potential, achieve eternity through one act, in
a single quintessential moment. (See Return Again: The Dynamics of
Reincarnation, pp. 158-163 and the portion of Shemini.)
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16 Balak
As discussed above in the first section of Numbers, sometimes
“the medium is the message.” Just as Mashiach’s spark and lineage
is revealed in this world as the result of a number of strange and
mystifying sexual liaisons – a drunken Lot sleeping with his
daughters; Tamar seducing and sleeping with her father-in-law,
Judah; the circumstances leading to Boaz’ marriage to Ruth the
Moabite convert; and the state of affairs surrounding King David’s
conception – so too God uses the impure Balaam to reveal the most
exalted of prophecies. There is a lesson to be learned from His doing
so: God can use even the lowest of the low to serve His purposes.
The Midrash teaches that “God had a passion to have for Himself
a dwelling place in the lower worlds” (Midrash Tanchuma, Naso 16;
see “A Dwelling Place in the Lower Worlds” in Tetzaveh). Above
we interpreted this concept as meaning that God wanted Divinity
and spirituality to infuse all aspects of life and the physical world.
The Tabernacle in the desert and the Temple in Jerusalem are the
quintessential representations of this ideal. Here though a different
aspect of God desiring a dwelling place in the lower worlds is revealed.
God desires to utilize even the lowest of the low to fulfill His will,
to serve Him as an instrument in carrying out Divine Providence.
God subverts Balaam’s evil intentions by converting them into an
opportunity to bless Israel.
According to the Slonimer Rebbe, Balak and Balaam did not
mind the children of Israel learning Torah and performing mitzvot
in principle. What did terrify them though was the prospect of the
Jewish people entering the Land of Israel where they would be able
to elevate every aspect of material reality, even the very dust of the
ground, to holiness and purity. They recognized that only in the
Land of Israel could the Jewish people accomplish the very purpose
of creation – to make God a dwelling place in the lower worlds. In this
context, Rashi’s comment on Balaam’s words – “Who can count the
dust of Jacob” – has special meaning. Rashi mentions that Balaam
is alluding to those mitzvot which actually use the dust of the earth,
such as the rituals of the red heifer and the sotah (the suspected
adulteress). In performing these mitzvot, the Jewish people raise up
even the dust of the earth to the spiritual realms.
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