Parsha for Kids: Balak 2023
Below is the transcript for the past week’s episode of Parsha for Kids, Balak 2023.
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Season 4 Episode 7:
Hello! My name is Chana and this is Parsha for Kids. The parsha of the week is Balak. Balak is the name of the king of Moav.
When we left off at the end of Parshat Chukas, Bnei Yisrael were camped in the plains of Moav after having just won two victories. Understandably, this made the other nations around them nervous. They worried that maybe Bnei Yisrael would come after them as well, and would wage war against them.
As king, Balak and his nation of Moav were terrified by Bnei Yisrael’s victories. They reached out to the elders of Midian, a neighboring territory, and said “Bnei Yisrael will come and eat up everything around us, like an ox eats up the greens of the field.” Obviously Midian would not be interested in being defeated by Bnei Yisrael either, and so Moav sought to ally with them.
Balak put his plan in motion. He sent messengers to a man named Bilam, son of Beor. Balak wanted Bilam to come and curse Bnei Yisrael for him.
This was clever of Balak. Having ascertained that he would not be able to win a typical battle fought with weapons, he thought that perhaps he could win a war fought with magic. There are different approaches as to whether Bilam’s magic was real, and the way I will be explaining it is according to the approach that it was in fact real. Balak knew that whoever Bilam blessed was blessed and whoever he cursed was cursed, which is why he wanted him to curse Bnei Yisrael.
TRANSITION
The elders of Moav and the elders of Midian came to Bilam with this request. He told them they should sleep over at his home that night, during which time God would speak to him and he would be able to answer them. Sure enough, God spoke to Bilam, and informed him “You shall not go with these men. You shall not curse the people because they are blessed.”
Bilam told the delegation the next morning that they should return to their country, because “the Lord has refused to let me go with you.” However, notice the wording Bilam employed. He did not say, “the Lord has refused to let me curse Bnei Yisrael.” Instead he said “the Lord has refused to let me go with you” which suggested that God would permit him to go with a different delegation of nobles. Rashi points this out.
So Balak sent a different delegation of noblemen, this time composed of individuals who were even more high-ranking. These men were only from Moav; the Midianites did not come along this time. This was because the Midianites had already understood that if Bilam needed God’s permission to curse Bnei Yisrael, this plan would never work. The Moabites, however, remained optimistic. Bilam told the Moabites, “Even if Balak gives me a house full of silver and gold I cannot do anything small or large that would go against the word of the Lord, my God.” This was because Balak’s ability to curse came from God. Nevertheless, Bilam urged these men to sleep over that night and in the morning he would tell them what God had said.
God told Bilam, “If these men have come to ask you to come with them, go with them, but the word that I will speak to you is what you will do.”
The next morning Bilam arose and saddled his female donkey. God became angry with Bilam because he was going, since it was clear to Bilam that God was not interested in cursing Bnei Yisrael and yet Bilam persisted in attempting to make that happen. An angel of God came and stood in the middle of the road in front of Bilam, his sword drawn. Bilam’s donkey saw the angel, but Bilam was blind to its existence.
The donkey sidestepped, walking into a field rather than following the main road, because she wanted to avoid the angel. Bilam did not understand why his donkey was not following his directions and so he hit the donkey. The angel appeared a second time, and the donkey sidestepped once again. She pressed Bilam’s leg against a wall when doing this, and so Bilam struck her again. The angel then appeared for a third time, but this time there was no way for the donkey to turn right or left. Bilam beat the donkey for a third time with a stick.
God then enabled the donkey to speak. She said, “What have I done that you have struck me these three times?”
Bilam answered that his donkey had humiliated him due to her disobedience and that if he had a sword available, he would kill her.
The donkey said, “Aren’t I the female donkey that you have ridden on all your life? Have I ever done this to you before?”
“No,” said Bilam.
God then opened Bilam’s eyes and he too was able to see the angel standing there, his sword outstretched. Bilam bowed before the angel. The angel spoke to him, asking “Why have you beaten this donkey these three times? I have come here to stop you because you are going on this journey to act against God. The donkey turned aside to save you. If she had not turned aside, I would have killed you and left her alone.”
Bilam said, “I have sinned because I did not know you were standing in the road in front of me. If you do not like what I am doing, I will go back home.”
The angel said, “Go with these men, but the word that I will speak to you is what you will say.”
What was Bilam meant to learn from this encounter?
This encounter showed Bilam that God was all powerful and he was not. God was able to make an angel appear to a mere donkey, while he kept Bilam in the dark. Similarly, God was able to make a donkey speak. That was because the power of sight and the power of speech belongs to God- He is the one who ultimately determines who can speak, see and hear, something which he told Moshe when Moshe was at the Burning bush. If Bilam had really internalized this message, he would have simply gone home rather than saying “IF you do not like what I am doing, THEN I will go home.” The fact that he said it like that shows that he really still wanted to continue.
Since Bilam had not yet learned his lesson, God permitted him to continue but warned him that in the end he would only be able to say the words God allowed him to say. The same God who could make a donkey speak could control Bilam’s mouth.
TRANSITION
Balak went out to meet Bilam because he had received word that Bilam was on his way. Balak asked why Bilam had not come with the initial delegation,and Bilam replied by warning Bilam, “Do I have the power to say anything? The word God puts into my mouth is what I will speak.”
Balak honored Bilam that night. The next day, he took Bilam up to a vantage point where he would be able to see part of the nation of Israel. Bilam instructed Balak to build him seven altars, and prepare seven bulls and rams. The two of them offered up a bull and a ram on each altar. They hoped that God would appreciate these sacrifices and enable Bilam to curse the Jews.
However, the plan did not work, and Bilam ended up blessing the Jews instead. This was because God put blessings in his mouth instead of curses so that when he opened his mouth to curse, only blessings came out.
Balak took Bilam to two more locations, thinking they might make the difference and enable Bilam to curse the nation. Bnei Yisrael were visible from each location. Each time, Bilam and Balak offered up seven bulls and rams. Each time, Bilam ended up blessing the Jews. Balak was upset and disgusted by this, even though Bilam had warned him all along that this might happen.
One of the blessings Bilam gave was Mah Tovu, which is a prayer we say to this day as part of Shacharit, the morning devotions.
In the end, Bilam simply went back home, unable to win his war against the Jews with magic.
TRANSITION
Now, you would think the story ends happily. God has asserted his power and shown that he will not permit other nations to fight battles against the Jews, whether with magic or physically. Bnei Yisrael may not have even been aware of how close they had come to annihilation and that God had once again saved them- because they might not have seen Bilam trying to curse them. God saved Bnei Yisrael because He loved them, and not because they were necessarily watching Him do so. Unfortunately, despite God’s love for Bnei Yisrael, the story does not end happily.
You see, just after God had saved Bnei Yisrael from Bilam and Balak’s magical attempts, Bnei Yisrael had decided to sin. This is because people are sometimes their own worst enemies, and sometimes make choices that put themselves in problematic situations. In this case, Bnei Yisrael were attracted to the beautiful Moabite women. They decided to speak with them. The women gave them bread and wine, creating a festive atmosphere. When members of Bnei Yisrael were in the middle of of the party, the beautiful women begged, “Serve our God Ba’al Peor.” Many Jewish men did so, with the majority of them being from the tribe of Shimon. No one from the tribe of Levi served the foreign God.
Rashi connects this story to the one that came before. According to his approach, which is based on Midrash, when Bilam saw that he was not successful in cursing the Jews, he gave Balak a suggestion of how to entrap them. It was he who had provided the poisonous advice that Moav should send out their beautiful women to convince Bnei Yisrael to commit avodah zarah, worshiping idols.
The plan worked. God was very angry. He had just saved Bnei Yisrael and showed his love for them in doing this. Now they betrayed Him by worshiping other gods? God ordered Moshe to take the leaders of the people who had sinned and hang them. Moshe gathered the judges and told them to execute anyone who sinned by serving the God of Ba’al Peor.
TRANSITION
Unfortunately, an Israelite man who Rashi identifies as being Zimri, the leader of the tribe of Shimon, decided to bring a Midianite girl into the middle of the camp. Her name was Kozbi. Zimri decided he was going to take Kozbi to his tent whether or not Moshe gave him permission to marry her. Of course Moshe would not give permission because Kozbi was not Jewish and the Torah states that a Jewish man should not marry a Midianite or Moabite.
Zimri was committing a major sin. But Moshe and the other judges were not sure what to do about it. They began to cry.
God brought a plague against the members of Bnei Yisrael who had sinned with the Moabite women. In the end 24,000 Jews died.
Luckily, Pinchas, the son of Elazar, who was the son of Aharon HaKohen, was in the camp. He was very zealous for God, which means that he was very concerned about God’s honor. He saw that Zimri was committing a public sin and realized that quick and decisive action was needed. Pinchas took his spear and slew Zimri and Kozbi, demonstrating that people who defied God in public would not be able to get away with it.
After Pinchas did this, the plague stopped. Sometimes when there is a crisis, someone needs to step up and take quick, decisive action to resolve it. This is what Pinchas did.
TRANSITION
So here’s what we learned this week!
God will protect Bnei Yisrael from all kinds of threats, whether delivered through physical weapons or through spells and curses.
Unfortunately, people can sometimes be their own worst enemies. Their problematic choices can lead to terrible consequences.
There are different kinds of leadership. Sometimes, good leadership requires thinking over a problem, asking other people for advice and finally reaching a conclusion. Other times, especially in a time of crisis, leadership requires swift and clear action. In this case, Pinchas, Aharon’s grandson, showed that he could lead during a time of crisis.
If you have any questions or comments on this week’s episode, please email me at parsha4kids@gmail.com. That’s parsha the number 4 kids at gmail.com. Good Shabbos.