Balak 5776 – Tikkun HaMidos: The Separation of Yisroel and the Nations
Parshas Balak. Parshas Balak contains within it a yichud of Klal Yisrael versus Umos Haolam. It’s one of the defining parshiyos — maybe the defining parsha — of zeh l’umas zeh, Umos Haolam against Klal Yisrael.
Chazal are ma’amid Bilaam k’neged Moshe Rabbeinu. Lo kam b’Yisroel k’Moshe. B’Yisroel, aval B’umos ha’Olam we have Bilaam. However, we also have the Mishna in Avos that contrast the middos of Avraham Avinu against the middos of Bilaam — ayin tova, ruach nemucha, nefesh shefala, and so on. So who exactly are we comparing with Bilaam? Is the zeh l’umas zeh Bilaam and Moshe, or Bilaam and Avraham? Which is it?
Be’emes we need to understand the mehalech of the Avos versus Moshe Rabbeinu. Although the Avos kept the Torah, l’ma’aseh they did not give the Torah; there was no Matan Torah with the Avos. Chazal explain this as, דרך ארץ קדמה לתורה: the doros before Matan Torah are doros whose mahalach is called derech eretz. Kadma l’Torah doesn’t mean more important; it means it comes before. There is a mahalach of derech eretz first, Torah second. So the Avos are the yesod of derech eretz for klal Yisroel, and Moshe Rabbeinu is the yesod of Torah. We need to understand this sequencing.
Let’s be misameik in the inyanim of Middos, because we tend to have a very superficial tfisa of the word. We think of a ba’al middos as someone who’s a nice person. And of course it’s good to be nice. But that’s not the real havana of middos.
The Mishna in Menachos speaks of middos shel yavesh and middos shel lach — in this contaxt, Middah is not just a measure, but a kli, a vessel that has within it the ability to be m’kabel. Some keilim can be mekabel yavesh, some can be mkabel lach. The kli is not just defining how much it can be m’kabel but also what it can be mekabel.
When it comes to middos of a person, the middah is setting myself up to become a kli for HKBH’s hashpa’ah. Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s hashpa’a is bli sof, bli gvul — there is never a measure to it, but there are different forms of His hashpa’ah, be it chesed, mishpat, chachma, or daas. When I work on my middos, I am not just working on how much of HKBH’s hashpa’a I can be mekabel, but also which hanhaga of HKBH am I shtelling-zuch tzu to. In the sense of ma ani af ata. If I refine my middah of Chessed, I set myself up to become a kli-kibul of chessed. A midda, then, is a kli I set up to receive Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s hanhaga.
However, there’s another ingredient to making myself a kli-kibul. L’mashal. If I get exposed to a person who is a real chacham, it can awaken in me in interest in chochma. But there are two very different attitudes towards this recognition of Chochma. One is where I actually see the value b’etzem in the chochma. My tshuka for the chochma is because I see the chochma itself as something of value.
But, there’s a very different attitude – I can see how chochma gets me places – it get a person kavod, money, convenience, and so I’m mishtokek for the chochma. In this second mehalech, the person doesn’t really care for the chochma, he just views the chochma as a heichi timtza to achieve his other interests. In fact, if he could achieve his other interests without the chochma, he’d happy do so.
So, he may have a tshuka for chochma, in a sense he’s motivated for chochma, but he really doesn’t have a ha’aracha for the chochma, and so he’s not going to be the best kli-kibul. If anything, any chochma that he get, he’ll likely distort just to achieve his other interests.
This is the yesod. Before Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives anything, there needs to be keilim, or middos in place. This is derech eretz kadma l’Torah.
Rav Chaim Volozhiner asks: if middos are so important, why aren’t they commanded in the Torah? And he answers with this pshat: “derech eretz kadma l’Torah.” Torah is the hashpa’a of Hakadosh Baruch Hu to a person — divrei Hakadosh Baruch Hu about what’s right and wrong, what to do and not to do. But whether a person is a ra’uiy kli-kibbul, is avoda that has to start with me. The Torah comes to be chal on a person — but the kli of the person, the ability and quality of the person’s kabbalah is an avoda that precede the ma’aseh hamitzvos. That was the avoda of the Avos: Moshe Rabbeinu was the content of Hakadosh Baruch Hu words — Shechina medaberes mitoch grono — he represent the hashpa’a of Torah to Klal Yisrael. But whether the kli-kibbul would correctly be mekabel this hashpa’ah, that is a pre-requisite avoda that the Avos had to be makdim.
Chazal say that the Umos Ha’Olam are going to say it’s not fair – you gave Klal Yisroel neviim and that’s why Klal Yisroel is so esteemed. Give us nevi’im too and we’ll be just as great. So HKBH gave them Bilam.
Chazal are matching up Bilam & Moshe because m’tzad the content they are the same. Bilam was also yode’ah daas Elyon. He was given a hashpa’a from HKBH like Moshe. The difference however is in the middos that preceded the Hashpa’ah. HKBH granted the Umos access to the same hashpa’ah, but their character was so off kilter, it ruined everything.
Mashal l’mah hadavar domeh — I see someone holding a rope, and because I want to be kashur to him, I grab the other end, since I know that way I’ll be able to connect to him. Alternatively, I don’t want a kesher with this person, but he’s holding the rope, and I can use the rope to drag him down. They’re both holding the same rope, but the way they handle it is totally different.
This is why the etzem chilluk between Yisroel and the amim lies in the Avos, not in Moshe Rabbeinu. Your kli-kibbul will determine the quality of what you receive from HKBH. The Umos Ha’Olam ta’ana: “Klal Yisrael is so wonderful only because He gave them so much. Give us the same stuff and we’ll be just as wonderful.” What Hakadosh Baruch Hu showed them is that if you give the same hashpa’ah but the kli kibul is not developed correctly, then the hashpa’ah becomes a poison.
Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave nevuah here and nevuah there — that’s the same. The difference doesn’t lie in Moshe versus Bilaam. The difference traces back to the Avos.
By Avraham Avinu it says u’matzasa es levavo ne’eman lefanecha. Hakadosh Baruch Hu was koreis a bris and found his levav ne’eman. Ne’eman means your self becomes davuk in someone else: when I am loyal to someone, nothing I take is for myself — I am looking through your eyes, not mine. Is it good for you? Moshe Rabbeinu too is called ne’eman — b’chol beisi ne’eman hu — and Moshe is built on the levav ne’eman of Avraham Avinu. Ne’emanus was the central midda, beginning with Avraham, who had nothing but Hakadosh Baruch Hu; and that is exactly what allowed Moshe to receive everything Hakadosh Baruch Hu is mashpia — because nothing would get distorted thru him. Without the ne’emanus of one’s middos, the Torah could get distorted.
We see this at time with people in yeshiva sitting on the same benches, learning the same Torah — and some become emeseh Yidden, and some, chas v’shalom, somewhere along the line misuse the Torah terribly. If Torah is so meromem a person, how can it happen?
The teretz is in the middos, the kli-kibbul they established to receive da’as Elyon. Was it ne’eman, viewing the d’var Hashem is b’etzem valuable. Or was in not ne’eman viewing the d’var Hashem as merely a heichi timza?
This is why, when the chochmei hayirah were meyased the yeshivos, they made mussar and yiras shamayim part and parcel of limud haTorah — not a separate thing. Because middos are not just a nice feather in your cap. It will directly impact your experience of HKBH’s hashpa’ah. It is the avodah that precedes Torah.
This is noge’a a beautiful thing. In the morning we make two birchos haTorah. The other place this happens is bris milah — we have the bracha of al hamila and the bracha of l’hachniso bivriso shel Avraham Avinu. Why two brachos?
The terzetz is because there are two avodos going on. There’s the ma’aseh hamitzvah, and then there’s perpetuating the Avodah of Avraham Avinu, of making one’s guf into a kli kibbul for HKBH’s hashpa’ah.
By Talmud Torah we have two broachos as well, along these lines. One is ma’aseh hamitzvah. L’asok b’divrei torah.
The second is asher bachar banu m’kol ha’amim. We are different than the umos ha’Olam. We are sitting at Har Sinai and receiving the hashpa’a of HKBH – a hashpa’ah that HKBH could give to the Umos ha’Olam like thru Bilam. But we experience a vastly different Torah because of the lev ne’eman that the Aovs instilled in us. That second bracha reminds us of the Avodas HaMiddos that differentiates us from the rest of the world, and instead of distorting HKBH’s hashpa’ah, we preserve it faithfully with a lev ne’eman.
Good Shabbos!