A Talking Donkey - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

now we get to the portion of the talking donkey and there's just so much to talk about here but uh that would take up the rest of the fellowship so i just want to say a few words about this saying we're running out of time um because uh you know i i want to talk about this humiliating situation because it was humiliating it was a humiliating situation the sages of israel even say that the moabite dignitaries saw this playing out at least some dimension of this and said what this guy is supposed to defeat an entire nation and he can't even control his donkey and there are those that say that that humiliation was indeed one of the primary purposes for the whole episode they say that hashem already had planned that bilam would be used to powerfully bless the jewish people but in order to be used for such a lofty purpose he needed to be deflated right he needed the pride and the haughtiness in his heart needed to be removed from him in order for him to be a fitting vessel to bless israel and having a uh a serious heart-to-heart debate with the donkey that that's a good start right anyways an angel of hashem was standing sword unsheathed in front of beilam's donkey and the animal could see him but bilam couldn't of course you know a further humiliation to him and the donkey was backing away pinning him against the wall and hurting his leg quite badly and he was in pain and he was enraged and he was hitting the donkey and beating with the stick and then here's where it sort of gets even more interesting the donkey turned to bilaam and starts speaking with him now i just want to take a second here and share a thought i just had i just had a group come out to the farm and it's always hard for me to take a group around on sunday when i'm preparing for the fellowship but i had no i just needed to and i was telling them uh you know this sort of talking about this obvious question about why does he engage the donkey in discussion rather than just like saying whoa whoa there buddy we'll talk about this in a second but you're talking to me you're a talking donkey but he doesn't say that he just sort of engages him in discussion and you know for me personally i've thought about times where hashem is talking to me so so loud but i'm just so lost in my own thoughts and my own will that i barely see it that i barely hear it or it's just overload sensory overload i was actually just thinking about that time i've shared it with you before that the uh arabs and the germans were building our house of prayer you know it was like the germans who were most of them children and grandchildren of nazis and they told us descendants of asav of esau and the arabs descendants of ishmael and they're building a house of prayer for jews in judea how was it that i was able to see that and not immediately be overtaken by a wave of what is going on here a donkey is talking to me esau and ishmael are building a house of prayer for jews in judea sometimes we just don't see it we're just so lost in the centuries of what happened but anyways the donkey says why have you struck me these three times by the way a very interesting usage of the word three times shalosh regalim is used right shalosh solution the three times that the jewish people would go up to jerusalem passover shavuot and sukkot bilal responds to the donkey if i had a sword i would have killed you and the donkey then starts speaking with um with bialam so the angel of hashem standing sword unsheathed in front of bilam's donkey and uh and bilaam doesn't see it and the donkey starts speaking to him right that's where we were and then bilaam's eyes are opened and he sees the angel standing right before him with his sword unsheathed and he falls to the ground and he humbles himself and he uh he offers to turn back right to which the angel says again no you can go with them but only speak what i tell you to you see the the theme here only speak what i tell you to and again when i read this i just feel a lot of love i see how fiercely hashem protects his nation i just have this visual of this angel with the sword protecting israel all of this happening behind our backs if we could only know the myriads of miracles performed for us every single day without our knowledge if we could only know the love for hashem feels for us despite our blemishes and our shortcomings anyways you