Balak Part 2 Weekly Torah Portion according to the Kli Yakar Numbers 22 verses 22, 28 and 41 5776

so we're on chapter 22 in Numbers verse 23 I'll read in English some of the verses numbers 20 Numbers 22 verse 23 good evening everybody okay I'll actually start with verse 21 billum arose in the morning and saddled his she donkey and went with the officers of Moab God's Wrath flared because he was going and an angel of hasem stood on the road as an impediment to him he was riding on his shuny and his two young men were with him okay our verse starts like this the she donkey saw the angel of Hashem standing on the road with his sword drawn in his hand so the sheet dkey turned away from the road and went into the field then billum struck the hunkey the shuny to turn her back onto the road verse 24 the angel of Hashem stood in the foot path of The Vineyards a fence on this side and a fence on that side 25 the she donkey saw the angel of theem and she pressed against the wall and she pressed Bam's leg against the wall and he continued to strike her 26 the angel of hasem continued to pass ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn right or left 27 the she donkey saw the angel of hasem and crouched beneath billum Bam's anger flared and he struck the sh donkey with the St 28 this is the last verse we're going to deal with and then we're going to go back and we're going to talk about all the verses in um in detail Hashem opened the mouth of the she donkey and she said to billow why what have I done to you that you have struck me these three times okay so I'm going to read in Hebrew 23 theone [Music] so we're dealing with these words that says that the she saw she saw this malem this angel of God standing on the way and the angel had a sword in his hand so the donkey turned towards the way away from the way that she was walking which was the road and she went into the field the T so the CLE car Begins by quoting M he only quotes part of it he mentions Sim AOS her her which means like this what happened was when this sh was walking on the way and noticed this Angel so he turned her away and went into the the field what's the field the field is a m it's a wide open area saying it's as if the donkey was speaking later the B the donkey will speak but just the movement of the donkey conveyed a message to Bala to to Billa if you want to curse the Seed of Abraham yat what you're going to end up doing is also cursing Abraham's other wives or um concubine Cura and not just her children but also Hagar's son yesel so there are other people called The Seed of Abraham so somehow we're going to relate the field the first instance of going away from the path towards the field relating to Abraham and then it says if the donkey was communicating to ban that if you want to curse gach so what's going to happen the result will be as the verse says there's going to be a fence on this side and a fence on that side why because you're going to end up turning towards ASA if either way you turn you're going to end up turning towards ASA in other words you don't want to curse you only want to curse the Jews so by cursing Abraham you're not cursing just the Jews you're going to also curse Ismael and if you end up cursing y you're not just going to curse the Jews you're going to end up cursing [Music] asob however when you if yob is the father he's the right he's Israel his 12 sons well 10 sons and two grandchildren that is what we call the nation of Israel you want to curse him he had what we call complete perfect bed meaning all his progyny all that came out from his loins all that came out from his bed were perfect so then the verse says you're going to stand in this narrow place that's what the verse talks about after he went off the main road into the field back and then between these two walls it was a very narrow place it's a place where you're not able to turn left or to right so in if you look in Genesis 328 it refers to Yakov as in in a very narrow place so let's look it up Genesis says yako it was military preparations yako became very frightened right he had just ran into asov on his way back into Israel from being with Lavan for many many years Jacob became very frightened and it distressed him in Hebrew it says the distress is a very narrow place it's constricting so this is where he ended up this is a concept of yako being in a Makar you can't go left you can't go right he also explains there's many other ways the commentators explain it but he leaves it like that for now and then from what Rashi says Rashi says something very interesting on this verse uh we are in I'm just going 23 okay okay it's not 123 so I'm going to be a little later when we quoted the donkey's first words to Billow he says what have I done to you that you have struck me these three times it's a very odd statement okay true he struck them three times and that's what the donkey asked him so Rashi says there these three times literally in Hebrew shal that's what it says what we call pilgrimage a pilgrimage is when you go up to you use your feet and Hebrew for the pilgrimage is regalan regalim is your feet okay so it's a hint as Rashi says literally shal she hinted this is the what we're going to discuss R Alo this donkey intimated to him to B you want to uproot this nation what kind of nation that nation that celebrates three festivals a year it sounds far-fetched the donkey is talking to B and she says what have I done to you you struck me these three times it's the exact words the phrase that the Torah uses for the three festivals okay shal you want to like it's it's like rhetorical what are you doing the donkey is asking Bill you want to uproot this nation that celebrates these festivals what do we hear from this what does this infer that there are these three Sim signs that were mentioned in parallel to the three festivals embedded in the verse that we just spoke about the field the um the narrow place and the vineyard okay we spoke about and went into the field that was and then we said that the Mal stood stood in the foot path of the paths of The Vineyards and then it went to this place where there's a fence on both sides and then it was stuck in this very narrow place it was in this place we related to to the four the three forefathers Abraham Isaac and Jacob and now we're relating it to the three festivals and he begins by saying we're going to start with suus now why suus he says because that's when the year begins obviously we the Jews we have two calendars we have one calendar that has two beginning points okay so we're not going to get into that right now but he's using the calendar that begins with the beginning of the year so suus is the first festival and it says in Exodus 23 verse 16 when you gather in from the work of the field it's talking about Harvest time it's talking about the H of since we're talking about a field art art narrative says that he turned the the donkey turned away from the road the path and went into the field we just got done saying the field relates to the work of the field relates to the Harvest again rhetorically as if the donkey was communicating to billum you want to up root this nation that celebrates the festival by harvesting the harvesting that's dependent on the field what do we do on the Festival of the the Isel the nation of Israel offers up MIM they make the sacrifice of 70 cows K shos parallel to the 70 Nations now the donkeys conveying to him IM if that's the case you know what you're going to do obviously they didn't stay in the field and they went back he was telling him what are you doing that that if you get rid of the Jews you're getting rid of the 7D offerings that are for the rest of the world's benefit why are you doing this you want to rip apart and destroy the Jewish people it ain't going to it's not it's not to our benefit it's not to anybody's benefit because the Jewish people are the ones that are ministering in the temple and they're offering up these offerings for the whole world and by getting rid of them you're hurting the whole world this is how the donkey is speaking and then then afterwards the donkey related right in the conversation through the through the movements they went into the foot path of the vineyard being by taking him there well that's where B wanted to go and the the Dunkey doesn't want to go he doesn't want to destroy the Jewish people but what does the vineyard represent the vineyard hints to the Festival of Passover what is that that's that's the time the Jewish people left Egypt Shar it says we actually read this verse yesterday it says GE this is in Psalms 80 verse 9 you caused a grapevine to Journey out of Egypt that means the Jewish people are compared to a grapevine and you're going to expel the Nations and plant it to embed to en root this G that you just talk about God this is dou the speaking you took the Jewish people out of Egypt and you planted them into Israel ER Canan but it says you expelled the Nations you expel the Nations and then you take and put the Jewish people there so there's an order how can you put the Jewish people until you get rid of the other nations certainly the logic would be to uproot The Roots the weeds and only then plant the Gein you're upsetting the whole balance the donkey is saying you want to up you're going through the vineyard you want to up it's a sign you want to uproot the Jewish people from right from the land of Israel or even arriving there you'll already want to uproot the um Vineyard before you get rid of the um before you get rid of the weeds there's an order to things doesn't go like that the way the Gein Works anyway way is you you trample your feet on it that's what you use your your the palms of your I mean I don't know today I think they do they might do things differently in First World countries but we all imagine the old days the way it used to be you would put on some good music and have a dance you know you want to trample the grapes but what happens with the wine what happens really the wine in the end causes to drop the person through the weakness it weakens him when he drinks it like it says in the Yak in the name of the med and it's also brought by um it's also brought there many examples of Israel how we are compared to the Gin with the Great The Vines the the concept of wine but in the meantime he uses the word GE that the Jewish people are compared to the Great Vine and all of those examples and analogies of Israel being compared to aen to the great they all relate in a way to go up against the mind the Das what was on Bam's mind and we already mentioned that they hint to the holiday of Passover and how is that what do we do on Passover besides and stay up very late and have fun with the kids we drink four cups of wine okay it's it's parallel it's parallel to the cup of salvation of Israel that is compared to the great [Applause] line and then it's written right we know that there are four languages of of salvation of redemption right God says in Exodus 6 verse 6 and 7 that's Exodus 6 I take verse 6 and seven go Ah that's the fourth one by the way that's the fourth one it's okay therefore say to the children of Israel I am AEM and I shall take you out in in Hebrew h h I will remove you okay from in English it does it I will take you out from under the burdens of Egypt the next one is I shall rescue you I'll rescue you from what from the aod from the hard service and then I'll redeem you and then the last one is I would translate as take but he translated I will um yeah I shall take you so that's a physical taking that God's taking the first one was removing but it's the same concept there are four different Hebrew languages used and they're parallel to the four cups of Salvation that we um that we play out and mention on Passover yeah so I I shall take you out I shall rescue you I shall redeem you and the last one is I will take you I will take you take you out the first one was that's in English I I mentioned in English Okay so in Hebrew it's hosi hosi is to remove okay like Po right to read and that is out from under the burdens of of Egypt he's actually removing us from under the burdens of Egypt but the last one where it says I will take you and to me to be a people that means there's a special relationship there's a taking and in Hebrew you you can see the difference in English they both translated As I Shall take you well the first one is I shall take you out from under the burden and this one is I shall take you to me as a people and I shall be a God to you so that's the fourth Act of redemption or four uh phrase um language okay so that's why we drink the four look it's represents it's it's rinic that we drink the four cups okay um there's many reasons this is just one of the main reasons that they they um represent or they're parallel to the four languages of redemption that God used now that's on one side there's four languages of redemption now parallel to this God causes to drink the Nations for cups of poison okay so the Jews receive the cup of Salvation and the the non-jews receive uh God causes them to drink four cups of poison like it's brought in the medis Raba in braus Raba you can look it up it's an 885 it I can just read three verses to talk about it that's Jeremiah uh 25 chapter 25 Jeremiah 51 and Psalms 11 Jeremiah 25 these are the chapters Jeremiah 25 Jeremiah 51 and Psalms 11 the this is back to the communication that the donkey is trying to get across to B why is it why do you want to disrupt everything why do you want to uproot this concept the Jewish people and to switch this process the Jews are going to bring Redemption and unfortunately the go themselves bring the poison upon themselves it's not the god ER is punishing them it's they're punishing themselves and and why do you want to switch this the Jews bring Redemption and light to the world H through the four cups of redemption of wine and you right you want uppr the Jewish people and you're switching everything around what are you doing don't do this so that's the this donkey was communicating through these symbols butar and then what is said it says that it stood in a narrow Place actually the angel of hasem continued to pass ahead and stood in the narrow place of course that's where they ended up where there was no room to turn right or left so Bill and one the donkey is sitting there as well so they were there was no place to turn left or right so this is to shab so we talked about that there were the dkey says why you hitting me these three times right that this is what he wanted to uproot the Jewish people in these three ways this is the Jewish people's um Blood and Guts and DNA to celebrate these three festivals and he wanted to uproot them so the the no turn left or right is parallel to Shu why is that sh it was on sh this is what they right that the Revelation this is where they received the Torah it says in Mish that's um Proverbs 3: [Music] 16 that it's talking about the Torah the length of days is at its right and its left is wealth and honor so you can't go left right just that's it that's all you got right there if God forbid Israel would not have received the Torah as it says inor shabas on page 88 it's Al it says that if the Jewish people did not receive the Torah meaning they didn't accept the Torah that God was giving to them then the whole world world would have reverted back to the first day of Genesis where it was before when it was to void and chaos chaos and void the verse the the Proverbs uh 3 chapter 3: 16 now if the world would go back to nothingness then all the world again you're destroying all the other nations too how is it this donkey is saying you want to destroy this people they celebrate this Festival which is if you ahe so it would be like a chain reaction that's what we've been saying all along yeah and that what exactly you said then there would be no need for all the other nations and everything that exists whether in the um heavens or in the earth whether it's in the Lala the Mala which is you know the upper spheres or in the lower sphere sh right now let's just focus on the communication through its movements what the donkey wanted to convey to billum that you're barking up the wrong tree you're going about it all wrong I mean you shouldn't want to destroy the Jewish people I'm just an animal you're a man you're you're want to curse the Jewish people you want to destroy the Jewish people and I I serve God I mean I'm I'm I don't have free will I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do I'm singing to God and what you're doing is wrong and that was the communication and through the words that are so detailed so beautiful there's a whole message here of what the donkey which doesn't even have free will conveying to this evil person [Music] it's very possible that also we talk about this path through the vineyard it hints to him what you wanted to just remember we said that the vineyard related to Passover so he was saying you wanted to uproot you want to uproot this nation that celebrates this Passover holiday aroso that they're the ones that drink the four cups and the four cups he brings down is related to the AR there are four evil kingdoms that rule over Israel at different times during our history that being Babylon Persia Greece and Rome and we know that there may be four kingdoms but there's 70 Nations so the shall y if you look at the word y it's yudy n 10 10 and 50 10 10 and 50 equal it up 70 again it relates back to those 70 Nations sorry y relates to the number 70 which is parallel to the 70 Nations that if you get rid of this Jewish people you're going to cause also a getting rid of the whole SE the the rest of the world the rest of the Nations yeah you wanted to say you want to say something no no no no I I was just thinking it's amazing that bam at donkey was talking to him and he was he was listening and it didn't even occur to him wait a minute what am I doing talking to a donkey but the donkey was giving him things that he as a prophet couldn't even decipher so you're asking a great question or you're making a great point and I'm going to take this moment to tell you that even Bam's prophecy yes should have stunned him because om the Jewish people are a nation of prophets the Nations don't have prophecy God granted a few and why did he Grant a few and especially billum so that the Nations can't say well if we would have had somebody like Moses if we would have had a prophet cuz we're being punished for all our sins and all our mistakes and we didn't have any direction if we would have had a prophet we would have um done right by you then God says look I gave you a few and you still didn't do right by me um so this is like one level there's another level that as I mentioned that the non-jews don't have prophecy in general the Jewish people are called prophetic nature now how does it work the the kar says right we all know there's four levels of existence four levels of material existence you have inanimate objects stones and gravel and dirt right minerals then you have that's domain then you have the next level called life it's plant life Sam so the next level above is plant life then above that you have you have animal life and above that you have what we call M the ability to speak that's called humankind we speak the the ker says there's a fifth level of existence of creation and that's called n that's the Jewish people prophecy called what prophecy no NOA that's prophecy like like n right Nim are prophets n is prophecy prophecy okay so just like Bill who is on the level of M right he's just a human being he's just a he can only speak yet he reached one level up so to his donkey his donkey was a an animal and yet it reached M it also reached so not only should he have been whoa this dunke is talking he should have said where did I get this Prophecy from right the fact that he prophecy was also Supernatural so too we see that the donkey talking is certainly Supernatural oh yes okay it's very possible to explain this in a totally different way we say that this relates to as Rashi said these festivals but maybe we're saying regali means something else this hints to the idea that the donkey said to how is it you want to uproot this nation who strengthens the whole world through these three things the world stands on these three things meaning the three pillars of the the world stands on and that being Torah that's the Revelation a that being worship we call prayer or service and kind acts as you can find in per ethics of our fathers chapter one the second mishna because if you get rid of them you uproot these three pillars the whole world is going to be destroyed and it's going to be hinted at we're going to go through these three things Torah and Torah worship and kind acts through those um the movements of the donkey it says that he went into the field so these kind acts the is from the field what what does that mean Trum you have many Mitzvah many Commandments dealing with the gifts um and the tithing and the leaving the Fallen fruit and the corner of the field there's so many things that relate to kindness as we can see from The Book of Ruth Ruth is about accepting the kindness and converting becoming a Jew it was all about the field and the way boas treated her and the kindness that was bestowed upon her but in turn she right she was kind to boas so through the process of the work in the field that's the prime way that we can bestow kindness on others through the gifts through the tidings through the agricultural Mitzvah of leaving behind for the poor food now we talk about aod service services in the B of mikash that's where the real service took place and that's n that is compared to a Vineyard and how is it hinted at it's hinted at in the word it says in the foot Paths of the vineyard that's where the donkey went and Rashi explains if you look in Song of Songs song of song sh sherim chapter 2 verse 4 now you won't find many exact translations because it's quite um um poetic and complicated Hebrew and it says El which means he brought me into the house of wine and the archal translates it as he brought me into the Chamber of Torah Delights but the Bas ha the clear says that's the temple itself that is the the Tabernacle and regarding the Tabernacle so it says in there also in Song of Songs 7 verse 12 and 13 is really quite worthwhile looking at okay um actually let me just finish the first verse because he he only gives us the first part of the verse um he brought me into the house of wine which was the Chamber of tur Delights and clustered my encampments about him in love so the wine and the the clustering it's like the cluster of grapes there's a relationship going on there and that is talking about the avod in the temple and then if you go to Song of Songs 7 verse 12 and 13 so it goes like this he also speaks about the field and the vineyard here come my beloved let us go to the fields Where Your Children serve you in want let us Lodge with asa's children who are blessed with plenty yet still deny let us awake at dawn in The Vineyards of prayer and study let us see all these different types of students the students of writ that means the written Torah that have budded and the students of the oral Torah who have blossomed and it goes on and on and describes different types of Jews in their process of development in their learning okay so that's that verse then it says what about the place of the tight place where you have no way to turn left or right he says that is Rem La Torah this hints to the Torah itself you that's it you cannot add you cannot subtract you have you have parameters this is the law of God how can you even think to go to left or right the dark should knit by air according to the way they're explained and this is a he claims this is a very true uh hint to everything he has explained in the Tet thus far very okay any questions I'm going to go on but I wanted to stop at this point yeah no no very interesting deep stuff this like takes you like way up there right now we're going going to skip all the way to verse 28 okay hasem opened the mouth of the donkey and she said to billum what have I done to you that you struck me these three times n it seems this miracle was needed at that moment that the donkey opened its mouth and spoke it was a miracle in order to show that he was compared or similar to the Dunkey itself whose nature is not to talk as I mentioned already there were in the in the um the way the ker explains the four levels really there's a fifth level that's above nature called prophecy that man speaks animals don't speak yet the animal was raised to the level of speech that it's not its nature to speak so what was the reason for this it was for the sake and the honor of the Jewish people alone that Hashem opened the mouth and spoke through the donkey billum so to billum rock it was only at the moment that God opened B's mouth and allow Prophet to exist in billum for the sake of Israel shal so the nations of the world cannot say that if we would have had prophets we certainly would have repented and went along the St and narrow path but no they didn't they didn't listen okay now we're going to skip to verse 41 41 is the end of this chapter um 22 it's the last verse and it was in the morning balak took Bala bam and brought him to the heights of Bal and from there saw the edge of the people it was in the morning took it he took they went up to the heights of what did they see from there they saw the edges of the people now we're going to talk about this word the edges of the people it's because the edges of the people are more likely to receive damage so B took Bill he really wanted him to curse he wanted the damage to be done and where do you take him to a high place where you can see right there was maybe 9 million people there so you had a lot of people and the Jewish people it's very hard to curse them but if you can get a glimpse of the edges maybe there was hope right there were complainers in the desert if you look in uh Exodus 11 verse Al verse one Hashem was got very angry and he consumed the edge of the camp it says there was a consumption there was a destruction that could take place at the edge of the camp Exodus 11 verse1 Exodus now there's two ways to understand if billum wants to curse the people and he doesn't really stand the chance with the group of people but he thinks that there's a way of getting what we call B we didn't explain it yet the edge but it's the word we're going to take that word and we're going to try to understand what does it mean that he saw a v vulnerability in this place oh or in the first Edge this is the first explanation of what it means by The Edge a Kini kin is a officer a leader perhaps by the leaders he can grab a hold and damage the leaders oron or perhaps the later the latter part not the leaders but [Music] the who are they they're going to be the loathsome The Untouchables the [Music] inferior since the very fact that they are like loome they the lowly ones they're more fitting to actually curse but it's from the if you want to look at it from the aspect of the leadership who are considered very important so perhaps that there's an easy way to enter what we call an is not an easy concept to explain but it means a negative force a negative energy that's protruding out of the evil person and attaching itself to the righteous person so because they're so hush they're already in the spotlight they're already in the newspaper people already talking about them and leaders they don't have a good rap you know I mean our leaders and righteous people should but still they open themselves up by taking leadership positions to the possibility of damage through someone else's eye it could be through jealousy right any negative force that could come could be damaging and this was the way which which chose B that if he couldn't find a place to actually curse them at least at least perhaps right if you couldn't damage them through the through the curse at least he thought by bringing up to this high place where you can see the edges that you could damage them at least maybe even their leaders to the a har through this negative energy protruding out of the evil person