Chukas Balak 5786

The world? >> So, this year parshat Balak and parshat Balak 2026 [clears throat] parshat Balak and Balak are together. So, we're going to concentrate on parshat Balak. We all know the famous story of Balaam. He's hired to try to go ahead and to curse Israel. Nothing else has worked, so the king of Moab comes ahead and goes to the secret weapon of Balaam for him to curse the the Jewish people. So, after the uh Balak uh Moab sends its uh um its messengers to uh to entice Balaam to come. The God comes to Balaam. Now, remember, Balaam is the greatest prophet of the non-Jewish people. And he he speaks to the God. He speaks to him, so he tells him, "No, you're not allowed to go with them." So, Balak Balaam gets up the next morning, says, "Sorry, God said I can't go." So, they come back to to Balak, king of Moab. They say, "Sorry, he said no." Balak says, "Sorry, I'm rubbing my neck. What am I going to do?" Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and up the ante. Rather than sending the assistant secretary of state, I'm going to send the secretary of state himself and try to go ahead and to entice Balaam to go ahead and to come to curse the Jews. They come back, say, "Listen, Balak says you can't, you can't refuse. And in effect, he says to Balak, "Name your price." I'll give you great honor. And whatever you ask for, just go ahead and agree to come. By Balaam, Balaam says, "I'm sorry, I have to check with the Rebono Shel Olam." Um and besides, and even if Balak will give me a house full of gold and silver, I can't come if God doesn't let me. Now, of course, uh Balaam is nobody's fool, and he happens to drop the line, "If you will give me a a house full of gold and silver, I can't do that if God doesn't let me." By the way, he gets in over there what his price is like. So, but if God says no, God says no. So, what happens? By So, it seems that God is changing his mind. Cuz when the first group of messengers came, the messenger said, "No, you can't go." Now, the messenger says to him, You if you if they're coming for you, okay, you're allowed to go. Just you have to say what I want, what I put in your mouth. The The is so Rashi over here says, "What What do these words mean? In likhvela kha ba anashim, if they're coming to call you." I mean, that's what was happening in the beginning. They're coming for you. So, what does this mean? In likhvela kha ba anashim, if they're coming to call you. So, Rashi goes ahead and explains, im ha kriyah shelkha, if this is about you, v'sover atah litol avel sakhar, and you're going to make money off of this, then kum lekha itam. The difference between the first time and the second time is, the first time there was no talk of money. Now that they're offering you whatever you want, im sover atah litol avel sakhar, okay, then the Ribono shel Olam says, then you're allowed to go. Eh, the Ribono shel Olam is worried about Bilam's parnasa? The first time they didn't mention money, oh no, you can't go. But now that you're going ahead, they're offering you money, and you can money off of this, then you can go. What on earth is the pshat in that? God is not certainly not interested in the financial well-being of Bilam. So, I once um heard or read in the name of Rav Shimon Shwab, zichrono livrakha, uh I think a beautiful understanding of what difference does it make whether you're getting paid or you're not getting paid. And Rav Shwab's thesis was that one of the most powerful forces [snorts] in the world is the force of lishmah. When you're doing things for the sake of the thing itself, with ulterior motives, without like that. When people are lishma, when they're committed to a cause or to a purpose, that's a very, very powerful force. And Rav Schwab, in fact, gave a historical example of that. You know, the communist movement started in the in the late 1800s and into the into the 1900s and into the 20th century. And at one time, there were more than a billion people who were adherents of the communist theory. But the the you know, the fathers of communism, Lenin, Marx, Trotsky, who, by the way, some of them were Jewish, when they started, they started communism lishma, for the right reason, for for for not not uh their own covet, they did it lishma, because they seriously, sincerely believed that communism was a better system than capitalism. Capitalism, you can have people that have the million-dollar yachts, and you can have people that are so poor that they have to beg. You can have people flying in private planes at $25,000 an hour, and you have people that have to take the Greyhound bus, cuz they can't afford anything else. They can't even afford the gas. And therefore, these progenitors, the fathers of the communist movement, said, "We are going to improve the world. We're going to make the world a better place to live. Where there's more equality. And and people are everybody is at the same level. That's a very noble thought. And that is why Rabbi Rabbi exists. Why it was so successful. Cuz they were doing things lishma. I'm not going to say the word l'shem shamayim, for the sake of heaven. But for the sake of something that seemed to seem to them to be the right thing to do. And that is a very very powerful force. Why communism eventually fell apart is because as time progressed the lishmaniks, the people that were in it for the right reasons had all died out. And now the people leaders of the communist parties were lining their own pockets. And the whole lishma that has to be egalitarianism and has to be equal, everybody the same. That's uh eventually fell by the wayside. And all these communist dictators uh while everybody was uh you know, eating potatoes they were eating caviar. And drinking vodka. And having Swiss bank Swiss bank accounts. And that's why Rabbi exists. It eventually collapsed on its own weight. Cuz the lishma was gone. Rabbi even writes that he remembered that in his city in Germany there was a a parade for communism. And there was one bocher there, one boy from the Jewish community that was in the head of the march and he was mamesh l'shma l'shem shamayim, this is the right thing. Of course, he had left Yiddishkeit. But that's the way it was in the beginning. When that fell to the wayside and it became just everybody out for themselves, the the movement collapsed. And that is how Rabbi Schwab explained the difference between the first time and the second time. When Balak is kind of hi- was is asking you to come to come and to curse the Jewish people because the of because of the mitzvah of eradicating the Jewish people. They hate the Jewish people so much that they'll go ahead and they use this secret weapon of Bil'am to go ahead and to destroy them. For what reason? Because they hate Jews. That was their l'shma. That was their singular uh reason for doing this. So, the Ribono shel Olam said, "Bil'am, no, you can't go. Because if you will curse them like that for the sake of of the of the purpose of getting rid of the Jews, that could be powerful. But once they went ahead and offered you money, im l'kvod bo'anu sham, or as Rashi says, v'sover ato l'tol s'char, then it's a job, it's for your own lying your own pockets, then geiger is not to hate. Because you will lose that that tremendous power of l'shma, of doing it for the right reasons, for the single reason of the cuz you think it's the right thing. And that's what had changed between the first time and the second time. Which is a reason and a lesson for all of us how important it is when you go ahead and you undertake something you should do it lishma. Not for your own koved, self-aggrandizement, not for any other ulterior motive, but do it lishma. Do it for the sake of the thing itself. That's a powerful force.