How Not to Be a Failure (Parsha Balak) - Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

well thank you so much hey everybody great to see all of your uh faces so you know this week's portion of valak I I can't overstate how much it knocks me on my bottom every year every year I feel like I'm taking a break from Torah and entering into uh you know Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings there's Wizards magicians uh you know uh angels with fire blessings and curses and then we you know after that we go back to see what's happening in you know among the Israelites but it's such a strange it's such a strange portion but what really knocks me over every year is feeling like is Hashem messing with billum especially I'm messing with him because he seems to always be such a good guy and each year I convince myself no this time I'm gonna really dislike him he's a bad guy but I start reading and I just can't help feeling for him he just seems like a good guy he says I want to do what Hashem wants he's prophesizing he's asking Hashem for permission Hashem tells him no he says no Hashem tell yes he says yes okay like you know what do you want from the guy and then Hashem says go and then suddenly the angel is telling him don't go I it feels like he's in an impossible situation an impossible trap and so each year I really struggle with this and you know what's interesting is that the stages are constantly comparing bilam and his prophetic talent to our greatest greatest prophets and forefathers the midrash Compares him to avram the midrash Compares him to Moshe the midrash Compares him to Moshe so the point that the midrash actually says that while there was no greater Prophet than Moses among the Jewish prophets among the Gentile prophets there was a prophet who achieved Moses's level of Prophecy and that was bilab I mean that has to make you guys take a like a gasp for a moment right meaning that it's as a when it comes to human potential to reach the Divine billum is as great as it gets and then you know nonetheless he ends up in next week's Parsha you know he ends up seemingly angering Hashem getting in trouble with an angel having a fight with his donkey he ends up getting killed leading the Israelites astrayed getting killed and we know him forever to be evil balam we know him forever to be this horrible name of a cursedness where did all of his potential get squandered like I want to try to put my finger on that moment because I know Jeremy you're going to talk today I think about you know uh you know how to win in the Game of Life how to achieve you know how to how to bring our potential to fruition but here you have the classical story of a prophet who seems to have so much spiritual potential to understand the Divine and he becomes an absolute loser failure this should be a guide like where is he going wrong and if you look at Moshe it's the exact opposite I mean who had worse chances among the Israelites of becoming great if not Moshe emotion was like left for dead in the Nile taken into the house of pharaoh to grow up with somebody who thinks he's a God only to run away to live with a new father you know his father-in-law who's a idolatrous uh priest is he the guy who would have put your money on to become the greatest Prophet to have the greatest spirituality so you know here it's like you by you know by the two of these uh characters being juxtaposed it's like Hashem is telling us pay attention you know and then our sages are saying pay attention because you can have amazing potential and totally fail and you can start with horrible potential and become the greatest spiritual leader of all times now where did villain go wrong like how can we make sure to not squander our potential so when I'm looking at it what's so interesting is that balam has an amazing ability to connect with hashem's Will and to hear Hashem speak to him in his life but then something goes obviously wrong the first thing that you can notice that goes wrong in billem's life I mean he seems to be a great guy he even has you know what I noticed this year he even has a Judean morning like Jeremy he gets up early in the morning to you know saddle his donkey he's getting up early he's trying his best he's trying to be a winner but where does he go wrong here's the thing it's true that he has this amazing spiritual life but look at the other parts of his life look at the other parts of his personality that come out the first thing that you see coming out in his personality is just how he treats his donkey Jeremy you pointed this out to me his first reaction when things don't go right is to like blame someone else be abusive and mean and hit his trusty donkey instead of asking himself wait a minute might I be doing something wrong immediately to externalize blame to be mean and cruel to others look at his you know his advice that he gives his advice that he gives balak later when he wants to tempt the Israelites is to tempt them with as Ari describes such ugly licentious horrible Behavior you know I was at uh one of our shepherdists is getting married next week and there was a bridal shower for her two nights ago and her grandmother was there she's this elderly Sage woman and I said Grandma do you have any marriage advice for all of the young women here and maybe for some of the not so young women here and she says yes never get upset with your spouse because they can't give you something they don't have if you're upset with them that they're not doing something consider the possibility that they just don't have it in them and they're not trying to hurt you like if they're too messy maybe they just don't know how to clean you know if they don't hug you enough maybe they just weren't hugged enough as a child like don't get mad try to see the good and so like you can see that involved like he can't do more than what he has inside and on the other hand you whatever you give others is a reflection of what you have inside so if if billum's go-to advice as Ari was saying was to have lack of modesty and licentiousness in the camp if that was his advice that means that that's what's on his mind he's a person that in his actions is not living up to The Godly ideal that he prophesizes his actions are horrible even though his mind is able to connect with the mind of Hashem with the vision of Hashem you know there's this horrible this horrible midrash where it says why did billum go on a donkey he's so rich he's getting all this money from the king of Moab why didn't he go in like an amazing Carriage with like 10 horses it said that he wanted to take his donkey for romantic purposes that's the level that this man was living on that he was having a romantic relationship with his donkey that's what the greatest prophet of all times was doing in his actions and so he has this one way of knowing hashem's will but then look how he behaves he behaves so differently than hashem's will but even still you know I'm still wasn't I still wasn't satisfied and I said but like there's something going on here in this story where Hashem tells him you can go and then Hashem gets mad at him for going and so I'm reading all of the sages on what is this what went wrong and so there's Ari's uh perspective appears in Rashi where it says that he you know he asked Hashem and ask Hashem and ask us I'm like a little kid at the supermarket and finally hashem's like fine but you know even when I give in to my kids at the supermarket and I buy them something well I don't punish them later that wouldn't be right to punish them if I bought them at candy at the supermarket because they were really annoying me like if I gave van I gave in so I should have said fine go why is Hashem mad at him for going it still doesn't make sense and finally I found an answer that really satisfied me in the ramban in the commodities and the commodity says look very carefully at the story of bilam he asked Hashem can I go Hashem says no he asked Hashem can I go curse them Hashem says no and each time he responds to the ministers to The Messengers of balak saying sorry you know I just I can't not do what Hashem says and then finally he sends these even better Messengers and he says let me go to sleep and see what Hashem says Hashem does not say okay fine go the ramban reads it so carefully he says okay fine go but you're gonna have to say what I tell you to say meaning they had two requests please come to the Israelite encampment and curse them now what his answer should have been the ramban says is he should have gotten up in the morning and said I can do part A I can go with you to the encampment of the Israelites but I can't promise to curse them I'm just gonna have to say whatever Hashem tells me to say now if he would have said that what do you think they would have said right on buddy let's pack up our donkeys no they would have said no let's check with bala because I don't know if he wants to just toss a coin on that one but instead he just is quiet and gives them the impression that he's agreed to go on their mission he doesn't speak the truth to them he just goes and in his actions is displaying to them the impression that he really is going to curse the Israelites and their month is that's why the angel gets mad he says you were not truthful in your mission that you're going on you're not you didn't lie but there are lies of omission you are not walking in truth and the imagery that we get is so powerful because it's an imagery for all of our life the imagery where where bilam is walking is that there's two walls on each side and an angel in front of us what is like that angel that angel is like the Judgment are you walking in truth because you can't turn left and you can't turn right you want to try to move to the left or move to the right you're a donkey you're a donkey that's the image that the Torah is giving us you want to be an upright human being you walk forward you face that Judgment of if you are living in truth and so what does that mean you can be the person with the greatest spiritual connection the most Torah knowledge the most ability the greatest ability to hear Hashem but if in your actions and your speech and your heart what you know in your heart to be true if they're not all one if they're not all United then you're never going to be able to realize that potential you know there was such a funny thing in Israel there's this lady who's all the time you know supporting all of the radical left and she pretends to be a big lover of peace and lover of humanity and oh you know protect the Palestinians it's so important she's running to be mayor of the city of Nest Ziona and she made this video on Facebook and she has a huge smile on her face and she's going vote for me everyone I'm gonna make the city great and then she didn't realize the camera was still running and her smile just goes disappears when she thinks the camera is off what did I do something wrong the her smile just disappears and she says hope you all die like after she thinks the camera is off and I'm like oh my God oh my God she's such a fake such a thing she's so bomb it was perfect for this portion because she showed how you can live in one type of image that you're trying to give the world but if in your heart you're not living in truth then it's going to fail so may we all walk in complete truth in our actions in our words and in our hearts