Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Mercenary Bilaam

hi everybody again it's a we have air conditioning I hope you'll be relatively comfortable so uh just just to point out an obvious thing uh the Tyra last week skipped over 38 and2 years if you recall right after the paruma uh the next thing we hear about is it's the 40th year in the desert so uh if you were to Simply make a list of what events does the Torah say happened during the 38 and A2 years since the Morin well the one thing that happened was the generation of men died out but there is literally nothing that is recorded at all the Torah passes over it Karan like the blink of an I and we're immediately in the 40th Year and that last year is quite an eventful year many many things happen we have the sin of Moshe hitting the rack instead of speaking to the Rack or whatever the AA is there are many interpretations and it was decreed that Moshe and Aon will not enter Eric Israel so Miriam dies and then Aon dies and then Moshe dies that's a little later obviously uh and then we have uh the various negotiations as the Jewish people are trying to reach ER Israel and they have to go through different lands and they ask for permission for safe passage and that is denied to them and therefore there was a war with Etc so here already we read that the nation of Moab was ruled by a man whose name was bolock bolock Ben seore uh by the way there's let me let me just start with a little really humorous remark that actually makes no sense grammatically but it's a famous of there was a great called the the re of and his safer is known as ohave Israel because uh his main teaching was to always emphasize abas Israel so he made the point that every single par in the Torah has very important raim to abas isra so somebody asked him where in Paras balak is there a remes to you could have answered M how good are your T but he says well no he says the very name of the par is that's the love your friends and the is so the person said he doesn't understand what what does that mean with a right and is a a it's not a cook how can spell he says when you have you're not so picky you start going with spelling and the right letters that's already the Torah wanted to emphasize when you love your fellow Jew you're not focusing on little deviations or little it's a famous famous voice but okay but be as it night Bak the king of Moab is very frightened of the Jewish people entering his land and as a result he hires an expert sorcerer cursor a professional half cursed will travel billum Who apparently has a track record that whoever you curse is cursed whoever you bless is blessed and the like so first of all the mafor ask a very very simple K if you recall the nation of Moab itself is related to Abram Moab comes from l l is Abraham's nephew and if you you recall in the aftermath of the destruction of Sodom L was alone with his two daughters and when he got drunk they had incestuous relations with him and from the older daughter she named her child Moab which is mayab from my father and the younger daughter had uh a child that she named Ammon from my nation marginally more modest so to speak and these are the nations of Amon Moab that were conceived in incest and and the like now granted kazal say that Lo's daughters had aav Shay because they literally thought the world was destroyed they looked around that St and all they saw was Smoke and Ashes and they thought it was like a nuclear war like the last survivors of the world and therefore they felt they had to do what they did uh whatever the case may be but nevertheless I'm goingo we created from incest now because because however they come from Lo Hashem specifically commands Moshe you are not allowed to wage war against the nation of Ammon or Moab they're excluded from entering CLA Israel that's true in fact that'll be because of this story but we're not allowed to wage war against them we have to respect their territory it's not until M that we will take over the territory of am and Moab so the kha is if there's a Divine commandment not to wage war against Moab then what is bolock afraid of what is bolo's great P there is no possible way the Jewish people are going to take any of his land they're not allowed to so one answer would be was a we right right so so the simplest answer might be a bollock didn't know this was a command that was given to the Jewish people balock simply didn't know that that that is indeed a possibility on the other hand one might have thoughts that uh Moshe would be in moshe's best interest to inform him of this law instead of simply saying we'll be nice he should have said God commanded us so there's a very interesting from the sh mm again a great Master where he says that bolock was not afraid that the Jewish people would take his territory bolock was afraid that the Jewish people would reach Eric Israel what is the problem because there's a distinction between Hashem and we talked about this in other parts us as well there's a distinction between the way Hashem relates to am Isel in the midor and the way we are going to be connected to Hashem once we reach Eric Israel in the midbar we were essentially in a spiritual cocoon we were living a supernatural existence that was unrelated to the reality that the rest of humanity faces we get our M that falls down from heaven we are surrounded by Clouds Of Glory we have this traveling well of water that's in in the Merit of Miriam and even after Miriam died Moshe got it again albeit by hitting the rock instead of speaking to the Rock So as a result the midor is a spiritual cocoon that is simply disembodied from the everyday struggles that human beings face once we come to arel life is going to be very very different God's presence is going to be greatly concealed there will in other words instead of having uh uh a traveling well we're going to have to look for water dig Wells instead of M we're going to have to plant Fields we're going to have to build cities we're going to have to have an army that will be casualties now of course is much greater than generally but as compared to the doram midor erel is filled with Hester we spoke a few weeks ago this is precisely why some say the morum didn't want to enter erel they wanted to live the spiritualized life of the midbar for a longer period of time because they thought that was a necessary training ground for them to see the hasem once they come to Eric Israel other words the more God knocks you over the head with his miracles the more you will continue to believe in him even when you don't see these open and obvious Miracles now this is why the Torah warns over and over and over again that when you come to the land and you will achieve success do not be arrogant your heart will become high and mighty you will forget God and you will say the and you will say it is my strength and the might of my hands again I I don't want to editorialize too much because because obviously we're not in thean but but some have pointed out that this was the downside of the aftermath of the sixth day war on one hand the sixth day war was really a miraculous type of event a victory over overwhelming odds and a victory with relatively few casualties and an amazingly short amount of time uh allowing us to be we just celebrated the 50th anniversary of Y the the harabas tremendous symol on one hand the sixth day war is actually the start of what is called the Bal chuba movement there were so many people who were inspired to turn to Hashem because of the Miracles that they saw in The Six Day War but the downside was that some people had a different reaction for some people it just confirmed we have the greatest which we do we do we have the greatest army in the world nobody can stop us there was the attitude indeed of kii how great you know Israel is and uh again it's not for us to know for sure but some have said that the um Kipper war in 73 was a corrective to show us that indeed we are not as Invincible we are not as inv vulnerable as we like to think we are and again there was a great great sobering within Israeli Society it also had a negative effect on kba as well on the other side of the coin yeah yeah I mean you know because once again I mean you know if you get into a mindset that you turn to God only because he keeps on doing miracles for you so at some point uh you know that's called P calls that when love is dependent on a specific thing the thing goes away the love goes away Ian that that what happened a little bit as as well but I know or all of these institutions are really the the aftermath of the Six Day War that was the great um arousal of chuba within Israel and really World jewelry uh because they really saw the hand of Hashem in such an open way so but Vis the midor the is open and revealed in it'll be a now here is the difference between a supernatural life and ordinary life Hashem has a mission and an expectation even for non-jews yes they don't have to become Jewish and yes the 613 Mitzvah of the Torah are only for Jews but Hashem wants non-jews to also believe in Him worship Him obey the no Lords and Nations like Moab were fundamentally immoral and violent and cruel and did not have you know any type of Ethics so here is bok's thinking Bullock's thinking is as long as the Jewish people are living in the desert the fact that they're living a life of submission to God is not a rebuke to us because of course they can serve God they serve God because they have uh Clouds Of Glory they have mun they have uh traveling well they they don't have the problems of real life they don't face the politics of reality so yeah they could be sadikin they could be righteous they could be pure in other words their life is irrelevant to the lives of real people let them be in their cocoon and we will live life the way we need to live life because we are real people with real problems but once the Jewish Nation comes to ER Israel and at least initially under yahushua they establish a society in which you need lawyers and doctors and accountants and and Mish and people who plant and plow and you still show that even within thei even within even within physicality even within materialism you live a life of morality and submission to God that becomes a reproach to everything that balock and similar nations were teaching and living and therefore balock said let the Jews live their rarified spiritualized ethereal existence in the desert I don't want them to bring religion into everyday life because this way we keep God irrel relance we keep morality disconnected from what is really going on in the world and this is what the Sham mm says and that is why he didn't really ask Bullock to empower him to defeat the Jewish people because Waging War was not the issue because Bullock knew that the Jewish people wouldn't be attacking him anyway rather he wanted to stey them commenting AR know it's a little reminiscent of a famous quote by the H I'm not sure if it's in the book The Jewish state but it's a quote that he was asked at one point about what would the role of religion be in the state that he envisioned so the famous quote was uh we will keep the rabbis to the synagogue just as we will keep the soldiers in their Barracks for good or for bad uh neither part of that uh predictive statement turned out to be true unfortunately our are uh too often not limited to the Barrack they have to go out and fight and whether you're for or against the rabbis have not been limited to the synagogue either again maybe that's a bad thing maybe it's a good thing whatever it would be uh but that was what bollock bollock said let the Jews be confined to the Cocoon of the midor and not enter the real community of Nations this is uh the shame mm's understanding of what was trying to do so now we come to the fascinating personality of billum billum very very interesting person in many many ways and different statements in kazal kind of portray billum in different ways I just want to review three different perspectives of how our sages looked at bilum based on descriptions of the Torah on one level bilum is described as a prophet par Excellence who quite literally was considered to be equal to m in some ways have an amazing statement that the umos would have come to God and they would have said to God hey if only you would have given us a prophet as great as Moshe Raben we too would have been righteous so God gave them a prophet as great as mosha raen and that prophet's name was Billow of course one might ask Nasha wait a second you gave us B meaning I mean if their argument is you have to give us a prophet as great as mosha Reno even if phum technically was as great in Prophecy he certainly was not as great in righteousness so you might argue that Hashem really didn't address their concern at all but here is what I would suggest I would suggest that Moshe did not start off as AIC meaning to say Moshe and billum were equally gifted with the same abilities but the issue becomes what do you do with your abilities Moshe took his abilities and he became what he became and billum took his abilities so it's not a complaint to God the fact that billum didn't turn out that's free will you see so in a sense Hashem gave am Isel and hasem gave the same personality and one became one way one became the other way doesn't know well of course you know that that's a a reiteration of of of the you not the famous conflict between Free Will and and God's uh omnicient knowledge of the future you always have that issue but at least in Serv of this God runs the world I don't want to call it the pretense of free will but God has a where lets things play L out uh based on a principle of of of Free Will so seen in this way billum was a man of extraordinary Insight in fact we see it in the para itself uh many of when Bam's curses are converted into blessings so much of Bam's blessings are references to mashia there are many many raim to the final says I see him but not right nowu i gaze at him but he's not near a star has risen from Jacob let me remind you that RAB AA 1500 years later RAB yaka named Shimon Ben Kiva Bara the son of a star because RAB AA believed bar was mashia and he was a fulfillment of D's again that's a whole interesting discussion was RAB AA wrong the great RAB AA made this was not just a little mistake this was a mistake if if it was a mistake this was a mistake that cost hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives you know the Baro Revolt was much more catastrophic at least numerically than even the of theik uh 60 years earlier so rea's assessment that bar mashia meant his enormous Prestige to the Revolt had an absolutely devastating catastrophe for arm Israel but as I say it's a complicated question because uh many would say Raba was not wrong Barba was not a false mashia Barba was a fails mashia meaning to say that in order in every generation there is someone that is mashiach because if you believe Mia can come every single day there has to be somebody in this world that is the potential candidate that's why with Kad when when when the U the B Reby was alive there was no particular reason not to think he could have been mashia I mean listen somebody has to do it and he was you know he was as good a candidate as anybody you could think of really once he's dead that's a totally different that's a totally different different issue and uh a person could be the designated mashia of the door but if the door is not worthy it's not going to happen so we don't really know I mean I I can't say firsthand we don't know if REO was mistaken or simply Maru was the mashia of the door but the generation was not worthy at the time but I'm just bringing this as an aside to show that bam had this these tremendous PR prophecies about the future about the GBA about the Kates k Yamin the end of days and the like so that's one perspective of billum billum was a man of immense prophecy equal in perception and kak to mosu on some ways in fact uh the way the maam described it Moser Renu was able to perceive Divinity through aspaklaria ham a clear lens still a lens because you're Human After All all the N saw hasem through a dark you know perceived Divinity through a dark and clouded lens and mosha raenu saw with Clarity and bilum had that same characteristic ofia that's perspective number one perspective number two is Bam was a cold-hearted mercenary who sold his services to the highest bidder F curse will travel uh and in fact it could very well have been he didn't he didn't hate the Jews in particular if Mosher Rea would have come up with the requisite matching funds he would have gone to him the proverbial Hired Hands know I come from the uh legal profession in which this is a recurring phenomenon know the lawyer will represent anybody that hires not not every lawyer will do so but but many many will they consider even a professional obligation in fact some have said that's marum even in his name Bill could be read as a contraction for b a person who has no loyalties no Nation he really is not related to anybody and therefore he will go to whomever pays the price right so that is the Cool C professional I like you have these professional assassins these you know people you know they just you know you pay them and they'll do the job and no problem right so that's a second perspective but there's a third perspective which is almost the opposite of a cool Collective professional Hired Hand that he was really a train wreck not under control that he was seized by powerful negative emotions of jealousy and lust and they gave him no peace it's a kind of a different persona it's not the Persona of the Cal professional who never gets rled it's the person and again similar to the Greek tragedy the person of immense ability who is victimized internally by his own flaws now where do we see this peros contrasts the T the Disciples of ab with the people who follow Bam's D and it says the meaning every Jew should try to be a disciple of Abraham but those who follow the path of abraam have three characteristics I TOA they have a good eye a good eye means you look at people with a generous Spirit you want help them you're happy when they have good fortune you feel sadness when they're suffering right you look at people with a good generous Spirit that's one quality the second quality is NE a lowly Soul now this does not refer to humility that'll be the third thing but a nees means you're not overly involved in seeking pleasure meaning you're relatively moderate you're not a hedonist that lives for gra self-gratification and pleasure and the third quality is is your relatively simple in your wants is your humble and modest you don't have arrogance those are the three midot of the of the tum of D are exactly the opposite they are consumed and controlled by har now we use the word har terms of evil eye but but in the context here this is not a mystical notion this is a characterological flaw I in har is essentially the notion that I begrudge The Good Fortune of other people I look at life as a zero SU game whatever he has is being taken away from me somehow and instead of it's you want more and more and more and more and instead of it's arrogance now K described these three mos in a different way elsewhere they correspond to Kina jealousy which is I in har you begrudge The Good Fortune of others TAA lust which is Nees and ego gratification which is in other words use different words to describe it but we have the famous statements they take a person out of the world and as the Alor ofka used to say it doesn't only mean that they don't get but it means their life in this world is very very miserable a person who is consumed with jealousy never enjoys the blessings that Hashem has given him in life because I'm always looking at somebody else and something else and TAA means I want more and more and more and more and cover cover there'll never be enough cover right person always wants more and more and more honor soal tell us that billum was a man that was consumed by these impulses and again I go back to using the analogy I mentioned by K some of a similar thought that this really is the Greek idea of tragedy and it is tragic you know if a person is a misc the person is an unfortunate person and difficult things happen that is sad that is something sad and that's something for which we feel compassion but it's not tragic in the Greek sense because because the person did not necessarily have qualities of greatness but tragedy is when a person is truly extraordinary but they are destroyed not because of something external to themselves but they are destroyed because of a flaw that is within so we have these three different portraits of villum we have the gifted great prophet we have the cool calm collected competent professional and then we have the man out of control who was destroyed from within by the flaws of his personality which were K or describe it and now what's even worse to add to the tragedy is billum didn't even have the Solace of obliviousness sometimes that person might be a real rotten person but you know they don't think they are so you might say at least they can go through life thinking they're wonderful billum was aware of it and that itself gave him no peace and that is why when he wanted to curse am Israel the worst curse he could think of is may you be like me where where do I see this so here there aaras thear braas says very interesting thing what was Bam's great talent right billum had the power of the curse from Once does that power come so the gamar Bro says there is one fraction of a second every day that God's anger is released upon the world just for a tiny little bit of time and if you can tap into that fraction of a second and issue a curse that curse is going to work because you're kind of igniting that anger the gamar said you can actually tell when it happens because for that fraction of a second the red comb of the rooster turns white like white with fright the rooster feels the impact of God's uh judgment in the world thear tells us rer had some enemies that were bothering him and making his life miserable so he tied a rooster to the leg of his bed and he stared at the rooster to be able to see when the comb of the rooster turned white and what happened was uh he fell asleep or he blinked at the wrong time you know just the blinking would already miss then he realized hasem doesn't want him to do that interesting thing they say about that was obviously that also hasem listened to in many many ways and people would come to the and they would ask him to curse you know different enemies of the Jewish people said kind of acknowledged he could have done it actually but but he said I do not use the power of curse I only turn to Hashem for br even evil people I will not directly Cur you don't go in that direction you go in the direction of BR that you know Israel should have now it's true I'm poor if we actually do say we say and then we add but nevertheless okay I don't know exactly how you reconcile everything but said he did not want to be with the negativity of the don't we curse anti-semites by writing on the grave of Jews who were murdered because were may hasem take vengeance for their blood yeah it's true it's true um it could be I don't know again it's not fully consistent it maybe it's different to say let Hashem take care of them again I think that goes back to something you wrote know there's the difference between a prayer and a curse interesting issue meaning I don't want to be the one who releases curses but I can turn to Hashem in prayer that may Hashem take care of the situation as he sees as he sees fit now toos ask canot so what was Bam's Talent billum knew exactly when that little fraction of a second was so he could do the job he tapped into it so tosos asks an obvious question this is only a fraction of a second what curse could bam have uttered that would have been completed within the fraction of the second so TOA gives two answers the first answer toos gives is as long as you start the curse within the right on so even if you continue it afterwards you latched on to that force and it's going to work by the way U inic literature you find you know one of the uh big objections against theic movement which to some degree still exists today is that they are not always careful to finish the shma Within These of kishma so one of the defenses was although this doesn't me this is not a defense for every situation is well as long as we began the before the we could finish it afterwards because they made a if for curses as long as you begin your Curse God lets it stand even afterwards so k for good things where God is more generous and kind okay so we don't accept that argument in anyway that doesn't answer the people who say shma who begin shma after okay uh but be it as it may that's to's answer number one but tosas gives an answer number two that there's a very short curse that he could have uttered under the buzzer and that short curse is a single word a two syllable word is finish him off he could have said that within the time of the the time of anger and fury this is what TOA says so there's a from the who says a very fascinating thing that khen can actually be know it doesn't mean destroy them that's what it means right like we say it's not only one right but he says it's also an abbreviation kot kot is kidneys La heart and me is Mo mind meaning the kidneys are said to be the seed of passion sexual passion in particular again that's how Kaz identified it the LA is emotion the mo is the mind the biggest curse Bam could say is May your intellectual and moral faculties be controlled and subordinated to your animal instincts and passions and that is what we mean by destruction a human being is destroyed when they take their intellect which includes their moral sense and they use it as a way to service and Advance the passions of Life the Hedonism the jealousy the Rivalry the power whatever the struggle you're going through and in a sense this is Bam's tragedy so the way the understands it the proposed curse that billum was going to offer is May you suffer like I suffer may you be like me may you take all of your talents and all of your abilities and you will be controlled like a a blade of grass shifting with the winds one day you're in this mood and that mood and may you be controlled by your emotions and your passions and your animal instincts now the opposite of KH just reverse the letters instead of you reverse the letters you get metal a king what is a king the Mind La the emotions the kidneys meaning a human being is not supposed to be a machine we're supposed to have passions emotions feelings obviously if a person were only his mind he would be like what Mr Spock on Star Trek I if anyone you probably remember that but okay whatever people who don't have any feelings that's not it but your feelings and emotions have to be governed by your mind in the sense of what is morally correct what makes sense even in a simple aspect of life sometimes you have to know how to defer gratification that you defers some immediate in fact they had a study I I just saw this the other day that um the this this was done like with 5-year-old kids and they they followed them throughout the year uh they put a candy on the table and said you can take one candy now but if you wait 10 minutes I'll give you two candies so some kids took one candy now and some kids waited two 10 minutes and they got two candies and then they they actually followed these kids like for 20 years or something and it turned out that the kids who were willing to wait 10 minutes were much more successful in life because they absorbed either by instinct or by education even at that early age the concept of deferring immediate gratification for a superior long-term interest so listen you couldn't tell a 5-year-old you know a wait a day and I'll give you a bag of candy that would have been maybe too much for a 5-year-old but 10 minutes was a in deferring gratification that's what a Mel is a Mel says I'm not a creature of whatever mood or emotion seizes me at this given moment I am a rational person who thinks about how I am supposed to live my life how I make my decisions what is the right thing to do that's why it's interesting that you know we talk about right Free Will so what is Free Will I can choose to do whatever I want right that's free will in a deeper way Free Will is I can choose to do what I don't want to do choosing to do what I want to do is what an animal can do choosing when I don't want to do it because it's the right thing that is truly free will because then you're not a creature of the mood that seizes you any particular moment and that is why you find that when God changed Bam's curse into a blessing you find the word Mel over and over again Hashem took the that bam wanted to say and turned it into the word me this by the way uh is really theod ofab right what isab kabad stands for right wisdom understanding knowledge that means really emotional connection to God now why did the alter there's all men right I mean you had the BTO when you had the mag of mezich so the first two generations you didn't have separate re just it was just right generic but then starting from the third generation we begin to have specializations and breakaways andab is the third generation and the Al he started a unique that is called kabad so without uh you know I'm not here to to say kabad is superior you know I'm not here to say that at all but the alter Reb's point was that he saw in the emergence ofas a a tremendous emphasis on emotionalism and passion and feeling but the Alder rebbi thoughts that even when that is developed in Holiness it is potentially dangerous because when you are acting out of emotion and passion that is number one temporary and Trent and number two it can change into something else rather true emotion has to be a product of the intellectual and moral sense within a human being and then you open up reservoirs of joy and Deus but it's connected to the and D as opposed to the animal instincts right this is an issue that you know even Yesa struggle with um and that's why by the way uh kabad is in some ways the way it became is a different story I'm not addressing that but in many many ways uh kabad is almost the least ofas at least in it other words it's the closest to in which it was the cultivation of the intellect that brought a person close to God so for example we have let's say the are very very popular right people love the the singing and the dancing and that's it again it's I I like it too it's an important component in but you can also get a sense sometimes especially with Adolescent and teenagers you know they get into the Rhythm and it almost is something that possesses them they kind of get possessed and then it might be connected to alcohol and drinking and other things because you're simply opening up your emotions without a sense of the Restraint of the mind now again I'm not advocating cold uh intellectualism that also is very sterile in many ways but if the alter rebbi taught alter Reb Nat taught that your emotions have to be in sync with the higher faculties of man and that is the difference between aen where the mind is subordinated to and that's destru versus me where the mo isolet the M isolet it rules it controls the moral and the spiritual sense and the point therefore is that billum is aware of this more than anybody else because billum was a person of enormous gifts and enormous talents but he knows that he's wrapping inside and he knows it he was not even he was too smart to be oblivious of what he was he did not have the Solus of self-deception that's another element of tragedy and he's the biggest curse they can think of is may you be the same way that I have become right so that's kind of the uh tragedy so when you think about it once again billum in some ways is a tragic figure because billum represents once again tremendous potential that is destroyed from a character flaw that is within we see this a lot we see this of course uh in the world of politics all the time in Israel the US other countries we see it some sometimes unfortunately even in the rabbi world in which very great wonderful charismatic people are kind of convinced by their own Charisma that they can break through boundaries and borders to do things that are inappropriate and they fall and they fail very very difficult but all of this comes from the idea that you know you can have tremendous tremendous gifts but when you let your emotions and your passions run away with you then you know you're setting yourself up for a tragic tragic fall and the greater you are the harder you fall as the uh as the saying goes people who are not necessarily so great they're not going to fall so Dramatical when these things happen and that's what I say the inside of Greek tragedy is is actually a very helpful to understand many aspects in the Torah and the Torah itself but what's interesting is the following what's interesting is that uh you know billum in spite of everything in spite of everything billb came up with a plan B meaning three times he tried to curse the Jewish people three times and he tried all sorts of things changing of location bringing sacrifices and three times it didn't work every time he wanted to curse it came out of blessing so You' figure bill on would get the message but billum is a smart guy after all with through his deviousness and billum at the end of the par comes up with a plan B says no listen the cursing thing is not going to work today this is an off day but I'll tell you what I'll give you a plan to cause the Jewish people to sin with immorality and idolatry and if they do that God's going to punish them without my curse and that's the end of the para where bam now although it doesn't by the way it doesn't say B that's really Kaz supplying that words the Torah just mentions the Jewish people began to fornicate with the daughters of Moab that's all it says and then God brought a plague and people were dying left and right and then the head of the tribe of Shimon was with a uh with a Mite woman and Pinas came and we'll talk next week about P but P stopped the plague by standing up for God and killing those two people and the Maga stopped 24,000 people died but the Maga stopped after that point now the Torah itself does not credit bam with being the instigator so you have to try to remember what's in the Kish and what's not in the but kazal and Raji brings it clearly underscore that this was Bam's Plan B so there's a beautiful cabalistic explanation that Dr Galia brings I I don't think it's his own I don't remember he brings it from the source that why did billum think of this particular plan so he says the following I had mentioned that Bam's overall strategy in cursing was to tap into the fraction of a second that God has anger in the world now let's ask for a moment what's the purpose of that particular institution meaning why why does God have extreme anger for a fraction of the second what is the purpose of that soore says the purpose is that that brings into the world the fear of God meaning God doesn't want to punish with that anger because that anger is too intense but by kind of bringing it out for a fraction of the second that gives people that kind of gives people an instinct that they better not cross boundaries now what happened on the day that billum tried to curse the Jewish people three times and that blessing got converted I'm sorry cursed three times and that curse got converted to a blessing why didn't his normal technique work because Hashem cancelled his anger moment that day there was no no anger moment that day Hashem just canceled it ah so look how bam is so flexible in responding to change circumstances Divine anger creates era in the world today there's no Divine anger Argo there's no era today therefore people are prone to do sins that they normally would not have done and therefore his plan B is ah now is a good time to get them to sin because the natural inhibitions that might arise from that Split Second of anger are not present today because God called off that expression of divine Ang this is what says now let me just mention that in the book of dor you see that there are repercussions uh to all of these behaviors and this is why the Torah says that moabites and ammonites are not accepted in the congregation of God meaning even if they convert to Judaism at least if they're male they cannot enter the congregation of God and the Torah gives two reasons reason number one when we ask them for food and water they ref and and we offered to buy it even they refused to give us food and water and reason number two because they hired billum to curse us even though God turns the curse of B into a but their intention was to curse us them enter into the gah means they can convert but they can't marry that's exactly what it means uh they can become Jewish but they cannot marry they can marry who who can they so they can marry fellow moabit converts like like MIM yes like Zim now here is the thing I want to share with you you know a few weeks ago whatever is five weeks ago we had the holiday of shivu and we read the story of Ru now Russ you'll remember was a convert from the land of Moab so and she married boas and indeed Russ is the great grand mother of so the obvious question is wait a second the Torah says in that moabites even if they convert cannot enter the congregation of God so it's yua that the gamar has AA explaining this that the prohibition is only for male moabites female moabites ites are permitted and since Rus was a female moabit when she converted she could marry into Claus now listen to The Reason here why are females treated differently than males so the gamarra says at least one of you in the gamarra because if the reason the moabites are condemned is they refuse to bring out food and water for us that's only a condemnation against men because men could be expected to bring food and water to to men but you can't blame the moabit women for not bringing food and water to the Israelites that would have been a breach of modesty and SME therefore women are not at fault now here's the Str thing wait a second here we don't blame the women because the woman says it's not sne for me to give food and water to a man you can't expect me to do that I am modest and senua the Tor says that the daughters of Moab came to the Jewish people and enticed them in fornication so when it comes to offering food and water I'm too modest to do that their husband Brothers for right well know they different ways so here I I believe there's a I believe it's from Alexander Pope Alexander Pope uh once said about hypocrisy that people say hypocrisy is a very bad thing but he saw something positive in some forms of hypocrisy hypocrisy is the tribute that Vice pays to Virtue meaning to say I'm a bad guy but at least as a hypocrite I'm acknowledging what a standard should be which means the following obviously the motive of the moabit women in not giving food and water was not modesty modesty was the last thing in their agenda and in their minds but since intrinsically it is an act of modesty not to do this so God treats it as a good deed even if their intention was totally wrong was kind of a hypocritical gesture in the direction of modesty and that was at least a tacd acknowledgement of what the standards of sne are it reminds me a little bit you know when yakob is wrestling with the angel yakob is wrestling with the angel all night all night and then in the morning Yakov says to the angel give me aa so the angel says I got to go right now so so uh again there there are different explanations the morning does have to go but some some say you know when it comes to fighting yako this Angel has all the time in the world you know he's going to fight the when it comes to giving AA sorry got to go you know got to R so the same thing here when it comes to not giving food and water I'm SAS you know I don't I don't do any of that I don't talk to for to strange men when it comes to uh fornication that's a totally different a different story but uh this is u billum again a very complex multifaceted person and the truth of the matter is Al a Jew is not billum but I think that we can look at billum and we can see things within ourselves that we have to be cognizant of as well not to be a personality but to Endeavor to be a and as the US writes there was a great king who conquered many many cities and when he returns in Triumph to his native land the wise man can it was a big parade a wise man went out to greet him and the wise man said you have succeeded in conquering a small Kingdom but now you have the most difficult Kingdom to conquer and that is the kingdom within yourself and that is what pero says a gibor who is the true val Heroes is the person who was able to conquer the that's much more difficult than any other external Conquest uh I think R steinel mentioned once that he once heard from a man this is during the years where there was space exploration it's kind of dormant right now so space is called Kal right the outer space the Kal so he said people love to explore the people love to explore the external outer space because we're so afraid of looking into the P the inner emptiness with it so we like to look at things outside of us that's a much much easier Endeavor so we are approaching of course uh the three weeks 17th of Thomas uh where we think about uh the destruction of the BET mikdash and the gut that we're in and we understand that these three weeks in particular of s rights uh we prepare the ground for building the Temple by just like in a building site you have to clear away the garbage and the debris before you can make a building or a foundation so our job during the three weeks is to clear away the garbage and the debris within ourselves of Kina Tava and C preparing our own to make it a B mikash for Hashem and then when enough of us do that in a good enough way then indeed that third V mikash will come down M so have a good good week and a good good job