This dvar Torah is dedicated in honor of the 66th wedding anniversary of Dr. Menachem Mendel and Itka Shulamis Greenstein. At 66 years, the love is stronger than ever! May they have many more happy and healthy years together, b’ezras Hashem!
Now for some Food for Thought:
For Food for Thought in Spanish: Haga clic aquí para leer en español. Please share this with your Jewish Spanish speaking family, friends, and associates.
When speaking in terms of prophesy, one of the prerequisites for acquiring prophesy is to not be in a state of sadness or anger. For this reason, we find that Serach bas Asher played the harp when telling Yaakov that Yosef was still alive, to help bring back his prophesy that had been lost for many years. Dovid Hamelech also played the harp to prepare himself for prophecy. Music was a major force for many prophets to reach the level of prophecy, because music has a calming effect and makes people cheerful.
We see a poignant example of this in regard to the prophet Elisha. The pasuk says in Melachim Beis (3:15), “And now bring me a musician. It happened that as the musician played, the hand of Hashem came upon him.” The Radak gives two possibilities as to why Elisha needed a musician to bring back his ability of prophesy. “They say that from the day Eliyahu, his rebbe, disappeared, he had not the spirit of prophesy rest upon him because he was mourning, and the holy spirit (Ruach Hakodesh) only rests on a person through joy. There are those who say [he lost his prophesy] because of his anger, for he got angry at the king of Yisrael [Yehoram] which made him sad. Chaza”l say ‘Whoever gets angry, if he is a prophet, prophesy disappears from him, from where do we know this? From Elisha.’ And in order to bring back his happiness he got a musician to play for him.” (Click here for Hebrew text.)
Yet in the second parsha of this week’s double portion of Chukas and Balak, we find an astonishing thing in regard to Bilam, the non-Jewish representative that Hashem granted prophecy, for all the gentile nations. Bilam started out with the intention of cursing the Jewish People, but Hashem granted him prophesy and put words of blessing for the Jewish people into his mouth. The pesukim state that then “Bilam saw that it was good in Hashem’s eyes to bless Israel, so he did not go as every other time towards divination, but he set his face toward the wilderness. Bilam raised his eyes and saw Israel dwelling according to its tribes, and the spirit of G-D was upon him” (Bamidbar 24:1,2).
The Ramban explains that after 2 rounds of blessing the Jews, “Now Bilam adopted an entirely new approach to his attempt to draw prophesy to himself. Previously, he had hoped to divine the moment of G-D’s anger and utilize it to bring a curse upon Israel, but he finally realized that this was not to be. Having been told ‘there is no divination in Yaakov’ (Bamidbar 23:23), he realized that his sorcery had no chance of success, so ‘he set face towards the wilderness’ (24:1) to open himself to the prophesy G-D wished to impart: His blessing of Israel. For the first time in his life, G-D did not merely ‘happen’ upon him; for the sake of Israel, G-D appeared to Bilam in the fullness of His glory (as per 24:2) and Bilam experienced the height of true prophecy.”
But how did Bilam attain this true state of prophesy? He must have been frustrated, angry, and sad at the lack of success he was having in failing to do the job he was being paid quite a sum of money by Balak to do?
However, Rav Saadia Gaon points out in pasuk 2, “and since he raised his eyes and saw them camped in order of their tribes the prophesy of Hashem rested upon him.” (Click here for Hebrew text.)
Bilam was defeated, frustrated, and angered by his donkey, shaken up by an angel, before his potential curses turned to blessings; so how did he turn around and get a high-level prophesy from Hashem?
Not through music! He simply looked up at his enemy’s camp and was taken aback at the sight he saw. The order, the majestic glory, and the impressive, formidable formation of their camp. He was awed by what he saw, it excited him, and any negatively in his heart was erased. Bilam was so impressed by what he saw that he was inspired to act happily and reached a level of prophesy where he was able to truly bless the Jews a third time. Indeed, he included the famous words “מה טובו אהליך יעקב” “How goodly are your tents O’ Jacob etc.” Though by the end of the parsha he again soured, we see how not only music but even an impressive sight can lift one up out of one’s woes and struggles, uplifting a person to glee and happiness, to the point of being inspired to prophesy.