When G-d decided to create Adam, He announced this to various groups of angels. The angels responded, "but isn't it revealed before You that it is almost inevitable that he will fall?"
When Adam was created, he sinned and was expelled from G-d's Presence and the angels Aza and Azael said: "Our original claim has been justified. Behold, the Man that You made has sinned before You." What did the Holy One do? He cast them down from their level of holiness and bound them with metal chains in the mountains of darkness.
Balaam found out where these fallen angels were and learned the occult arts from them. Thus, although The Holy One does not allow His Presence to rest except in a place of holiness that is befitting, this low-life, who was only a black magician, actually beheld the supernal radiance of the Holy One, the holiness of the Master of the World!
On this Torah reading, the Ari comments that the strength
of Balaam, the evil sorcerer employed by King Balak, was in his ability to
curse. This power is rooted in the breath, which in Hebrew is "hevel".
"Hevel" is also the Hebrew name of Abel, the son of Adam, demonstrating
that Balaam was the wicked side of Abel reincarnated. The Ari also shows how he
worked as a team with Balak, who was the reincarnation of the wicked side of
Cain, Abel's brother.
The Shelah teaches that Balaam communicated with the forces of
impurity, forces considered by the nations as deities. When he spoke about being
privy to the Supernal Knowledge, the listener got the impression that Balaam
claimed to be privy to G-d's range of knowledge, whereas in fact he was privy
only to the "highest" of the forces of impurity that G-d has allowed to govern
part of nature. Balaam, technically speaking, spoke truthfully, since he had
access to a power that in its field was considered supreme. However, the
listener did not know that this power had no independent authority at all. It
was but an agent of G-d.
Every human emotion and characteristic, in its purest form, is
directed toward G-d. However, these emotions can fall to lower manifestations.
Thus, the love of G-d can become love of the flesh. According to the Baal Shem
Tov, it was not the illicit act of Kozbi and Zimri that Pinchas saw (in the end
of this Torah reading), but his own inner fall - an extraneous thought of
carnal love that entered his mind. This signified that the sefira of
malchut (where all thoughts are manifest) had fallen from its attachment to
G-d.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches that when a person sins, he
augments the power of evil in the world. This can happen in two ways: if for
selfish motivations, he augments the power of "neutral evil". He makes the world
a coarser, less G-d-oriented place, but does not increase the spirit of
antagonism against divinity in it. To redeem the power he invested in this form
of evil and re-root it in holiness, it is enough for the person to regret and
repent of having selfishly indulged in G-d's gifts.
When a person transgresses one of the Torah's explicit
prohibitions with the express intention to disobey G-d's divine commandments, he
augments the power of the three varieties of "pure evil". In this case, the
person increases the world's enmity toward divinity, increasing the world's
conscious and unconscious hostility to G-d's intents and purposes. To redeem the
power he diverted into this form of evil - the type embodied by Balaam in this
week's Torah reading, a person must motivate his return to G-d with ardent,
overpowering love.
G-d commanded the Jews not to war with the people of Moab, and Balak wrongly assumed that this was because they avoided war, as befitting Jacob's descendents. Therefore, Balak was not afraid - until he saw the Jews' miraculous victory.
The Sages wrote, "Evil people are controlled by their hearts". Although the function of leadership is to strengthen the people, when a demagogue is afraid, it becomes apparent and spreads to everyone he or she influences.
During the war with Sichon and Og, Moses was also afraid. He knew that Og had once come to Abraham's aid, and maybe in that merit, Og and his nation would be granted the upper hand. Nevertheless, Moses kept it to himself as other Jewish leaders throughout all generations. Even during times of danger, they work to strengthen the people, instilling them with confidence and faith.
As soon as the rabbi in Brazil told her why he was calling, she slammed the phone down.
Shabbat Shalom.
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