Rabbi Eldad Zamiris former Torah Mitzion shaliach in Cape Town (1997-1998). Currently a senior conversion instructor in the “Nativ” course.
I am sure you have all heard of the big money making industry called Shrek. Shrek is a beautiful movie (2001, it describes the life of an ogre). I say it’s a beautiful movie because finally out of Hollywood came a movie that represents a nice message and is almost educational.
The most important educational part of the movie is the fact that the heroes and main characters are actually quite ugly looking. No more anorexic women or girls! No more guys with lots of make-up that we have to strive to imitate but rather, although cartoon, more realistic images and messages.
One of the main characters in the movie is a donkey (his voice is played by Eddie Murphy) - a talking donkey. A donkey that can talk is not an original invention for the Shrek movie; we are actually going to read about it in the portion of the week. More than 3000 years ago G-d created a donkey that could speak the human language (the Rabbis tell us that this invention was one of the 10 special miracles that were created before the world was even created, so that is another few thousand years ago).
In this week’s Parasha, Parashat Balak, we read of the first attempt to curse and condemn the Jewish nation. A very charismatic speaker was invited to this special urgent gathering.
As we know all too well, it is not a new thing then for the non-Jews to call a meeting to condemn the Israelites. But let’s get back to the Bible as the story then is much more interesting than today’s nonsense.
The Jewish people have left and defeated the great Empire of Egypt, which made an impression on the whole ancient world. No one could stand in the way of the new rising star nation now heading towards Canaan. Great nations, giants and whoever was trying to fight against the Israelites were defeated.
The Israelites are now standing at the border of Moab. The Moabites do not know of G-d’s command to the Jews not to fight against them but walk around them instead, as they are distant relatives of ours. The Moabites were very scared and they realized that with the sword they will never be able to defeat the Jews and so they came up with an original plan, a non-conventional weapon.
The King of Moab, Balak, sent messengers to a special man, Bilam, the magician and prophet from a neighbouring state and asked him to come and curse this scary nation.
Bilam was indeed a prophet but a very greedy one, and so upon asking G-d he told Balak’s messengers that he is not allowed to go and curse the Israelites as they are simply a blessed nation.
Balak, the King of Moab, read between the lines and believed that he had an offer that would maybe change Bilam’s mind and so he sent a delegation of important people who promised Bilam, the prophet, lots of honour and money if he would only come.
After begging and driving G-d crazy, Hashem eventually tells Bilam that he can go with those people but he must only say and do as he is told.
That’s very strange, what has happened to G-d, has he changed His mind, why all of a sudden is Bilam allowed to go to Moab?
Bilam got up early in the morning eager to get his honour and off he went, riding his faithful old donkey. The Torah then tells us that G-d got upset with Bilam for deciding to go which makes our question even greater. At first G-d denied permission, He then allowed it and now when Bilam is already on his way, Hashem gets upset again! What’s happening?
In His anger, G-d sends an angel to stand on the path with a sword in his hand, Bilam does not see the angel but his donkey does and so by trying to avoid a head on collision with the sword, the donkey squashed Bilam’s leg against the wall until eventually ,out of fear of this angel, the donkey just sat on the ground and refused to go any further.
During this saga, Bilam, out of anger and frustration, was striking the donkey time after time.
At that point the miracle that was later revealed in the Shrek movie happened “and the donkey opened its mouth to ask, ‘What have I done to you that you are hitting me so much?’”
Following a short conversation between Bilam and his donkey, the angel revealed himself and told Bilam that he was the reason that the donkey stopped. Bilam’s response is somewhat surprising: “…and Bilam said to the Angel of G-d: ‘I have sinned… and if it is bad in your eyes I shall return back home’.”
How strange! Is this the first time Bilam realizes that Hashem is not in favour of this whole journey to Moab?
All these questions have brought the commentators to deduce a very important message for life: “from here you learn that a person will be led to walk in the very path that he chooses to walk in” (Midrash Bamidbar Raba 20,12).
We now understand why Hashem changed His mind and allowed Bilam to go. It is simply because G-d does not interfere and intervene in man’s actions. That’s the very basic law of freedom of choice that leaves it in our hands to decide whether we will walk the good or the bad path.
In addition, I’d like to share with you another beautiful idea read in the book, ‘Parasha Ufishra.’ We learn that one can/may act against the truth, not only by mistake but also by being fully aware of what he is doing. Bilam knew very well that G-d would not allow him to curse the Jewish nation. But the same man that was on a high enough level to be a prophet still believed he would find a way to trick G-d. We are witnessing an extreme example of a man running away from himself, from his truth.
We must be very careful to double check whether we are on the right path or not, the signs for it are not always so clear, we must be very careful not to cheat ourselves and to follow the values and the laws that we know are right.
And on top of all of that I want to end off by saying: “Enjoy Shrek and its sequels!”
SHABBAT SHALOM!
For comments: eczamir@yahoo.com