May my soul die the death of the upright, and my end be like his.[2]
In an unusual moment of candor, Bilaam reveals his true feelings and beliefs. One might think that they are drenched in hatred and falsehood, but they are anything but. Bilaam longs for enjoying the fate of Israel in Gan Eden. He prays for a way to turn around his life, so that he, too, could be among the upright when he died. This is readily understood. Bilaam was a man endowed with great talent and potential. As Chazal say, he could have been for the nations what Moshe was for the Bnei Yisrael. Whatever damage he did to himself through his pursuit of honor, wealth, and other lusts, he could still recognize the truth when he saw it.
Less understandable is what happened to his epiphany. The Bilaam who understood the connection that the Bnei Yisrael had with their Creator, as well as appreciated their moral worth, could turn around and hatch the plan to have Moabite women entrap them, and cause their ruination. How is it possible to do so quick an about-face? How did he fail to hold on to his insight and enlightenment for even a short while?
I believe that the explanation is an important mussar principle: the need for, and power of, imaginative illustration. Some truths simply do not take hold if we don’t accompany them with illustrations in our minds that are dramatic, and that we return to frequently.
When R. Eliezer told his students to repent the day before they died,[3] they asked him how they were to know when that event was so close. He responded, “All the more so! Repent today, lest you die tomorrow. This way, repentance will be with you all the days of your life!” Now, the students he addressed were among the greatest of the Tannaim. They fully comprehended the value of death, the specter of which reminds us of our mortality and prods us to accomplish. They did not need R. Eliezer for that. Rather, he told them of the need to make that reality vivid and fresh, by working hard and often to dwell on its imagery. “Lest you die tomorrow,” in all its starkness, had to be with them at all times. They had to imagine their deaths each and every day.
Consider this. We generally have no hard time in dealing with threats – even distant threats – to our property or to our bodies. We don’t need to summon up to our minds ghastly scenes of our houses engulfed in flames in order to purchase fire insurance. Yet we do not deal effectively with spiritual dangers unless we work hard at focusing our imaginations on them. Without that focus, no spiritual insight becomes properly internalized.
In my mind, this observation is strong evidence of the Torah’s truth. People find it easy to conjure up all kinds of monetary schemes on the flimsiest bases. Yet, facing up to the certainty – and potential immediacy – or their demise is something that they will evade unless they put effort into preserving it. How do they avoid taking into account something that they rationally understand? What gives them this ability to deny something that should be so important in the conduct of their spiritual lives? The only explanation that I can accept is that Hashem created this ability in order to make more room for our freedom of choice. Without such freedom, there would be no room for rewarding us for our decisions. Hashem engineered this blind spot so that we would not be faced with an overwhelming argument for gobbling up mitzvos while we still have time. Internalizing that argument would greatly decrease our ability to ever transgress. Our free choice would shrivel and shrink.
The tendency to ignore or even deny obvious truths, then, is part of our psychic makeup. Fortunately, we have the tools to deal with it. All we need is the drive to use them.
- Based on Daas Torah by Rav Yeruchem Levovitz zt”l, Bamidbar, pgs. 205-206 ↑
- Bamidbar 23:10 ↑
- Shabbos 153a ↑