#748: Irrational Hatred
Anonymous source on Bamidbar/Numbers 22:6
וְעַתָּה֩ לְכָה־נָּ֨א אָֽרָה־לִּ֜י אֶת־הָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֗ה כִּֽי־עָצ֥וּם הוּא֙ מִמֶּ֔נִּי אוּלַ֤י אוּכַל֙ נַכֶּה־בּ֔וֹ וַאֲגָרְשֶׁ֖נּוּ מִן־הָאָ֑רֶץ כִּ֣י יָדַ֗עְתִּי אֵ֤ת אֲשֶׁר־תְּבָרֵךְ֙ מְבֹרָ֔ךְ וַאֲשֶׁ֥ר תָּאֹ֖ר יוּאָֽר׃
Come then, put a curse upon this people for me, since they are too numerous for me; perhaps I can thus defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that whomever you bless is blessed indeed, and whomever you curse is cursed.”
Gimme Some Torah #748
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Balak butters up Bilaam while trying to hire him as a spiritual hitman. The Moabite king says, “I know that whomever you bless is blessed indeed, and whomever you curse is cursed.”
If Balak knew that Bilaam had the power to bless, why did he ask Bilaam to curse Israel rather than bless Moab? Would it not have made more sense to strengthen and enrich Moab rather than attack Israel? An anonymous source offers an intriguing answer to this question:
The Sages of Israel ask: Since Balak knew that Bilaam had the power to bless anyone at will, why did he hire him to curse Israel? He could have hired Bilaam to bless the Moabites so that they would win their forthcoming wars against Israel!
The answer, according to the Sages, is that Balak’s hatred for Israel was so deep-seated that he turned to Bilaam not out of love for his country or out of concern for his country’s security and prosperity, but rather out of his loathing of Israel that he had nurtured in his heart for a long time. Therefore, Balak said to Bilaam, “Put a curse upon this people for me…” (See Parpera’ot LaTorah, Menahem Becker, ed. (Jerusalem: Omen Publishing, 1986), vol 4., p. 173.)
One would be hard pressed to find a teaching that is more relevant to the current war against Israel. Both the Iranian government and its proxies in Gaza suffer from the same problem: They hate the Jews more than they love themselves and their own people.
Hamas and their Gazan supporters could have turned their land into Dubai on the Mediterranean. But they preferred to attack Israel instead. They are fundamentally not interested in having an independent Arab state and living in peace next to Israel. They simply want Israel to be destroyed, even at the cost of their own land’s destruction.
The moment that the Palestinians decide they want to love themselves more than they hate Israel, the conflict will end permanently.
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I am the rabbi of Temple Beth El in Somerset, New Jersey, and the author of The JPS Jewish Heritage Torah Commentary.