Partzuf Balaam’s Blessings and Prophecy

Balaam’s Blessings and Prophecy

Letter of HavayahBalaam’s WordsPart of SpeechyudHow can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I invoke God’s wrath against those whom God has not been angered? For from their beginning, I see them as sturdy as mountain peaks, and I behold them as sturdy as hills; they are a nation that dwells alone, they are not reckoned among all the other nations. Who can count the descendants of Jacob or can count the conceptions in Israel? May my soul die the death of the upright and let my end be like theirs!First blessingsheiI have taken a blessing [for them]; He has blessed them, and I cannot retract it. He sees no fault in Jacob nor any perversity in Israel; Havayah, their God, is with them and the King's herald is in them. God took them out of Egypt with the strength of His loftiness. There are no diviners in Jacob and no magi in Israel; it will be said to Jacob and Israel ‘What has God wrought?’Second blessingsvavHow good are your tents, Jacob; how good are your Sanctuaries, Israel. Like streams they extend, like gardens by the river, like tents that Havayah has pitched, like cedars that grow by the water. Water will flow from your wells; your seed will have abundant water....Third blessingsheia star will shoot forth from Jacob; a tribe/staff will arise from Israel....End of Days Prophecy

In parashat Balak, Balaam makes four speeches. The first three were attempts to curse the Israelites and the fourth was a prophecy. These four speeches correspond to the four letters of God’s essential Name, Havayah. Let us see how, in short.

When Moses recounts the events of this week’s parashah, he says, ...the Moabites hired Balaam, the son of Be’or, from Petor in Aram Naharayim against you, to curse you. But Havayah, your God, did not want to listen to Balaam, so Havayah your God transformed the curse into a blessing for you, because Havayah your God loves you.

Although Balaam tried to curse the Israelites three times, the verse mentions the transformation of the curse in the singular form. Indeed, we find that Rabbi Yochanan implies that only the third blessing was transformed from a curse into a blessing. What about the first two blessings? Reading the Torah carefully, we will notice that God placed a blessing in Balaam’s mouth, preventing him from even thinking about cursing. Thus, the first two blessings were not transformed from a curse and as such are set apart. This is one of the most important features of God’s Name Havayah: the first two letters (yud and hei) represent a concealed state, and the final two letters (vav and hei) represent a revealed state, following the verse, “the concealed are for Havayah our God, and the revealed are for us and for our children.” Balaam’s relationship with the Israelites seems to be one of love and hate. As he states at the end of his first blessings, “May my end be like theirs [the Israelites].” In fact, he is jealous of the closeness between the people and God and wishes that his lot was like theirs. However, falsely convinced that he can never join them, he fills his heart with their hatred. Still, in the first two blessings, his hatred is completely concealed and God does not need to transform it into love, because He simply forces Balaam to say words he does not mean. But in the third blessing, where Balaam’s feelings are transformed from hate to love, reveals the Divine capacity to transform the negative into positive, etc.

The first blessing, related to wisdom and sight begins with the image of Israel in solitude from the rest of the world. This is the nature of the sefirah of wisdom, which is always associated with holiness, which in turn is described as solitary: “holiness, is a thing to itself.” The conceptions, or seed of Israel, mentioned in this blessing are an allusion to the seed to which the letter yud is likened both because of its shape (and size, yud is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alephbet) and because of its origin in the father—the partzuf of Abba, which is another connotation for the yud in Havayah.

The second blessing corresponds to the sefirah of understanding (binah) about which the sages say, “from it, harsh judgments emerge.” Thus, one would expect God to judge the Israelites for their sins. However, the blessing prevents that, “He sees no fault in Jacob nor any perversity in Israel.” Even when punishment is due, God chooses to glance over our iniquities. At times understanding and knowledge appear together. Divine knowledge is falsely acquired by the nations through divination and magic. However, the second blessing states that the Israelites have no need for these false methods, as they know God directly, through either Ru’ach HaKodesh (knowledge) or through the study of Torah (understanding).

The third blessing begins with Balaam’s transformation from hatred to adoration, hinting to the fact that true transformation in a person normally only occurs in the faculties of the heart, which correspond to the letter vav of Havayah. The blessing includes the famous idiom, “How good are your tents,” and the first word in Hebrew is מה, the filling of Havayah (יוד הא ואו הא) whose value is 45 and which corresponds to the letter vav. The six faculties of the heart (to which the letter vav alludes), when inter-included, total 36, the value of the word “tent” (אהל) appearing prominently in the third blessing. Water is referenced repeatedly in the third blessing, and water corresponds to the sefirah of loving-kindness, the first sefirah or faculty of the heart, and the most important one, as many times the other five faculties act as mediators for loving-kindness.

Finally, the fourth speech is actually a prophecy, whose central topic is the rise of the Israelite king referring both to King David and to his descendant, the Mashiach, as expounded upon the Maimonides at the end of his laws of kings.

1. Based on Sod HaShem LiYerei’av, pp. 418ff.
2. Deuteronomy 23:5-6.
3. Sanhedrin 105b.
4. Regarding the first blessings see Numbers 23:5, “God placed His message into Balaam’s mouth.” Regarding the second blessing see Ibid. v. 16, “God communicated reluctantly with Balaam and placed a message into his mouth.”
5. Deuteronomy 29:28.
6. See also the main article in this issue.
7. See Rashi on Exodus 31:3.