Warning Signs

The Gambler

Have you ever been working at something for a long time while ignoring all the signs telling you to stop only to stubbornly keep at it while eventually failing miserably? Yes, putting together Ikea furniture counts. Broadly speaking though, this is a feeling many of us have felt.

We obviously don’t believe that we’ll succeed in every task that we do. In the heat of the moment, we get this idea that we have to stay on course or see something through simply because we started it. We end up wasting a lot of time, money, and energy on pushing on simply because we hold some belief that we have to.

Little did Kenny Rogers know when he crooned “you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em,” how applicable those words would be to so many people and so many situations. I’ve associated that song with projects at home, sermons, and even relationships but one of the more unlikely associations came when learning through the portion this week.

When Bilaam is sent on his mission by King Balak and God has clearly mandated how exactly that is supposed to go, Bilaam doesn’t quite follow God’s directives. When God then puts a few roadblocks in the way of the Bilaam’s donkey, he still doesn’t get the message. In his anger, he strikes the donkey. In response to this, God’s messengers declares the following in Numbers 22:32:

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֵלָיו֙ מַלְאַ֣ךְ יְהֹוָ֔ה עַל־מָ֗ה הִכִּ֙יתָ֙ אֶת־אֲתֹ֣נְךָ֔ זֶ֖ה שָׁל֣וֹשׁ רְגָלִ֑ים הִנֵּ֤ה אָנֹכִי֙ יָצָ֣אתִי לְשָׂטָ֔ן כִּֽי־יָרַ֥ט הַדֶּ֖רֶךְ לְנֶגְדִּֽי׃ The messenger of God said to him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? It is I who came out as an adversary, for the errand is obnoxious to me.

In other words, why are you so angry? It’s me. I, God, am trying to stop you. Stop hitting the donkey! Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, also known as the Kedushat Levi takes his interpretation in a different direction. He wants to know why the messenger of God gets so annoyed at Bilaam? After all, shouldn’t the owner of an animal have the right to punish their animal for not being obedient?

Here is his answer:

The angel’s task was to check if Bilaam ‎conformed with the conditions God had stipulated for his journey. ‎When someone sets out on an errand in order to perform a ‎command and he encounters unforeseen difficulties, he ‎must examine the reason for this.

If he cannot find a reasonable ‎explanation for the obstacles, he should conclude that God may no ‎longer wish for him to pursue that errand and return home. ‎When the angel became aware that in spite of three such covert ‎warnings Bilaam had chosen to press on with his mission, he ‎recognized that this was due to Bilaam’s evil intentions, and he ‎became angry, challenging him, and telling him that he had ‎actually already forfeited his life by his conduct. Bilaam’s stature ‎as a prophet, and his boast of being familiar with God’s ways, ‎‎(Numbers 24,4) should certainly have alerted him that the donkey’s ‎strange behavior was a warning from God for his own benefit, to ‎desist from this enterprise. The angel therefore was completely ‎justified in asking Bilaam why he had struck his donkey three times.‎

The messenger’s job was to see if Bilaam was following through on God’s directives, which clearly he was not. So he then turned to giving Bilaam signs that it was time to wrap things up. Over and over again, this messenger impeded the donkey to not move forward while Bilaam persisted in keeping the donkey on the path. After finally revealing their identity, the messenger then asked, “What gives? Didn’t you get the message?”

The warning lights have been going off for Bilaam. All these things have been happening to signal to him that it’s time to call it quits, but he doesn’t listen. He continues on in this task even though it’s now clear that the road is blocked. Bilaam is described peculiarly early in the portion as being one-eyed, which is understood in a number of ways. Perhaps another is that he was unable to see what was going on right in front of him.

There is a place in life for being stubbornly persistent in something. In fact, we often rightfully laud perseverance. This case is different though. There was a clear set of guidelines for Bilaam to follow. Even after he didn’t, perhaps thinking he could chart his own way, Bilaam ventured off. At that point, the messenger began signaling to him loudly to return home. Finally, after missing all these signs, the messenger was forced to reveal themselves in order to get Bilaam to understand.

There’s persistence and then there’s ignorance. It veers from one into the other when the process or task becomes more about an individual’s legacy than the betterment of the collective. Sure, it can be about something trivial at home like furniture assembly. Money spent on an expert is a good use of money! But it can also be about larger societal issues, like, say a certain political leader. As Kenny once sang, knowing when to walk away and knowing when to run can actually be the difference between legacy altering losses and victories.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Weekend!