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What Kind of Prophet Will You Be?

Billam, the gentile prophet hired by the king of Moab to curse the Jews, was as great a prophet as Moses. He, too, possessed the ability to see the mystical energies that lay beneath the surface, hidden in the subconscious. Despite G-d’s reiterating to Billam that the Jews are blessed and must not be cursed, he nevertheless traveled to the plains of Moab with the intention of cursing the Jews. Billam knew that he would be unable to curse the Jews without G-d’s permission, but Billam was confident in his own ability to persuade G-d to allow the Jews to be cursed. 

Billam’s plan was to draw attention to the negativity and sins of the Jewish people. He would evoke their shortcomings by looking toward the desert, gazing at the places where they had committed sins. Billam was sure that by focusing on the negativity within the Jews, G-d’s attribute of judgement would be awakened, allowing him to use that moment to curse them.

Billam’s plan failed. Instead of cursing the Jews, he offered the most beautiful blessings. He tried to get G-d to focus on their negativity, yet G-d would not pay attention: 

He does not look at evil in Jacob, and has seen no perversity in Israel; the Lord, his God, is with him, and he has the King's friendship.

Rashi offers two interpretations as to why G-d would not see evil in the Jewish people despite their being far from perfect. The first interpretation, from Onkelos the translator, says that the sin that G-d did not see, was the sin of idol worship; while the Jewish people may have had other sins, at that point they were free of idol worship.The second interpretation is far more profound, and Rashi himself refers to it as a “beautiful” interpretation: 

Another explanation: According to its plain sense it can receive a beautiful exposition:  He does not see — i. e., the Holy One, blessed be He, does not see the iniquity which is in Jacob: when they transgress His words He does not deal so strictly with them as to pay regard to their iniquitous doings and their transgression by which they infringe His law. 

According to the second interpretation, G-d does not focus on the negativity, because He sees their core and essence. To his loving eyes, their shortcomings do not define them.  Their frailties and imperfections are but an opportunity for transformation and elevation.

The western world’s notion of love is that people fall in love because they are blinded to  the shortcomings of the other. Once the intoxicating effect of love wears off, the shortcomings emerge and challenge the love. The Jewish idea of love is radically different. When one experiences love one is not blind to the other’s shortcomings,  they simply don’t have any effect on the love because they are seen against the backdrop of love. The shortcoming does not define the person and is therefore not a contradiction to the love.   

There are generally two perspectives one can have in life. The first is the path of Billam who had the trait  of finding fault in every circumstance and person. Anticipating the negativity became a self fulfilling prophecy. The second perspective is the G-dly one. “He sees no iniquity in Jacob”, for He focuses on the positive within every experience and within every person. This perspective, too, becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, allowing the negativity to be channeled and transformed to goodness and beauty. 

What Kind of Prophet Will You Be?

Serpent, Symbol of Life?  

The Jews complained, yet again, against G-d and Moses. G-d sent serpents who bit the Jewish people. When Moses prayed, G-d instructed Moses on a means to heal the Jews who were affected: 

The Lord said to Moses, "Make yourself a serpent and put it on a pole, and let whoever is bitten look at it and live.

Moses made a copper snake and put it on a pole, and whenever a snake bit a man, he would gaze upon the copper snake and live. (Numbers 21:8-9)

What was the purpose and function of the copper serpent? Did this not suggest that the serpent had mystical healing powers? Did this not seem idolatrous? 

Rashi, quoting the sages of the Mishnah, explains that indeed the serpent itself was not the source of the healing. The serpent placed on the pole caused the people to look heavenward and that would focus their attention upon G-d, the source of healing:  

Our Rabbis said, Does a snake cause death or life? However, when Israel looked heavenward and subjected their hearts to their Father in heaven, they would be healed, but if not, they would waste away.

According to the rabbis, the healing was a result of looking toward heaven. The question, however, still remains: why, of all things, should Moses raise a copper serpent? Why not have Moses raise his hands heavenward (as he did in the battle with Amalek)?

The serpent represents any challenge in our life that distracts or prevents us from living a wholesome, meaningful and joyous life. The serpent's bite represents the debilitating challenges which stand in our way. G-d told Moses that the way to overcome challenge, the way to heal pain, is to raise the serpent itself on a poll. To look at the serpent, at the challenge, as it exists in its heavenly source. For in its source the purpose of the challenge is not to obstruct, but rather the objective is to offer an opportunity for growth, an opening to conquer new frontiers and experience a deeper part of the self. The Hebrew word for pole, (Nes), is also the root of the word test (Nisayon). What appears as an insurmountable challenge is, in truth, a means to be elevated to a higher state of consciousness. 

Each of us, explains the Zohar, has a spark of Moses within ourselves. We too are able to elevate the serpent. We too can “put it on a pole”. When we come face to face with the serpent, we can ask ourselves: how can this encounter make me a better person? We can “gaze upon the copper snake and live”, viewing it from the perspective of its heavenly source. When we do so, we allow the challenging experience to be transformed into a source of life, passion and vitality. 

Based on the teachings of the Rebbe, 13 Tamuz 5729.