The following is a brief summary of a thought said over by R' Frand in his shiur this evening. I have attempted to reproduce this vort to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistencies are the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.
In Balak 22:12, Hashem tells Bilaam not to go with Balak, using the following verbiage "Don't go with them, don't curse the nation, for it is blessed." Rashi on this pasuk fills in the gaps in the sentence and explains that there was an ongoing conversation:
Hashem: Don't go with them to curse the Jews.
Bilaam: OK, then I will curse them where I am now.
Hashem: Don't curse the Jews.
Bilaam: OK, then I will bless them.
Hashem: They are already blessed.
Rashi completes his illumination of the conversation between Hashem and Bilaam with the statement that a person should say to a bee, I do not want your honey and I do not want your sting.
The conversation described by Rashi is quite odd. Why would Bilaam make a complete 180 degree turn and decide that he wanted to bless the Jews, right after being prepared to curse them?
R' Frand answered the question by referring to the Shemen Hatov who mentions the following Midrash: at the end of the parsha, Bilaam comes to Balak and says, if you want to hurt the Jews do as I instruct. It is known that the G-d of the Jews hates licentiousness. Send out your women and the Jews will become involved with them, at this point G-d will curse the Jews.
The end of the parsha bears out Bilaam's beliefs, but the question needs to be asked - if the Jews did not stray with Egyptian women during their time in slavery in Egypt, why did they do so with the women of Midyan? Furthermore, how did Bilaam know that they would stray?
R' Frand answered that Bilaam knew that as a result of his blessing (Ma Tovu Ohalecha) the Jews would be vulnerable to the Midyanite women. R' Frand prefaced this with a statement that when a person receives a blessing, he needs to carefully examine the person giving the blessing to be certain that the person is giving the blessing with a full heart. When Bilaam blessed the Jews with Ma Tovu, the gemara teaches us that Bilaam looked at how the Jews' tents were facing away from each other, so that no one would be gazing on another's spouse. Bilaam then gave the blessing where he praised the Jews for their tzinius, knowing that it would effect them. Upon hearing Bilaam's brocha, some Jews became overconfident in their sense of modesty and (to use one of my father's terms) "believed their own press clippings." Because these Jews believed that their sense of modesty was so powerful that they could not possibly be effected by the lure of arayos, they became overconfident and thus were vulnerable to the wiles of the women of Midyan. It was for this specific purpose that Hashem sought to dissuade Bilaam from blessing the Jews, because when the blessing is coming from this sort of person, you should neither desire their honey or sting.
Ed. Note - For those familiar with R' Frand's shiurim, the first forty or so minutes are a halachic discussion, while the last segment focuses on parsha. This evening, the halacha portion discussed why beer was kosher. As this topic is near and dear to me, I would like to summarize some of the shiur. However, as the format of this blog is parsha on Thursdays, I will defer the discussion to Sunday when the post focuses on beer.
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