Each year, at MWJDS, we present our third graders with a chumash in a ceremony celebrating their learning so far, and their growing ability to interact with text in a more sophisticated way as their English and Hebrew reading skills develop. As in many Jewish day schools, the students prepare a presentation for their parents for this occasion. We ask each child to choose a figure from the Torah to represent in the ceremony, dressing up in character and telling a few things about their person. This year, when I asked the students to choose a biblical figure they admire, I received several unconventional answers. As in other years, we had a Sarah and a Joseph. Eve was not on my list of suggestions, but she was not a big surprise. I was surprised to have students ask to represent Pharoah, NOT the bad one – the good one who made Joseph his second in command, the snake from the garden of Eden, and, the reason I am telling you this today, “the donkey from the story of mah tovu”.
Teaching is sometimes an exercise in flexibility, deciding when to stick to your own expectations, and when to adjust to what the students bring to the table. I had imagined that the students’ presentation for the chumash ceremony would be mostly Jewish biblical figures. I had not even realized that I was assuming they would all be human. (But I probably don’t have to tell you what happens when you assume … ) Anyway, I had to decide whether to allow the choices. Did the kids want to be Pharoahs and snakes and donkeys because they thought they were the best figures in the Torah? Were they testing to see if I would stop them? Were they intending disrespect? Or did they, for whatever reason, identify with these figures more than the traditional Jewish heroes of Beresheet and Shemot?
I tentatively agreed to allow each of their choices, reminding them that the assignment was to choose a figure you admire. If you can tell me what about them you admire, they can be your “person” for the ceremony. I reminded them that they would also need to identify two midot, positive character traits, that their person exemplifies, and explain how they themselves are like, or hope to grow to be like, their figure. Each of the students came up with satisfactory answers, sometimes helping each other a bit when they got stuck. So, on the day of the ceremony, we had no Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, no Moses, Aaron or Miriam, but we did have a pharaoh, a snake and a donkey, and some very creative analysis.
Why did they choose these unexpected biblical figures? I’ll leave the pharaoh and the snake for another time, but let’s focus in on Bil’am’s donkey. First of all, I don’t know why I was surprised. Why wouldn’t a third grader love the idea of a talking donkey? This is probably the strangest miracle in the Torah. It’s not the biggest. It’s probably not the most important miracle, but it is fascinating. When I asked my student what it was about the donkey that he admired, it wasn’t that she talks, though he probably finds that pretty cool, too. He admired that the donkey can see the angel, when Bil’am, who seems like something between a prophet and a magician, can not. Wouldn’t it be cool to see angels where others do not see them?
In Torah Godly Play, a method I sometimes use for exploring the stories of the Torah, there is a set time for “wondering” at the end of each story. One of the questions for wondering is sometimes, “Is there anything we could take away from this story and still have all the story we need?” This question helps focus in on particular elements of a narrative and think about what they add, and maybe why they are there. So today, I am wondering, could we take the talking donkey out of the narrative and still have all the story we need? What is this miraculous donkey doing here? Does she really change the outcome of the story? Could Bil’am and the Israelite people have had basically the same experience without a talking donkey? As I mentioned, this is probably the strangest miracle in the Torah, and in a way it is one of the least “believable” miracles. Long past the mythic era of creation, where the distinction between human and animal is still fuzzy and a talking snake seems to make sense, this talking donkey seems to come out of nowhere.
Pirkei Avot 5:6 lists ten miraculous things, and then another possible three of four, that were created at twilight at the end of the sixth day of creation. On this list, we find the mouth of the donkey, our talking donkey, whose mouth God opens in this parsha so that she can chastise Bil’am for beating her when she is trying to save him from an angry, sword-wielding angel. This list in Pirkei Avot consists mostly of objects and phenomena that, when we read them in the Torah, seem beyond the realm of how we know the world works. By placing them within God’s initial work of creation, the rabbis may be helping us manage expectations. These things do not just happen, and God does not just step in and change the natrual order, but in these few moments, God foresaw the need for a miraculous intervention and created a world that had just one talking donkey, just one fabulous traveling well that would follow Miriam through the desert, just one staff that would allow Moses to perform the miracles that helped him lead the people out of Mitzrayim to freedom, just one ram whose sole job it was to get its horns stuck in the brush next to Abraham’s altar where he thought he would sacrifice Isaac.
Both the donkey and the ram appear in this list of miraculous items for extreme moments of need. And this is not the only connection linking these two narratives. When Bil’am is finally convinced to go with King Balak’s emissaries to curse B’nai Yisrael, he gets up in the morning and saddles his donkey. Who else gets up early one morning to saddle his donkey? Abraham, as he sets out to sacrifice Isaac. Midrash tanchuma points out that in Bil’am’s case, hate causes him to ignore the proper social order. He saddles the donkey himself, rather than have a servant do it. Abraham, too, saddled his own donkey though he had servants to do it, but in his case the rabbis attribute this to love. The midrash continues, proposing that when Bil’am goes with the moabite dignitaries, the wording indicates that he is united with them in intention, all glad to go curse B’nai Yisrael. One interpretation reads Abraham and Isaac’s walk together similarly, “vayelchu shneyhem yachdav,” the two walked together,” (Gen. 22:6) both with the same intention. Of course, Abraham and Isaac’s intention is kidush hashem, to sanctify God’s name, while Bil’am and the moabites intention is Hilul hashem, to desecrate God’s name, by cursing God’s people, motivated respectively by love and hate.
The inside-out parallels do not stop there. Look back at Balak’s first request that Bil’am come curse the people. After laying out how dangerous and threatening he finds b’nai Yisrael, Balak tells Bil’am “ki yadati et asher t’varech mevorach v’asher ta’or yu’ar”, I know that whoever you bless is blessed and whomever you curse is cursed”. Sound familiar? It sounds a lot like what God tells Abraham, “va’avarecha mevarchecha umekalelcha a’or venivrechu b’cha kol mishpechot ha’adama” I will bless those who bless you And curse those who curse you; And all the families of the earth Shall bless themselves by you.” (Gen 12:3)
The text seems to be setting Bil’am up as an alternate and opposite Abraham. Abraham, who is known for pushing back against God’s judgement, arguing against the destruction of sodom and gomorrah, so that innocent life would not be lost along with evil, stands in stark contrast with Bil’am, who repeatedly tries to convince God to allow him to curse B’nai Yisrael. Abraham, raised in a world that only knew idol worship, is able to see beyond what is presented to him, to kindle a relationship with God and begin building a nation. The midrash imagines that the Moabites discover that Moses’ power is in words, in spiritual connection, and decide that they need a word-master, a prophet, to break through the Israelites’ power. Bil’am, despite a relationship in which he seems able to speak with God at will, allows himself to be swayed by the perspective of King Balak of Mo’av and seeks to destroy the nation that Abraham began building.
The image we have of Bil’am is somewhat perplexing. He has a relationship with God, has spiritual capacity that others lack, and a way with words. He knows, and tells Balak’s messengers that he can only do and say what God allows, but he himself would gladly curse the people that God favors. Prophets are supposed to have vision, but Bil’am lets Balak paint the picture of the Israelite people as a herd of oxen, eating and destroying everything in their path. He ignores God’s injunction not to go to curse Israel because they are blessed. Bil’am is a prophet with his eyes closed, one ear stuffed, and the other connected to the mouth of a man full of hate and fear. Only his mouth is open.
What is a talking donkey doing here? As I learned from my student, the most important thing about the talking donkey is not that she talks, but that her eyes are open. Her whole life, she has kept her mouth closed, has done what her master asked of her. Have her eyes been open all along? We do not know, but they are now, and God opens her mouth. She does not need God to fill it with words, because she sees and she knows what she sees. And, seeing, and knowing that she is right, she asks the questions that allow Bil’am to finally open his eyes. She asks him “What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?”, and he answers that she has embarrassed him, and that if he had a sword he would kill her. She continues “Look, I am the donkey that you have been riding all along until this day! Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?” And he answered, “No.” Only then does Bil’am, the prophet, see the angel. He bows down and offers to go home. The angel, making sure he understands that he can only speak God’s words about B’nai Yisrael, sends him on his way.
When Bil’am tries to curse the people, they are in a valley. Balak puts him on a mountaintop where he has a partial view of the people. There are sacrifices, Bil’am consults with God, and God puts words of blessing in Bilam’s mouth. He blesses the people, but with no agency, no intention, no control, literally a mouthpiece for God. His vision is obstructed, but his mouth is still open.
Balak moves him to another mountain with an obstructed view, probably even more obstructed than the last, and the same thing happens – another forced blessing. Balak says, “you know what? Don’t curse them or bless them!” And Bil’am says it’s not his fault. God made him do it. Balak says, lets try one more time, this time from a peak with a clear view of the whole camp.
This time, though Balak offers sacrifices, Bil’am stops trying to change God’s mind. He looks up and he sees B’nai Yisrael with full sight. Instead of God putting words in Bil’am’s mouth, we read that the spirit of God rested on him and he spoke. He introduces the final blessing as the words of Bil’am with clear eyes, who hears God’s words and sees God’s visions and is bowed down but with his eyes wide open. For the first time Bil’am is speaking along with God.
It is in this posture, bowed, ears open, eyes open, mouth open, that he utters the words of blessing that have become so familiar to us, “mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishkenotecha Yisrael, How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!” This blessing continues, concluding with a long awaited correction to the reasoning Balak provided at the beginning of the parsha for hiring Bilam. “mevarchecha baruch v’orerecha aror, those who bless you [Israel] are blessed and those who curse you are cursed.” Clear-eyed, Bil’am blesses the people one more time, exchanges unpleasant words with Balak, and goes home.
If there were no donkey in this story, would we still have all the story we need? Maybe not. Would the two failed attempts to curse the people, and the clear view of them below have been enough to open Bil’am’s eyes? We cannot say for sure. What we can understand is that he was not able to see an angel right in front of him without his donkey’s help. I imagine that nothing encourages a good round of self reflection quite like having your donkey chastise you over the what is painfully obvious to her that you haven’t picked up on. Realizing that he has been beating up on the one “person” around who sees clearly and is trying to help him do the right thing is the first step in opening his eyes, and shifting his perspective. Like Abraham, who needed to see the ram caught in the brush in order to understand what God truly wanted of him, this miraculous animal, waiting since the twilight of creation is revealed and changes everything.
My student identified the donkey’s most prominent midot as tza’ar ba’alei chayim, preventing cruelty to animals, and derekh eretz, basically being a good person and treating people the right way. The donkey, in this narrative is the only one demonstrating derekh eretz. She is the only one with her eyes open, the only one thinking for herself and the only one engaged in kiddush hashem, sanctifying God’s name.
I was not expecting a donkey in my third grade chumash ceremony, or a snake, or a pharaoh. But the students who brought them there did so with their eyes open, and their hearts open, with derekh eretz. They are a class of questioners, of God-strugglers, of kids who seek out their own understanding of the world and who are not afraid to take on an unconventional perspective. I hope that this means they will keep their eyes and ears open, immune to the stories that fearful people may whisper in their ears about a groups of people made out to be threatening animals. I hope this means that they will grow to be adults who continue to think for themselves, continue to question and to see strength and goodness to which others may be blind. I hope they will continue to bring blessing to the world and that we may all have the blessing of learning from the wisdom of all creatures, great and small, be they poets, prophets, children or donkeys.