Parshas Chukas-Balak
Putting the Cart Before the Horse
By Rabbi Shlomo Jarcaig
Unable to cajole the gentile prophet Balaam to curse the Children of
Israel, the Moavite king Balak follows Balaam s closing advice and induces
the maidens of Moav to seduce the men of the Jewish nation, to lead them
eventually to idolatry and away from service of G-d and His favor. Israel
settled in Shittim and the people began to act promiscuously with the
daughters of Moav. They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods;
the people ate and bowed to their gods. Israel became attached to Ba al-Pa
or, and the wrath of Hashem flared up against Israel (Bamidbar/Numbers
25:1-3). Ba al-Pa or was a form of idolatry the service of which, Rashi
describes, involved exposing oneself and defecating in its presence. Of
the many forms of idolatry in the world, why did the Moavites choose this
one in particular to draw the Jews further away from G-d following their
acts of promiscuity? And how was this vulgar service so effective that
within a short period of time "Israel became attached" to it?
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 64a) relates the episode of Savta ben Elis, a Jew who
went so far as to utilize the Pa or idols to clean himself following his
service. The priests of Pa or proceeded to praise him for serving the idol
in such a creative, unprecedented manner. Upon this Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz
(Rosh Yeshiva/Dean of the Mir Yeshiva, who led his students from the ashes
of the European Holocaust to the glory of Jerusalem) explains that the very
ideology behind this bizarre idolatry was that its worshipers were supposed
to denigrate the idol. This was a symbolic gesture that nothing, not even
their own god, was deserving of honor. The underlying statement was, We
are subservient to no one; we are free to act however we please. This
idolatrous philosophy was very easy for the Jews to embrace as they engaged
in promiscuous behavior because when someone chooses to negate the rules
that would otherwise govern his decisions, the simplest justification is
the declaration that the rules are baseless. The Jewish participants only
became attached to this form of idolatry and accepted this moral relativism
as a valid philosophical approach to life AFTER they had begun to act
licentiously.
The maidens of Moav taught us to be true and honest with ourselves. All too
often, when we possess philosophical justifications for actions, it is not
because we believe in the philosophy that we choose to act; it is because
we want license to benefit from the actions - whether the benefit is
spiritual, emotional or financial - that we embrace the philosophy. There
are so many apparently noble causes in the world around us. But when they
run afoul of our traditions and mores, how do we respond: do we mold our
actions to the realm of G-d s will, or do we attempt to squeeze G-d into
our foregone decisions? Or have we given up even trying to fit Him in to
certain precincts of our lives?
Have a Good Shabbos!
Copyright © 2003 by Rabbi Pinchas Avruch and Project Genesis, Inc.
Kol HaKollel is a publication of the Milwaukee Kollel Center for Jewish
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