“And Yisrael joined himself to Ba’al Peor, and the anger of Hashem was kindled against Yisrael.” (Bamidbar 25:3)

In general, we understand that all people have challenges. We assume the righteous are those who have overcome their challenges and the wicked ones are those who have failed, but our assumptions of future performance based on past results are not always correct. Nevertheless, there are some people who are a better “bet” than others, in that we can assume that they will be more successful than their counterparts because they have shown they have what it takes.

I would like to share the following concept with you. Success does not mean that you are doing what you are good at, but rather it is defined by whether you have achieved your life’s goal. There is a gemora in Gittin (56b-57a) about Titus harasha and Bilam harasha, who were summoned from the next world and asked if it is worthwhile to fight with the Jews. They said, “Yes, it is!” What is mind-boggling is that Bilam said this as the gemora was describing his punishment in the world-to-come. He obviously knew the Truth, what was right and what was wrong (as everyone knows when they go ‘upstairs’).  Yet, it did not affect his opinion on fighting the Jews! This means that his essence was doing evil to the Jews and even though he now was getting punished for these exact actions, he still saw this as his life’s mission and success.

This year I saw an explanation of this phenomenon based on a well-known halacha. The Rambam in hilchos gittin states that if the conclusion of the Beis Din is that a husband must give his wife a get, they are allowed to force him to give it even though a get must be given with free will. The Rambam explains that every Jew in his core wants to do the right thing, and when you oppress him to the point of submission and he gives his wife a get, all that has happened is that the Beis Din has removed the Yetzer Hara, enabling him to give the get out of his own free will. This is because every Jew, no matter how steeped in sin he is, has a true inner desire is to do the right thing.

However, a gentile’s true inner desires may be diametrically opposed to what he knows is right. One of the most potent examples of this is when the nations of the world were not willing to accept the Torah because it conflicted with the way they wanted to live their lives, even though they knew that the Torah was the right way of life.

We can now understand that gentiles will give bad advice because from their vantage point, right and wrong are not the ultimate purpose of life, rather there are other agendas which take precedence. This is the reason that Klal Yisroel can more easily repent than the gentiles, as repentance brings Jews back to their natural place in the world, whereas the gentiles, even when coerced to recognize and admit the truth, this coercion only adds a layer on top of their natural selves.

With this idea, I believe we can answer the most common question on this week’s parsha. How could Bilam be a vehicle of Divine Word, have such great revelations, and still remain a debased human of the lowest level? The answer is that if one believes that one’s purpose in life is to be debased, one can answer away all the righteousness that opposes this belief.

There are many people who struggle with understanding why there are many irreligious Jews who hate religious Jews so much? The answer to me is clear – these people have a Jewish conscience which feels guilty, so subconsciously they look for ways to justify their behavior. Perhaps the more vicious and anti-religious they are, the easier it is to turn them around and bring them back to their natural position. This is because they want to connect to their inner selves, they are just having a hard time accepting what they are.

Our source verse uses the word ויצמד to describe the connection of the Jewish people to the Ba’al Peor idol. “Tzamid” in Hebrew also means a bracelet, which is something that is close to our bodies, but not attached to them. So too, even when some people in klal Yisrael were knee deep in idol worship, it was still not part of them.

As we begin to contemplate the three weeks which are looming in front of us, may we be blessed that all wars – internal and external – achieve the clarity which will come from revealing the Omnipresent’s existence in this world.