Parashat Balak tells us that Hashem came to Bilaam at night and told him, “These that people called for you, go with them.
But, (and it’s a but), what I speak to you, that’s what you’ll do.”
The Ramban says that there’s a lesson here: The question is asked, why didn’t Hashem just stop Bilaam from going? Why does Hashem let him go, but tell him, you’ll say what I want you to say?”
The Ramban says that the reason for this was to show Bilaam who gave a mouth to a man, and who can make a mute; To let us know that Hashem can cure a mute and surely he can keep someone from talking. And he could put words into their mouths. That’s the lesson that Bilaam taught us: that Hashem controls a person, and even a Baal Bechira, even someone that can seemingly choose to harm someone, Hashem is control of that person, and He can make them do, or not do, as He sees fit.
This, of course, is one of the fundamentals that is necessary for Bitachon, that the Hovot HaLevavot tells us in Shaar Bitachon.
שאין ביד אחד מהברואים להועיל את נפשו ולא להזיקה ולא לזולתו כי אם ברשות הבורא יתברך.
No one can help or harm either itself or any other creature without G-d’s
permission.
Because otherwise, our whole Bitachon goes out. It can’t be that we rely on Hashem, and yet some one can do something to us without His input. If that was the case, who would we be relying on?
Of course, man has freedom of choice. But as the Hovot HaLevavot says in another place, man chooses, but just because you decide to choose something, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. I could decide to shoot somebody, and the gun can get jammed. Or, I could decide to shoot someone and then he could be wearing a bulletproof vest. Of course, we can make decisions, and G-d might not always play with people’s decisions. But ultimately, what happens is in the hands of G-d.
This important lesson explains a lot of things. It explains that as we said many times, from the Chinuch, the reason why a person can hold himself back from vengeance or bearing a grudge is based on the principle that everything comes from G-d, and the person that is making it happen it’s just an intermediary.
The Sefer Tanya says that, as we discussed yesterday, the reason anger is contrary to emunah is because when a person gets angry, his emunah leaves him. And that’s what Avodah Zara is-
Because if a person believed that everything comes from Hashem, he wouldn’t get angry.
Even though it’s human being that is doing something to me, and one might think they should get really angry at that human being, he says, No- this was decided in the heavens, and that person is only the messenger.
This goes so far that Rav Yaakov Emden says in his Sefer Berat Migdal Oz, when discussing Dan L’Kaf Zechut- judging others favorably, that if a person does something harmful to us, we are supposed to say that it really wasn’t up to him. It was Hashem. We can’t blame the person.
He brings down the story of David HaMelech with Shimi Ben Gerah, who cursed David. It says David HaMelech said “ G-d told him to curse”. David understood that it wasn’t Shimi, it was G-d that made him curse. At times people are bothered because they were brought up learning that if someone decides or chooses to do something, that’s powerful. And if you put yourself in the hands of a Baal Bechira, someone that has choice, rather than Hashem, you might be in greater danger.
One of the students of the Gaon of Vilna quoted the following statements the name of the Gaon.
It’s a mistake when people say that a Baal Bechira can do something without Hashem’s decree. He points out the following difference:
In all areas, if a person is going to stub his toe, it’s decided which rock he will stub it on. When it comes to a Baal Bechira, G-d can’t say that Reuven is going to kill Shimon, because if G-d says that, He’s basically decreeing it, and then Reuven has no freedom of choice, and then how can you punish Reuven? Rather, he says, something will happen, but it’s not yet decided who will do it.
It’s similar to the way the Rishonim explain why Paroah was to blame if
G-d said His children would be enslaved in Mitzrayim? Because someone would have to do it, but it didn’t have to be him. That’s for a person to choose. Now how these things work out that G-d knows, but we have freedom of choice, is the age-old question. G-d knows what we will choose. But at the end of the day, what we’re supposed to take out of all of this is that Hashem is in charge and no human being can do anything to you. It’s very important to remember this. We get all jammed up from politics, from riots, from presidential campaigns, from false news and media. We see all of this going on and it appears as if these horrible, wicked people are controlling the world. We have to know that G-d controls the world and ultimately, as the Bet HaLevi and his predecessors say, when a person is focusing on the human being that’s threatening him, it’s like focusing on the stick in the hand of the beater. The stick can’t do anything. Talk to the one that’s holding the stick.
And as Hashem said, הוי אשור שבט אפי
Woe, the Asyrians are the staff of my anger.
Everything is nothing more than a staff in the hand of Hashem. And that is the lesson of Bilaam. Bilaam is just a pawn. He’s a puppet, and G-d is pulling the strings.