An Unfortunate Death

It's happened before. In a gang-infested neighborhood, on a sunny day, a car zooms by a house. Shots are fired toward the door. Suddenly a ten-year-old girl, nonchalantly sitting on the front steps, falls to the ground. Though innocent, she dies simply because she is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I imagine something similar must have happened to Balaam, the pagan prophet, in our Torah portion.

The Text

Our Torah portion, Matot/Mas'ei , the last one in the Book of Numbers, deals with a variety of subjects, including vows, inheritance, the itinerary followed by the tribes during their trek in the wilderness, and the war against the Midianites. In the last section, after the Israelites defeated their enemies, we find an unexpected note: "They also put Balaam son of Beor to the sword" (Numbers 31:8). This is confirmed in the Book of Joshua, which clearly states, "The Israelites put Balaam son of Beor, the augur, to the sword" (Joshua 13:22). Where did that come from?

We all know Balaam from previous chapters (Numbers 22–24). He was asked by Balak, the king of Moab, to curse the Israelites, but instead ended up blessing them. After the seer completed his task, the text informs us, "Then Balaam set out on his journey back home" (Numbers 24:25). "Home" for Balaam was Mesopotamia, for we are told he was from "Pethor, which is by the Euphrates" (Numbers 22:5). What was he doing in Midian when he was killed? We don't know.

The unexpected biblical note in our Torah portion puzzles many commentators. Some suggest that the reference to the death of Balaam belongs to another tradition that was added later on. Others imagine that he must have stayed in Midian a little longer before going back home. And Abraham Ibn Ezra says Balaam must have gone back on another occasion (Ibn Ezra on Numbers 31:8).

Balaam: A Good Guy or Not?

Balaam must have been a popular prophet of antiquity, for the name "Balaam, son of Beor, who was a seer of the gods," appears in an ancient Near Eastern text (ca. 800 b.c.e.) at Deir Alla, a tell by the Jordan River. However, throughout the centuries, Balaam has received bad publicity in Jewish literature. In Joshua, he is called, hakoseim, literally, "the diviner" (Joshua 13:22). Our Torah portion implies that the Israelites worshiped Baal-Peor "at the bidding of Balaam" (Numbers 31:16). Even in Rabbinic texts he is known as "Balaam the wicked" ( Pirkei Avot 5:22). But that is unfair to Balaam. Biblical scholars now agree that the entire Balaam episode is made up of various strands, and in some passages he appears not as an enemy but rather as a friend of Israel who was devoted to Israel's God. For example, it was God who put a divine word in Balaam's mouth (Numbers 23:5); it was God's spirit that came upon Balaam (Numbers 24:2); it was also Balaam who praised Israel by saying, "How fair are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel" (Numbers 24:5).

The Death of an Innocent Bystander

I view the death of Balaam as the death of an innocent bystander who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whether he lingered in Midian or whether he went back, this pagan prophet, who could not but praise Israel and Israel's God, gave up his life under unfortunate circumstances. And that is tragic.

But there is a message embedded in this interpretation. Regrettably we do not live in a perfect world where the righteous are always rewarded and the wicked punished. The universe is more complicated than that. Sometimes tragedies happen, and even though they offend our ethical sensibilities and our idea of justice, we must accept them as they are. The last thing we should do is to try to blame God for supposedly causing our misfortunes. I maintain that God operates through the laws of nature, which we do not always understand, and is not the direct source of our bad luck. (No, the Holocaust was not caused by God, nor did it happen, as some Orthodox Jews have recently claimed in Israel, because of Reform Judaism in Germany. That is as reprehensible as it is bad theology.) Cruel acts are often perpetrated by evil individuals, but they also happen during terrible circumstances that are beyond our control. Balaam did the right thing by blessing Israel, yet he ended up giving his life because he was unfortunately in Midian during the war.

In his most popular book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (New York: Schocken, 1985, p. 136), Rabbi Harold Kushner suggests that when we are afflicted by a tragedy, or events occur that have a negative impact on us, the question to be asked is not, "Why did this happen to me?" or "Why did I deserve this?" Often, there is no good answer for that. A better question is, "What do I do now?" At least, we may be able to devise a strategy to get out of our circumstances with as little damage as possible and hopefully reorient our lives for the better.

Life is full of uncertainties. We do not know what will happen to us tomorrow. So, we need family and friends to support us in good times and bad, as we try to live fully, contentedly, and creatively today. (Return)

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino , Ph.D., is rabbi emeritus of Temple Beth Shalom of Needham, Massachusetts, and a faculty member of the Theology Department at Boston College. You can contact him at rsonsino@ix.netcom.com.