Torah of Character: Balak: Righteous Anger
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Abstract
Bilam initially presented as a pious Gentile prophet. When Balak, King of Moab tried to contract him to curse the Israelites, Bilam reported back to the king’s messengers to “Go back to your own country, for God will not let me go with you” (Num. 22:13). Bilam continued the saintly reframe when he was asked again, stating that he could not be swayed by riches because “I could not do anything, big or little, contrary to the command of my God” (Num. 22:18)....
Despite these external verbal pieties, the sages accuse Bilam of virtue signaling. Beneath the veneer of divine devotion lay internal turmoil. Rashi names three vices that boil beneath the surface of Bilam’s character that leak out in his interactions: pride, greed, and an evil eye. This analysis, writes Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, makes Bilam “a case study in unconscious motivation.”