Abravanel said Balaam’s ass died once it spoke,
for having spoken there was nothing more
it possibly could ever do but tell a joke,
which asses cannot do since they’re a bore.
Most people die before they speak a line,
that makes much sense, because the only way they find
that they can speak aloud is asinine,
for which they are maligned by people of their kind.
The smartest line that Balaam ever said
is maybe like his ass’s message misunderstood,
which makes me glad, since when correctly read,
its sexual innuendos aren’t for most Jews good.
“How lovely are thy tents, o Israel!” should not metaphorically
be misinterpreted, most dangerously immorally,
as in a festival on October 7, badly timed,
not celebrating God’s Torah with whose name it rhymed.
Eric Lawee, in “Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Towards Tradition: Defense, Dissent and Dialogue,” State University of New York, 2001, 111, quotes Don Isaac Abravanel’s opinion regarding the she-ass that spoke to Balaam in Numbers 11.
“The sages said that the donkey [of Balaam] which spoke died. It is fitting that this should be so, for when it spoke, of necessity its constitution was transformed and its nature as a donkey passed away” (Abarbanel, Numbers, 11, cited in
To Abravanel’s opinion I would like to add this opinion regarding Moses cited by Rabbi Jay Kelman in Torah in Motion (“Balak: Missed Opportunities”):
The Tiferet Yisroel (Kiddushin 4:14) quotes an amazing story, the (very basic) outline of which runs as follows: Experts, analyzing the facial features of Moshe Rabbeinu, came to the conclusion that he was an evil person, full of arrogance, prone to excessive love of money, “and all other faults”. The King, who knew of Moshe, could not understand this and traveled to the desert to meet Moshe himself. Moshe told him that the experts were right, as by nature he, Moshe, was “no good”, even worse than had been described. Yet through hard work, he explained, he was able to conquer his evil traits, channeling his energies to developing positive ones.
In an article in thetorah.com, “How Lovely Are Your Tents, O Jacob,” thetorah.com, Dr. Erica Lee Martin points out that when Numbers quotes Balaam’s imagery of tents, gardens, and flowing water—themes associated with love and sexuality in the Bible and the ancient Near East—he is blessing Israelite women with fertility. This blessing implies that he was the instigator of the Baal Peor incident, which leads to the death of thousands of Israelites.
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
