“The Fear and the Trembling” Parashat Balak 5784

The Jews are coming and the neighbours are not pleased. After routing Sihon, King of the Amorites, and Og, King of Bashan, the next stop on the route to their homeland is the Land of Moab. Balak, the King of Moab, seeing what they had done to Sihon and Og, is downright scared [Bemidbar 22:3]: “Moab became terrified of the people [of Israel] because of their great numbers, and so Moab detested the Israelites.” Balak reaches out to his neighbours, the Midianites, and shares his concern [Bemidbar 22:4] “Now this horde will lick clean all that is around us just as an ox licks up the grass of the field”. The medieval commentators are divided as to what “terrified” the Moabites. Some suggest that they were afraid that they, too, would be attacked while others assert that they were concerned that three million people traversing their land would be an ecological nightmare. If Balak was concerned with the potential for war, then his concern was misplaced, as G-d had explicitly warned the Jewish People against any belligerent activity [Devarim 2:9]: “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war. For I will not give you any of their land as a possession”. Nevertheless, Balak was unaware of this directive and for whatever the reason, he was terrified.

Balak was not the only person to be frightened by a military threat. When Og amasses his troops in preparation for battle, Moshe is frightened. While scripture does not call this out explicitly, G-d tells Moshe [Bemidbar 21:34] “Do not fear [Og] for I give him and all his troops and his land into your hand. You shall do to him as you did to Sihon, King of the Amorites”. If G-d tells Moshe not to be scared, it is fair to assume that he was indeed scared. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, contrasts[1] between Balak’s fright and Moshe’s fright. According to the Rebbe, Balak’s fear was irrational. He had no reason to cause panic in the public square and yet that is precisely what he does. When he reaches out to Midian, he carries no creative suggestion of how to address the Jewish threat. “Balak could not contain himself and he needlessly spread fear among his people”. Moshe had a different reaction. While he was certainly frightened of Og, he did not disclose his fear to the people because he knew that by doing so, he would weaken their will and their morale. Instead, he chose to bolster his own inner morale. “Because of his attitude and his steadfast trust in G-d, he successfully preserved the people’s self-image and their pride in their Divine mission”. This sort of reaction to fear, teaches the Rebbe, was learnt by Moshe more than forty years earlier. When he sees an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Jewish slave, he slays him. After learning that he has been ratted upon by two of his Jewish brothers[2], he becomes worried [Shemot 2:14]: “Moshe was frightened, and thought: Then the matter is known!” According to our Sages in the Midrash, Moshe was arrested and sentenced to death by beheading. But when the executioner brought his sword down on Moshe’s neck, his neck miraculously turned to stone and he was saved. The Rebbe teaches, “We earn G-d’s intervention in our own lives by trusting that G-d would provide it”.

When describing Balak’s “terror” of the Jews, the Torah uses the word “Va’yagor” and in describing Moshe’s “fear” of Og, it uses the word “Va’yira”. According to Google Translate, both “la’gur” and “li’roh” mean “to fear”. Yet while Google translates “la-gur” only as “to fear”, it offers two additional translations for “li’roh”: “to experience awe” and “to dread”. I would like to expand the Rebbe’s explanation by proposing a qualitative difference between  terror and fear. Modern psychology describes three types of fear: Rational, Primal, and Irrational fear. Rational fear is a response to a credible threat, like a wild animal or an armed terrorist, and sets off a life-saving “flight or fight” mechanism. Primal fear is an innate fear, like the fear of spiders or of heights. It is a fear acquired through evolution or past experiences. Irrational fear is a fear that does not make logical sense. One example is the fear of flying, even though it has been shown that the risk of death in an airplane crash is far less than the risk of death in a car crash on the way to the airport. With this preface, let us analyse the words the Torah uses to describe the apprehension of Moshe and of Balak. The Hebrew “Yir’a” represents rational fear. The first example of the “yir’a” in the Torah is when Adam, after eating from the Tree of Knowledge, hears G-d approaching. G-d calls out to him and he responds [Bereishit 3:10] “I heard the sound of Your Voice in the garden and I was afraid (va’ira) because I was naked, so I hid.” Adam’s fear is well-placed. It is rational. He has egregiously disobeyed an explicit commandment he received directly from G-d and he knows he must pay for it. The Hebrew “la-gur”, on the other hand, represents irrational fear. When Moshe sets up a system of courts, he tells the judges [Devarim 1:17] “Fear (ta’guru) neither party, for judgment belongs to G-d”. In law-abiding democracies, and most certainly in a country that operates on Torah law, the personal safety of a judge must be ensured by the state and mechanisms are put in place for this very purpose. A judge’s fear of the litigants is irrational such that any judge that cannot overcome this fear must be replaced. Moshe’s  “fear (yir’a)” of Og was eminently rational. The Torah describes Og as a veritable Goliath [Devarim 3:11]: “Og of Bashan was the one remaining giant. His bed, an iron bed… is nine cubits long and four cubits wide”. Like Goliath, Og could do considerable damage in hand-to-hand combat[3]. Balak’s “terror (ma’gor)”, on the other hand, was completely irrational. All the armed conflicts in which the Jewish People participated during their forty-year sojourn in the desert – against Amalek, Arad, Sihon and Og –  were defensive wars: Israel was attacked, they fought back and with G-d’s help, they were victorious. Balak had no reason to fear a surprise attack and he knew it. His lack of any operative response bolsters this hypothesis.

Let us expand the Rebbe’s explanation one last time[4]. First we must familiar ourselves with a few concepts from the esoteric Torah. There exist two primary avenues in which we relate to G-d, via love and via fear. We love G-d because He embodies all that is good and we fear Him because He is all-powerful. Using scientific jargon, love is an attractive force. Our love of G-d makes us want to bridge the vast distance that separates us. Fear, on the other hand, is a repulsive force. Our fear of G-d serves to limit our closeness, lest we draw too close and suffer injury or worse. Fear can be further divided into two levels: The lower level of fear of G-d is “Yirat Ha’Onesh” the fear of punishment in its simplest sense: a person pictures in his imagination the punishment he will receive if he commits a transgression and does not follow the path of the Torah. This punishment deters him and makes him follow a good path to save his soul. The second, higher, level of fear is “Yirat Hit’Romemut” – a feeling of awe that arises in a person when he stands in front of the Exalted, in admiration and adoration. We experience this kind of feeling when seeing an imposing natural phenomenon, such as Niagara Falls or the Matterhorn. Unlike the fear of punishment, awe does not frighten and deter the fearful. A person does not wish to avoid awe, rather, he is drawn to it, seeking to experience G-d’s greatness and glory. Balak experienced fear of punishment. He was terrified that the Jewish People would conquer his nation. Moshe experienced awe. He knew G-d would defeat Og just as He defeated all of the previous threats. He longed to see G-d’s power. When G-d tells him not to fear, He is telling him that he must act, “for I give him and all his troops and his land into your hand”. You must go into battle but I’ll be right behind you.

The Rebbe concludes: “We are all leaders to one degree or another. Whether in the context of our jobs, our families, or our circle of friends. We should therefore learn from Moshe’s example, taking care to foster other’s optimism and confidence in their Divine mission, rather than the opposite, as did Balak”. May we merit such a leader, speedily in our days.

Ari Sacher, Moreshet, 5784

Please daven for a Refu’a Shelema for Shlomo ben Esther, Sheindel Devorah bat Rina and Esther Sharon bat Chana Raizel

[1] See Likutei Sichot vol 8, pp. 148-149.

[2] According to our Sages in the Midrash, these were Dathan and Aviram, see our shiur on Korach 5784,

[3] Precision Guided Munitions were only in their infancy at that time.

[4] This explanation is alluded to in the commentary of Isaac Samuel Reggio (Be’ur Yashar) on Bemidbar [21:34]. Rabbi Reggio lived in Italy in the nineteenth century.