JULY 18 • 2024 | 29
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GOD’S ANSWER 
TO HUBRIS
The second example was 
Egypt during the early 
plagues. Moses and Aaron 
turned the water of the Nile 
into blood and filled Egypt 
with frogs. We then read 
that the Egyptian magicians 
did likewise to show that 
they had the same power. So 
concerned were they to show 
that they could do what the 
Hebrews could do, that they 
entirely failed to realize that 
they were making things 
worse, not better. The real 
skill would have been to turn 
blood back into water, and 
make frogs not appear but 
disappear.
We hear the Divine 
laughter especially in the 
third plague: lice. For the 
first time, the magicians tried 
and failed to replicate the 
effect. Defeated, they turned 
to Pharaoh and said, “It is 
the finger of God.” 
The humor comes when 
we remember that for the 
Egyptians the symbol of 
power was monumental 
architecture: pyramids, 
temples, palaces and statues 
on a massive scale. God 
showed them His power by 
way of the tiniest of insects, 
painful yet almost invisible 
to the eye. Again, hubris 
became nemesis. When 
people think they are big, 
God shows them they are 
small — and vice versa. It is 
those who think themselves 
small — supremely so Moses, 
the humblest of men — who 
are truly great.
This explains the otherwise 
curious episode of Bilam’s 
talking donkey. This is not 
a fanciful tale nor simply a 
miracle. It arose because of 
the way the people of Moab 

and Midian thought of Bilam 
and perhaps, by extension, 
the way he thought of 
himself. Balak the Moabite 
king, together with the 
leaders of the Midianites, 
sent a delegation to Bilam 
asking him to curse the 
Israelites: “Come now, curse 
this people for me, since they 
are too mighty for me … for 
I know that whom you bless 
is blessed, and whom you 
curse is cursed.”
This is a pagan under-
standing of the holy man: 
the shaman, the magus, the 
wonder-worker, the person 
with access to supernatural 
powers. The Torah’s view is 
precisely the opposite. It is 
God who blesses and curses, 
not human beings. “I will 
bless those who bless you 
and those who curse you 
I will curse,” God said to 
Abraham. “They shall place 
my name on the children of 
Israel, and I will bless them,” 
he said about the priests. The 
idea that you can hire a holy 
man to curse someone essen-
tially presupposes that God 
can be bribed.
The narrative is admit-
tedly obscure. God tells 
Bilam not to go. Balak sends 
a second delegation with a 
more tempting offer. This 
time God tells Bilam to go 
with them but say only what 
he instructs him to say. The 
next morning Bilam sets 
out to go with the Moabites, 
but the text now states that 
God was “angry” with him 
for going. That is when the 
episode of the donkey takes 
place.
The donkey sees an angel 
barring the way. It turns 
aside into a field, but Bilam 
hits it and forces it back to 
the path. The angel is still 

barring the way and the don-
key veers into a wall, crush-
ing Bilam’s foot. Bilam hits it 
again, but finally it lies down 
and refuses to move. That is 
when the donkey begins to 
speak. Bilam then looks up 
and sees the angel, who had 
been hitherto invisible to 
him.
Why did God first tell 
Bilam not to go, then that 
he should go, and then 
was angry when he went? 
Evidently God could read 
his mind and knew that 
Bilam did really want to 
curse the Israelites. We know 
this because later, after the 
attempt to curse the Israelites 
failed, Bilam succeeded in 
causing them harm, advising 
the Midianites to get their 
women to seduce the Israelite 
men, thus provoking the 
anger of God (Num. 31:16). 
Bilam was no friend of the 
Israelites.
But the story of the talking 
donkey is another instance of 
Divine laughter. Here was a 
man reputed to be a maestro 
of supernatural forces. People 
thought he had the power to 
bless or curse whomever he 
chose. God, the Torah tells 
us, is not like that at all. He 
had two messages, one for 
the Moabites and Midianites, 
another for Bilam himself.
He showed the Moabites 
and Midianites that Israel is 
not cursed but blessed. The 
more you attempt to curse 
them the more they will be 
blessed and you yourself will 
be cursed. That is as true 
today as it was then. 
There are movements 
throughout the world to 
curse the state and people of 
Israel. The greater the malice 
of Israel’s enemies, the stron-
ger Israel becomes, and the 

more disasters its enemies 
bring upon their own people.
God had a different mes-
sage for Bilam himself, 
and it was very blunt. If 
you think you can control 
God, then, says God, I will 
show you that I can turn a 
donkey into a prophet and 
a prophet into a donkey. 
Your animal will see angels 
to which you yourself are 
blind. Bilam was forced to 
admit: “How can I curse 
those whom God has not 
cursed? How can I denounce 
those whom the Lord has not 
denounced?”
Hubris always eventually 
becomes nemesis. In a world 
in which rulers engaged in 
endless projects of self-ag-
grandizement, Israel alone 
produced a literature in 
which they attributed their 
successes to God and their 
failures to themselves. Far 
from making them weak, this 
made them extraordinarily 
strong.
So, it is with us as indi-
viduals. I have mentioned 
before a beloved friend, no 
longer alive, about whom it 
was said that “he took God 
so seriously that he didn’t 
need to take himself serious-
ly at all.” Pagan prophets like 
Bilam had not yet learned 
the lesson we must all one 
day learn: that what matters 
is not that God does what we 
want, but that we do what He 
wants. God laughs at those 
who think they have godlike 
powers. The opposite is true. 
The smaller we see ourselves, 
the greater we become. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan 

Sacks served as the chief rabbi of 

the United Hebrew Congregations of 

the Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His 

teachings have been made available 

to all at rabbisacks.org. 

