Consider:
Man argues with G-d. He’s a saint.
Man argues with G-d and disobeys G-d. He’s a greater saint.
Man does what G-d tells him. He’s pilloried by the rabbis.
This is rabbinical logic.
Or maybe “This is rabbinical logic?”
Abraham argues with G-d about Sodom. 50, 40, 30, 20, 10.
Abraham’s wife doubts G-d; when she heard the angels say she would conceive, she laughed – out loud, and then lied about it.
Yet Sara is a saint.
Moses argues with G-d, starting with “I don’t want to go” and disobeys G-d by striking the stone for water.
Rachel steals and keeps one of her father’s idols, and she’s called a saint.
David lusts after a married woman and sends her husband off to be killed; he’s still a hero.
Solomon allows avodah zerah into Jerusalem, and he’s a hero.
So who is the one “bad guy” in the rabbinical logic.
Bilam.
Bilam who always acknowledged G-d as his god.
Bilam who told Balak’s people he only could say what G-d told him to say.
So WHY is Bilam a bad guy?
Because, the rabbis tell us, he had the chutzpah to ask G-d not once but twice if he should go with Balak’s people.
Well, the rabbis say, it should have been enough that G-d told Bilam once not to go. Why did he ask again on a later occasion?
Throughout the Torah G-d is a miracle worker. Man, a well, fire and clouds, etc. G-d also proved to be a tough “parent figure.” Gather sticks for a fire on Shabat – zip. Use G-d name (which one?) in vain – capital punishment. Fail to honor parents – capital punishment.
My point: If G-d had wanted to prevent Balak’s emissaries from reaching Bilam either the first or the second time, He could easily have “zapped” these people; killed them, sent them on a different path . . . any number of things.
Instead, G-d allowed Balak’s messengers to arrive not once but twice.
Consider. If you own a $7000 car jointly with your spouse and a dealer rep offers you $1,000 for the car will you ask your spouse “Shall we sell the car for $1,000?” If the spouse says “No,” you tell the person offering the offer is rejected.
The next day, another rep from the same dealer comes and offers you $10,000 for your $7,000 car. Are you going to take the offer to your spouse? Of course you are. Spouse may add a condition – the buyer has to leave the fuzzy dice behind – but the spouse will get an opportunity to opine on the offer. Spouse may think you’re crazy for not grabbing the offer at once, but we all know the value of “shalom byit.”
Give me a break.
G-d intended for Bilam to play hard to get to test Balak.
If G-d didn’t intend for Bilam to bless Israel neither of Balak’s messengers would have found Bilam; certainly Balak would have looked elsewhere when his first messengers returned with Bilam’s rejection of Balak’s offer.
Bilam was doing EXACTLY what G-d wanted.
He didn’t have to make Bilam play “hard to get,” and why He did make Bilam play hard to get is beyond my ken. Perhaps to show Balak’s minyans that Bilam worked for – with apologies to Hebrew National – “a Higher Authority.”
Not being a rabbi, for which we all should be grateful, I have no clue why the rabbis would take a prophet of G-d and turn him into something he, by all other accounts, was not.
I can see Moses as a bad guy (by rabbinicala logic).
I can see Abraham as a bad guy (by rabbinicala logic).
David and Solomon, kings of Israel, had blemishes.
Bilam got a bad rap from the rabbis.
