A.
Eagerly rushing off to carry out the request of Balaq ben Tzippor, King of Mo’av, that he curse the Israelite hordes then massing on Mo’av’s border, Bil‘am ben Be‘or is confronted by an apparition: ויעמד מלאך ד' במשעול הכרמים גדר מזה וגדר מזה: ותרא האתון את מלאך ד' ותלחץ אל הקיר ותלחץ את רגל בלעם אל הקיר ויסף להכתה: ויוסף מלאך ד' עבור ויעמד במקום צר אשר אין דרך לנטות ימין ושמאול: ותרא האתון את מלאך ד' ותרבץ כו' ותאמר לבלעם מה עשיתי לך כי הכיתני זה שלש רגלים (“And Ha-Shem’s angel stood in the corridor of the vineyards, a fence on either side. And the athon [‘she-donkey’] saw Ha-Shem’s angel and shied toward the wall, and she pressed Bil‘am’s leg against the wall, and he proceeded to beat her. And Ha-Shem’s angel continued to move and stood at a narrow place where there was no way to turn right or left. And the athon saw Ha-Shem’s angel and lay down... And she said to Bil‘am, 'What did I do to you that you have beaten me three times [regalim];'” XXII, 24-28).
Drawn by the unusual usage of regalim (where we would ordinarily have expected pe‘a-mim), Rashi quotes the Midrash Tanchuma to tell us that the athon was sending a message to Bil‘am: אתה מבקש לעקור אומה החוגגת שלש רגלים בשנה (“You are seeking to uproot a nation which celebrates three regalim in the year”), i.e. Israel, which celebrates the three pilgrimmage holidays of Pesach, Shavu‘oth, and Sukkoth.
It seems reasonable to ask how the allusion to these holidays at this juncture could possibly convey some sort of admonition to Bil‘am.
B.
The séfer Toldoth Adam brings an anonymous midrash to tell us how it was that Bil-‘am, confidence man and supreme realist, could imagine, in the face of the firm Divine “no” which he had received earlier, to imagine that he would be able to accomplish his goal of cursing Israel. It seems that he offered G-d a deal: If He would consent to Israel’s destruction, the he, Bil‘am, would undertake to observe the Torah in their stead.
If we consider for a moment what Israel’s conduct had been like in the desert over the last 40 years, from the Golden Calf to the incident of Mei M’riva, we can imagine that the offer may have seemed tempting. In any event, it had to be evaluated and explored. What sort of test might G-d have devised for Bil‘am?
The Talmud offers us a template, as it were, for such an examination: There will come a judgment day, we are assured, in which each of the nations will pass before the Divine throne and have to account for its treatment of Israel, and have its conduct compared to that of Israel, at least a remnant of whom will have been faithful to the Torah throughout the long and painful exile. The nations will protest that they had not been offered the Torah under the same conditions as Israel, and for that reason had not taken it seriously: תנה לנו מראש ונעשנה (“Give it to us from the start, and we shall carry it out!”).
G-d will respond to them: מצוה קלה יש בידי וסוכה שמה לכו ועשו אותה כו' מיד כל אחד ואחד נוטל והולך ועושה סוכה בראש גגו והקדוש ברוך הוא מקדיר עליהם חמה בתקופת תמוז וכל אחד ואחד מבעט בסוכתו ויוצא (“I have a simple mitzva in My hand and its name is sukka; go and observe it.... Immediately each and every one takes and goes and makes a sukka atop his roof, and the Holy One, Blessed is He causes the heat of the height of summer to beat down upon them, and each one kicks his sukka down and leaves;” עבודה זרה ג.; cf. Zechariah XIV, 16-18, that the nations will indeed be obligated to observe Sukkoth).
The mitzva of sukka, of building and dwelling in an insubstantial, thatched hut, would seem to be the test template. The sfarim ha-qdoshim (עיי' מהר"ל מפראג חידושי אגדות שם, וע"ע בני יששכר מאמרי תשרי מאמר י' סי' ז') tell us that Israel possess an אור המקיף, an “enveloping light” or “aura”, in that they surround themselves with חומרות וסייגים, “stringencies and ‘fences’” around the Torah, i.e. protective decrees designed to prevent inadvertent violation of Torah principles (עיי' למשל ברכות ב.), symbolised by the walls and roof of the sukka.
C.
With this in mind, our attention is drawn to the beginning of our parasha, where we read: וירא בלק בן צפור את כל אשר עשה ישראל לאמורי (“And Balaq ben Tzippor saw everything that Israel had done to the Emori”). The midrash tells us concerning the conflict with Sichon, King of the Emori (concerning which we read in lasr week’s parasha) that Israel י"א מלחמות סיחון עשו באלול ועשו את הרגל בתשרי ואחר הרגל מלחמת עוג (“conducted 11 campaigns against Sichon during Elul, then celebrated the regel [i.e. Sukkoth] in Tishrei, and after the regel [engaged in] the war with ‘Og;” במדבר רבה פי"ט סי' י"ח).
The principle of אין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה, that the events reported in the Torah are not necessarily strictly in chronological order (פסחים ו:, בין השאר), seems to apply here. Since Israel were moving from south to north along the eastern border of Eretz Yisra’él, it srands to reason that they first conquered Sichon, then approached Mo’av. They must have been congregating on the border of Mo’av, during the first two weeks of Tishrei. This would have been when Balaq sent his two desperate embassies to Bil‘am. Hence, Bil‘am would have been rushing to do Balaq’s bidding on or about the holiday of Sukkoth (the regel mentioned in the midrash), which begins on 15 Tishrei.
Now let us consider the nature of this משעול הכרמחם, this “corridor of vineyards.”
We begin by noting that Torah sources repeatedly mention the practice of training vines to grow over the top of a lattice-work structure (עיי' למשל כלאים פ"ו מ"ג, פיהרע"ב ותוספות חכמים שם). This, inevitably, serves to form a shaded corridor as the vinces mature, and undoubtedly is the reality lying behind the Biblical phrase איש תחת גפנו, “[each] man under his vine” (cf., e.g., I Kings V, 5; Micha IV, 4).
Now, from our passage, it is apparent that when the athon first perceived the angel, the corridor was wide enough to permit passage; the athon shied away from the frightening apparition over against one wall of the corridor, and tried to slink past it. The angel responded by moving to a narrow spot in the corridor, blocking the athon’s way. One envisions an “L” in one of the walls of the corridor, blocking one of the lanes, and narrowing it.
The corridor at this point meets the minimum halachic requirement of a sukka, two walls and a partial (סוכה ו: ולהלכה עיי' רמב"ם הל' סוכה פ"ד ה"ב ושו"ע או"ח סי' תר"ל סע' ב'). As for the schach, the “thatch” of the roof, the Talmud discusses just such a case of someone who has trained vines to grow over a lattice, and concludes that if he cuts the vines off from the ground and handles or shakes them a bit, they are kosher schach (סוכה י"א:).
D.
Now, we have seen that Bil‘am intended to offer himself in Israel’s stead as the upholder of Torah in this world, much as the Talmud suggests the nations will offer, on the judgment day. So, the season being Sukkoth, G-d offered Bil‘am the sukka test; the angel blocked the narrowest part of the corridor, and the athon lay down before it, as if to make Bil‘am pause and notice that he was in a potential sukka. All that was necessary was for him to cut the vines and handle them, and it would have become kosher.
Bil‘am ignored the opportunity offered him; as it were, he “kicked down” his sukka, impatiently beating the athon to get up and depart (remember that he did not yet perceive the angel before him). This is what prompted the donkey’s allusion: You want to uproot a people who seek out opportunities to observe these occasions? You find youself in the “enveloping light” of the sukka, and you are impatient to get out of it? You are not a fit replacement for Israel!
Which, of course, means that we have to live up to our reputation.
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