Balaam, knowing the power of God, did not dare cross Him. Even though our oral tradition makes clear that Balaam undoubtedly wanted to curse Israel as Balak requested, he only prophesied what God put in his mouth. Indeed, perhaps he had no choice, as whether he wished to or not, every time he opened his mouth to curse the Jews, God put words of praise in it. Yet the Talmud reveals that he infused every blessing he was forced to deliver with evil intent (Sanhedrin 105b). Indeed, every one of the blessings, except one, resulted in misfortune at some point in Jewish history – the only exception being, “How goodly are your tents Jacob, your dwelling places Israel” (Numbers 24:5).
This incident teaches us important rules about blessings and curses. Depending on the intent and the attitude of both the giver and the recipient, a blessing can become a curse, and a curse a blessing. For starters, there are blessings that are truly blessings and there are blessings that when given are really meant to be curses. Second of all, there are curses that really are curses and curses that (no matter what the giver’s intent) are actually blessings in disguise. Thirdly, the effect of a blessing or a curse can be transformed from one to the other quite suddenly or over long periods of time, depending, for example, on how the receiver conceives of them, and fourthly these utterances can manifest differently in different contexts and with regard to different people, as what may be a blessing for one person can be a curse for another.
To paraphrase a rabbinic idiom, one of the greatest compliments that can be paid to people is that their “insides” are like their “outsides” (Berachot 28a). They are not hypocritical and what they say is what they mean, pure and simple. In relation to our discussion, their blessings do not hide alternate agendas – they mean what they say. Yet, we all know that attaining such a level is much easier said than done.
A famous Torah scholar known as Nachum Ish Gam Zu (Nachum, the man who said “this is also for the good”) turned every possible stumbling block into a potential blessing through his positive attitude. The Talmud likewise coined an expression: “All that God does, He does it for the good” (Berachot 60b). The good in what happens in life may not be readily apparent; it may take hard work to ultimately see, but eventually it will be revealed.
Some people naturally see the positive side to life. Once a man went to the Seer of Lublin and complained that he was having a hard time dealing with a string of setbacks in his life. The Seer advised him to go to Reb Zusha of Annipoli who could teach him how to deal with suffering. When the man entered Reb Zusha’s broken down home he told him why he had come. Reb Zusha, who had lived a life of great poverty, could not understand why the Seer had sent someone to talk to him about how to deal with suffering; in his own eyes, God had only been good to him and given him exactly what he needed. The mystical tradition teaches that our difficulty in distinguishing between good and evil is a result of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Two forces that had once been clearly defined became blurred and mixed together. In truth, there is hardly a good that has no seed of its own undoing or a curse that has no possibility of being turned into a blessing.
Recognizing this truth, Judaism has traditionally taught that upon having a disturbing dream one can employ a special rabbinic formula to reframe the dream by declaring seven times before three people: “I have seen a good dream.” To this they reply: “You have seen a good dream. It is good and may it become good….” The Rabbis learned the importance of doing this from Joseph’s dream interpretation, as the Torah declares that events came to pass as Joseph had interpreted they would (Berachot 55b). The way we see things is the way they are; the force of positive thinking is that strong.
Therefore, the antidote for the Balaam in our own lives is to be determined to see the positive in everything and to proactively transform challenges and adversity into blessings and success.
