Parshat Balak 

The portion of Balak recounts the attempt of Balak, the king of Moav, to hire the heathen prophet Balaam to curse the nation of Israel. Balak was terrified that his country would be overrun by Israel as they approached their entry into the Land of Israel. The portion tells the story of how Balaam despite his wanting to curse the Jews was coerced by God to bless them instead. In fact, some of the most beautiful and descriptive blessings in the Torah come from the mouth of Balaam. Not only this but he also prophesied regarding what would occur in the Messianic, “end of days,” many of which future Jewish prophets predicted as well.

The entire idea that a heathen prophet could attain such prophetic powers raises many deep questions as how does such a person as impure and morally base as Balaam achieve such a level of consciousness. In order to answer this we must probe various ideas and traditions regarding prophecy and Divine inspiration.

We begin with the Ramchal who writes extensively about the entire realm of prophecy in his classic work, Derech Hashem. He discusses at length the influence that negative and evil forces can exert when an individual delves into higher powers of consciousness. Since imagination, according to all the commentaries, especially Maimonides, plays a fundamental role in the prophetic experience, it can, if not purified, be tainted by all sorts of false ideas and fantasies. In one case a person may unwittingly experience a false vision due to these unconscious influences. In other cases though, a person may become totally corrupted by these forces and knowingly mislead people as to his true nature and the validity of his prophecies. The psychic power released when contacting higher forces of consciousness unfortunately can, like other temptations and powerful energetic experiences, lead a person astray. The phrase, “power corrupts – absolute power corrupts absolutely,” regretfully may also apply to spiritual matters as it does to the material desire for riches, power, glory, fame and control.

On a deeper level we may apply the well-known formula, which works equally in both the physical and spiritual worlds, that states: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Thus the possibility of true prophecy carries along with it the equal possibility of error, falsehood, lack of understanding and even misuse. This idea is put forward to explain how Balaam, who was considered by the Sages to be such an unsavory character, could reach such heights of prophecy. The Midrash relates that the nations said to God: ‘If we had a prophet the likes of Moses we too would serve You.’ Thus God gave them Balaam, who in potential was Moses’ equal in prophecy, but whose nature was corrupt and under the influence of his own inner evil.

It is interesting to note that according to tradition Balaam was a master of all sorts of witchcraft, yet he also was able to receive visions and messages directly from God, as attested to many times in the portion of Balak. This phenomenon parallels the juxtaposition in the Torah of warnings against forbidden magical practices and witchcraft, which are then followed directly by instructions regarding prophecy (Deuteronomy 18:9-22). Both witchcraft and prophecy are in a sense tuning into the same paranormal energies. The differences lie in the spiritual level of the one seeking this wisdom. This dynamic can be expressed using Kabbalistic terminology: the quality of the light revealed is dependent upon the integrity of the vessel which receives it. When unbridled ego, pride, lust and uncontrolled passion mix with these spiritual energies the results are illusory at best and dangerous at worst. This is exactly what happened to Balaam.

Between the sections of forbidden magical practices and prophecy is a very important transitional verse: “Be simple hearted with God, your God” (Deuteronomy 18:13). Rashi comments: “Walk with Him simply and whole-heartedly and look forward to what He has in store. Do not probe the future, but rather accept whatever happens to you in simplicity. Then, you will be with Him and His inheritance.” Rashi is overtly articulating the psychological nature of the prohibition against magical forms of fortune telling because, as his comments indicate, a Jew should ideally not seek to divine the future, but rather should have simple faith in God’s Providence. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, proposes that Rashi’s explanation may even indicate that some of the forbidden practices could be effective, but, nonetheless the Torah forbids them as they are deemed counterproductive to being “simple hearted with God.” (We see this for example in the book of Samuel when King Saul in desperation consults a fortune-teller in order to raise the deceased spirit of the prophet Samuel with whom he wanted to consult about the future. The fortune-teller is actually successful and the spirit of Samuel speaks to Saul; I Samuel; chapter 28).

The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that Ramban on the other hand felt that the prohibition against fortune telling was because only God knows the future; therefore these attempts to reveal the future were inherently false and unreliable. It therefore follows that prophecy is meant to be a true and Divinely sanctioned alternative to those who practiced magic and witchcraft in order to foresee the future.

Yet, according to Rashi, prophecy itself might be considered problematic as it too predicts the future. Similarly, the Lubavitcher Rebbe asks: how does Rashi understand the practice of consulting with the High Priest who wore his breastplate, which included the mysterious Urim and Tumim that were used as divination devices, as prescribed in the Torah. He answers these formidable questions by pointing out that Rashi stresses in his above comment that not probing the future means not intensively investigating one’s personal destiny, while the Torah does permit consulting a prophet or the breastplate if this will assist one in their service of God and personal growth, as long as it does not contradict the injunction to be simple-hearted with God and to ultimately trust in Him above all else (Likutei Sichot vol 14, p. 64ff).

It seems also that the “institution” of prophecy and the use of the breastplate were primarily for issues of national importance and not for inquiries of a personal nature. The message of the prophets dealt with the improvement of society, honoring the people’s covenant and relationship with God and the fulfillment of Torah and Israel’s special mission in the world. The revelations regarding the future were global in scope and not directed to foretelling any one individual’s personal fortunes.

With all of this in mind, we may now return to the connection between prophecy, Divine inspiration and various practitioners of the occult, like Balaam. Although a vast majority of people claiming to possess special healing powers or paranormal abilities to foretell the future are certainly charlatans, there are those who do in fact have these powers. How do these individuals tap into these psychic forces?

Firstly, it should stated that Divine inspiration is open to any person regardless of gender, race or nationality. This tradition comes from no less than Elijah the Prophet who exclaimed: (Tana D’Bei Eliyahu 9): “I call heaven and earth to witness, that any individual, man or woman, Jew or gentile, freeman or slave, can have ruach hakodesh (“Divine inspiration”) come upon him. It all depends on his deeds.” Similarly, Moses, the greatest of the prophets, pronounced his fervent hope: “Would it be that all God’s people were prophets and that God would put His spirit upon them!” (Numbers 11:29).

The psyche of man is incredibly complex and in potential quite powerful, especially when it taps into the subtle energetic forces of the universe where past, present and future all exist simultaneously. The realization of all experience being ever present expands our notion of time enabling us to envision it as a multi-dimensional matrix, rather than a one-dimensional flat line. In this way, time becomes a fluid trans-dimensional medium, which is both backward and forward compatible, as it encompasses all that has ever happened or ever will happen.

This idea is not as far-fetched as it may sound. Today, in the physical world, we have a similar matrix formed by the global communications network, especially the world-wide web. A combination of satellites, fiber optics, wires, cables and chips connect the world in such a manner that through telephone, electronic mail, fax, television, radio, and surfing the web, we are both receivers and transmitters of instantaneous communication in simultaneous touch with every corner of the globe. This has become an even greater reality with computer devices storing information in a “cloud,” where it can be accessed globally and virtually instantaneously; just as this digital matrix is quite real, so too is the spiritual matrix as described above.

Therefore certain individuals are able to access information in a paranormal manner by tapping into a more expansive level of consciousness, which then unlocks certain concealed layers of information that just require awareness in order to activate their expression. The problem though is that those who are born with these abilities or who practice certain types of meditative disciplines without the hard work of character refinement are, in many cases, psychologically unstable and therefore unprepared for such an immense and sudden download, as these powers tend to amplify any unrealistic or overblown egocentric self-image. This explains the Talmudic statement that states that when the era of the prophets ended, prophecy was given over to seriously unstable characters and children (Bava Batra 12b). Additionally, these powers, when misused, can have a negative influence on others or, in many cases, may even be truly dangerous.

Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, in his book A Sense of the Supernatural (pp. 39-45), discusses how people with an unrectified consciousness can still have clairvoyance. He presents a very unique and insightful answer to this question. He begins by explaining that the psyche of man has three garments: thought, speech and action. The garment of thought is the highest and most important of the three. When a person develops and refines these garments through hard spiritual work he or she may merit an experience of Divine inspiration, although that is not the specific goal. Those though, who possess these abilities without having gone through the proper course of soul development are considered to have “holes” in their garments, which then allow powerful lights and information to seep into their unprepared consciousness. These “holes” reveal a certain nakedness of soul, similar to one wearing ripped and tattered physical clothes. In this sense they reveal a certain soul blemish despite whatever clairvoyant powers they may attain.

As is taught in Jewish tradition, there have been many righteous people who were gifted with clairvoyant powers from birth or were even granted these abilities as the result of a long and arduous spiritual process of refinement, but, once they experienced their burden, they actually prayed for these powers to be taken away, as they considered them to be an impediment to their spiritual service, which was predicated on being simple-hearted with God. Other righteous people maintained these powers but were ever aware of the true Divine source of their inspiration and made sure to only use them for positive and holy purposes. Balaam on the other hand is a prime example of one who attained real prophetic powers but due to his unrectified soul descended into immoral behavior, witchcraft, sexual aberrations and became a prophet for hire who thrived on his reputation as one who could curse and it would have that effect. Yet, God had other plans and turned curses into blessings, evil into good, as the Ba’al Shem stated: evil is the throne of good and the ultimate good is God.