Talking with donkeys – Balak
Everybody knows about Bilam’s donkey. An animal suddenly became able to speak Hebrew and proceeded to berate its owner. How such a thing was possible puzzled our ancestors, none of whom had read the Doctor Dolittle books.
That a donkey could speak a human tongue, and Hebrew at that, went against the laws of nature. No wonder the sages classified it as a miracle and said that the mouth of the ass was created on the first Erev Shabbat at twilight (Avot 5:6). God had planned the deviations from the norm right from the time of creation.
The donkey swerved from the path because it saw an angel. Bilam was annoyed that the animal seemed to make up its own mind. Says Rashi, “He (Bilam) did not see (the angel), since the Holy One, blessed be He, endowed the beast with greater insight than man”.
Normally we claim that human beings, the acme of creation, are high above the animal kingdom. But when humans fail to use their God-given gifts they go down a rung or two. That is why a Yiddish poet writing about the Holocaust objects to the argument that man had become like the jungle beasts. Bearing in mind the horrific things men did to men, he says it is an insult to the beasts to say that man had become a beast. For even beasts do not do the unspeakable things that wicked humans did in those years.
