Comparisons with Balaam: why Abraham, not Moses?

Yesterday I posted a piece on Avot 5:22, which contrasted the qualities exemplified by Abraham and Balaam and, by extension, by those who follow them.

Why does this Mishnah pick Abraham as the gold standard by which to evaluate Balaam and find him lacking? Would not Moses have been a better measure of comparison? There is nowhere any suggestion that Moses was deficient in the three areas of excellence associated here with Abraham: he too had a generous outlook (Shemot 32:30-32), a meek spirit (Chullin 89a) and a humble soul (Bemidbar 12:3). He was an exact contemporary of Balaam, while Abraham lived six generations earlier. Both Moses and Balaam had top-class prophetic talents (Bemidbar Rabbah 14:20; Berachot 7a). Further, the placing of this mishnah within the fifth perek almost invites comparison with Moses rather than Abraham: whereas the other mishnayot dealing with Abraham and his exceptional qualities come right at the beginning of this perek, the only other mishnah in it which deals with Moses is found immediately preceding this one.

Because this mishnah is dealing with middot (character traits and qualities) rather than mitzvot and averot (positive and negative commands), we may have an answer. There is a qualitative difference between those who lived before the Giving of the Torah at Sinai and those who lived subsequently.

Before Sinai, there were two measures of a man’s worth: one was in the way he developed and acted in accordance with his personal qualities, the other being his adherence to the seven Noahide Laws to which all of mankind is universally subject. After the Giving of the Torah, the Jewish people could also be measured in terms of their service to God through the performance of mitzvot and the avoidance of averot that were revealed at Sinai. By comparing Abraham with Balaam, this mishnah compares like with like, contrasting two personalities who were ostensibly playing by the same Noahide rules.

There is another possible answer. Balaam is quite conscious of the role played by the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in securing a permanent relationship between God and the Children of Israel. He makes a great show of setting himself up as being their equal. The Patriarchs between them built seven altars on which to make offerings before God, so Balaam instructs Balak to do likewise on the assumption that he must exceed or at least equal the performance of the Patriarchs if he is to obtain a chance to break the bond they had forged with God. Since Balaam is seeking to undermine the covenant first made with Abraham and only later confirmed with his descendants, it is with Abraham and not Moses that Balaam is to be compared.

The appropriate nature of the Abraham-Balaam comparison is suggested by two further considerations. The first, which appeals to scholarship, is the intertextuality of the stories of the Akedah, where Abraham is ordered to sacrifice his son Isaac, and the engagement of Balaam to destroy the Jewish people. Both Abraham and Balaam saddle their asses early in the morning and take two lads with them; both are stopped by an angel before killing their companion. In both episodes they climb mountains and there is a burnt offering. Finally, both episodes end with a blessing for the Jewish people.

The second consideration appeals to our affection for symmetry and balance: Abraham is the righteous person who appeals to God in order to save a wicked people from destruction, while Balaam is the wicked person who appeals to God in order to achieve the destruction of a righteous people. Further, while Balaam seeks a generous reward for cursing the Children even though he fails in this mission, Abraham spurns a generous reward that is his for the taking after he secures the defeat of the Five Kings.

Abraham versus Balaam: how judgemental should we be?

Mishnah 5:22 of Avot highlights the character of one of the most intriguing personalities in the Torah: Balaam, of whom we read a great deal in this week’s Torah portion. The Mishnah reads, in translation, like this:

Whoever possesses the following three traits is among the disciples of our father Abraham, but whoever possesses three other traits is among the disciples of the wicked Balaam. The disciples of our father Abraham have a generous outlook, a meek spirit and a humble soul. The disciples of the wicked Balaam have a malevolent outlook, a haughty spirit and an avaricious gross soul.

The Mishnah then goes on to contrast their respective fates:

What is the difference between the disciples of our father Abraham and the disciples of the wicked Balaam? The disciples of our father Abraham benefit in this world and inherit the World To Come [proof texts omitted].

There is more to this teaching than meets the eye, since it meshes in well with two earlier mishnayot and in a way highlights the difference between them.

Many commentators have pointed to the significance of the explicit mention in this mishnah of the number three, among them Rabbi Shalom Noach Berezovsky in his Netivot Shalom. Since we can all see that the Mishnah lists three positive character traits and their opposites, we don’t need a Tanna to teach us how to count. But we must understand what the Mishnah is telling us: “three” means “three and no more than three”. Why is this point so important?

As Rabbi Berezovsky indicates, all three of these signs by which one can distinguish a follower of Abraham from an adherent of Balaam are attitudes and therefore invisible to the naked eye. A person can look pious, dress modestly and go about the business of behaving him- or herself in a perfectly respectful manner and yet be rotten to the core.

Yehoshua ben Perachyah (Avot 1:6) tells us to judge our fellow humans on the basis of their merits. Rabbi Meir however (Avot 4:27) reminds us that we should look at the wine rather than the bottle, in other words that we should look to a person’s inner nature rather than to the outward signs of his or her character. Where we contrast the followers of Abraham with those of Balaam, we are therefore encouraged to give people the benefit of the doubt with regard to their motivation regarding any deed that may be either right or wrong—but neither are we to assume that a person is righteous simply on account of a failure to do anything that appears to be wrong.