Parshat Balak - How to Merit Torah
by Rabbi Lobel

On their way to the land of Israel , the Jewish nation approaches the land of the Moabites. Their king, Balak, was afraid to meet the same fate as Sihon and Og. He summoned Bilam, the greatest prophet among the gentiles, to invoke a curse upon the holy nation "for I know that whomever you bless is blessed and whomever you invoke curse upon is cursed." (Chapter 22, verse 6)

However, as Bilam himself testified, he was only to speak what G-d placed in his mouth. In Bilam's first attempt to imprecate the Children of Israel the following occurred:

"G-d had put an utterance in Bilam's mouth, and said, 'Go back to Balak and thus you shall speak.' He returned to him (Balak) and behold! He was standing by his burnt offering, he and all the officers of Moab. He (Bilam) declaimed his parable and said:

'From Aram, Balak, king of Moab, led me from the mountains of the east, come invoke a curse upon Jacob (Israel) for me, come bring anger upon Israel. How can I (Bilam) imprecate? G-d has not imprecated. How can I anger, when G-d has not been angry? From its beginnings, I see it rock like, and from the hills do I view it. Behold, it is a nation ( Israel ) that will dwell in solitude and not be reckoned among the nations of the world. Who has counted the dust of Jacob or numbered a quarter of Israel? May my soul die the death of the upright, and may my end be like this!'

Balak said to Bilam, 'what have you done to me! To imprecate my enemy I had brought you; but behold, you have even blessed!'

Bilam spoke up and said, 'Is it not so, that whatever G-d places in my mouth, that I must take heed to speak?" (Numbers; Chapter 23, verses 5 - 12)

The Yalkut Shemoni (767) explains that Bilam's words of, "who has counted the dust of Jacob" refer to those people who dress their best for Shobbos and Yom Tov and gather at the dust of the feet of the elderly and righteous to listen to their words of Torah. According to the Yalkut, Jacob told his son, Yissachar, "What caused you to be so prolific in Torah, is it not that you bear its yoke among the dust of the earth and its boundaries."

The Yalkut Shemoni further explains that this is in reference to the verse in Genesis (49:14), "Yissachar is a strong bonded donkey, crouching between the boundaries." Rashi explains that just as a donkey is able to bear the yoke of his load so too Yisachar bears the yoke of Torah.