From: "joshhoff@aol.com" <joshhoff@aol.com>
<br>To: "joshhoff@aol.com" <joshhoff@aol.com>
<br>Sent: Thursday, July 7, 2011, 05:42:08 PM EDT
<br>Subject: Netvort: parshas Balak, 5771

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                                              Whitewash
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                By Rabbi Joshua (colorfully known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
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Bilaam, on his way to curse the Jews at the bequest of Balak, is taken, by his she-donkey, to a narrow place and pressed against a wall. Rabbi Moshe Shapiro, in his commentary MiMaamakim, cites a Midrash Tanchuma to parshas Vayeitzei, which says that  Bilaam was actually Lavan, and he was beg punished for passing over the pile of stones which he and Yaakov had set up as a mutually -- accepted barer between them (see Bereishis, 32:12). . This is also mentioned in the Targum Yonasan ben Uziel  (academically  known as Pseudo- Jonathan).to Bamidbar, 22:24 Rabbi Shapiro  after citing these sources, goes on to explain why Bilaam is identified with Lavan.
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Lavan's goal, says Rabbi Shapiro, was to break down all barriers between Yaakov and himself, as reflected in his remark to Yaakov (Bereiishis, 31:43 that ' the  daughters are my daughters and the sons are my sons''. His dsire was that they would   merge into  one nation. This attempt at obliterating the uniquedahness of Yaakov and his family is the meaning of the verse in parshas Ki Savo which ,according to the way it is interpreted in the Pesach Haggadah, says that an Aramean  (Lavan) tried to destroy my father The Haggadah unfavorably  contrasts Lavan with Pharaoh , saying that Pharaoh made a decree  only against the Jewish males, while Lavan tried to uproot  everything. This means that Lavan tried to destroy  Jewish identity. Rabbi Meachem  M. Kasher, in his Haggadah Shleimah, elaborates on this attempt by Lavan to destroy  Jewish identity, and explains it to mean that he tried to influence them to worship idols.  The identification of Bilaam with Lavan, says Rabbi Shapiro, , is made because the thrust of all of Bilaam's attempted curses was to break down all the barriers between the Jewish people and  the other nations.<p>

Bilaam's attempts to curse the jews fail, and, instead, he delivers the blessings that God puts into his mouth to say. After delivering these  blessings for the Jews, Bilaam counsels Balak on how to bring the Jews to sin. He proposes a plan fro the daughters of Moav to entice the Jews to worship the idol of Ball Peor by  enticing them to have illicit sexual relations with them, and insisting that they first engage in worship of that idol. Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt;l, pointed out that the heinous nature of this plan of Bilaam, which evoked the zealous response of Pinchas in killing Zimri when he publicly had relations with a pagan princess, is that it combined the sins of idolatry and sexual immorality, and the two of them together  form a lifestyle totally in conflict with that of the Jewish people. Thus Bilaam, in giving his advice to Balak, was continuing the effort that he made when attempting to curse the Jews, which was to break down any barriers that existed between the Jewish people and other nations. Perhaps in this way the name Lavan is fitting for Bilaam. Lavan means white and white is actually an amalgam of all the colors of the spectrum, representing a lack of distinction among the various shads of the spectrum, which represents exactly what both Lavan and Bilaam sought to accomplish.