Balak: intelligence

Balak: intelligence

 

 Bilam is given two missions. Ta'or: curse and kavah: imprecate.

Much is made in the parsha of Bilam's inability to stray from the word of Gd.  So his curses turn to blessings, angering his employer Balak.

But ultimately, what Bilam is doing is gathering intelligence.  He is identifying the characteristics of the children of Israel that confer an advantage upon them:  Their  lack of idolitry, their mutual respect, their unity.

Ultimately, Bilam  and Balak use that intelligence to undermine them. They inject immorality into the camp which results in idolatry, envy and disunity. In the end, the children of israel are plagued and kill each other.

 

The kava is related to the serpent in Eden. ( Berashith 3:15) ... Vi'atah tishuphenu okev; and you will bite his heel.  Yaakov is named for holding onto the heel of Esau.  This is the Achilles heel that Bilam finds. Look also at the next to last verse in today's parsha ( Bamidbar 25:8) 

 

 

ח  וַיָּבֹא אַחַר אִישׁ-יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל-הַקֻּבָּה, וַיִּדְקֹר אֶת-שְׁנֵיהֶם--אֵת אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְאֶת-הָאִשָּׁה אֶל-קֳבָתָהּ; וַתֵּעָצַר, הַמַּגֵּפָה, מֵעַל, בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל.

8 And he went after the man of Israel into the chamber, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from

 

Kav appears twice.  Here it means chamber:the room into which the couple go  and the womb. Places of vulnerability.

 

The Quba Mosque (Quba' Masjid or Masjid al-Quba, Arabic: مسجد قباء) just outside Medina in Saudi Arabia, is the oldest mosque of Saudi Arabia. Its first stones were positioned by the prophet Muhammad on his emigration from the city of Mecca to Medina and the mosque was completed by his companions. Muhammad spent more than 20 nights in this mosque http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quba_Mosque

 

 

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