How hypocritical can one be? Bilaam, who represents the nadir of depravity, sought to die the death of the upright. He wanted to be like the Avos HaKedoshim, while living a life counterintuitive to everything they represented. On the other hand, Bilaam was no ordinary pagan. He was their greatest prophet, a man who peered in the loftiest spiritual realms, who could articulate blessings of extraordinary depth; yet, he lived a life driven by base desire, ego and moral turpitude. He wanted to die like a tzadik, but he refused to live as one.
A tzadik is not defined by the way he dies – regardless of the clear sacredness of the moment. He is defined by the way he lives. A tzadik faces daily spiritual challenges/ opportunities during which he makes correct choices that reflect his discipline, restraint and moral courage. Bilaam was well aware of what it takes to achieve tzadik status, but he sought to bypass the process, because it was too demanding. Instead, he “opted” for the result. One cannot harvest what he does not plant, and one cannot establish a legacy unless he lives it. What Bilaam asked for was not only hypocritical; it was impossible!
Bilaam represents one who wants to live an unrestrained life, in which religious boundaries, which have been the staple of our people for centuries, are now viewed as archaic; yet, he conceals his spiritually and morally nefarious behavior in a cloak of righteousness. It did not end with Bilaam. Indeed, this tension appears in every generation. A person distances himself from his identity, waters down his religious commitments, does not publicly want to acknowledge his heritage, but the moment someone “wrongly” calls him a sheigetz, he recoils with anger, claiming to be deeply insulted: “How dare you have the temerity to exclude me from Judaism?”
One major difference, however, exists between the lost Jew and Bilaam. Down beneath all the spiritual dross the Jew is the Pintele Yid, a holy neshamah that does not disappear. That is where he yearns and weeps. That is where he protests. Unfortunately, sentiment alone cannot sustain identity: “I feel Jewish; I feel for the Jewish people. It hurts me when an anti-Semitic act of terror occurs.” Sadly, one cannot live floundering in the water and expect to be anchored. Once the rope that ties the ship to shore is severed, the ship is unmoored and subject to the menacing waves that destroy its ability to navigate its course and return to dock, although they do not cause it to capsize. In defense of such people, we can only say that they still want to remain in some way anchored. They just want to extend the rope as far as possible.
Horav Yaakov Galinsky, zl, relates the following story. One of the heads of the Histadrut, labor federation, a devout secular Zionist with absolutely no leanings toward the religion of his parents went swimming off the shore of Tel Aviv. A strong current came along and began to pull him under. A frum man saw the man fighting for his life, jumped in the water and heard the man scream, “I am not chozeir b’teshuvah. I absolutely do not repent!” He screamed this over and over again, as the man pulled him from the water, saving his life.
As he recuperated in the hospital, his rescuer visited him. He had one question: “Why did you scream that you refused to do teshuvah? Have you distanced yourself so far from religion that, even when you confront the angel of death, you refuse to repent?”
The man’s response is telling, and it supports the Bilaam syndrome which has metastasized to so many of our people: “I grew up in Europe in a very devout Chassidic home. When the winds of secular Zionism began to blow, many of my friends and I were swept along. We, too, wanted to go to the Holy Land as chalutzim, pioneers, to establish a Jewish state. Our new religion was the Holy Land with Zionism as its idol. (Apparently, they neglected to include the other 612 mitzvos.) When I shared my decision with my father, he was distraught, but what could he do? So many Jewish homes were undergoing a similar religious transformation. He said that he could not stop me from going, but he made one last request: ‘Could I, please, go to our Rebbe and ask for a bircas preidah, blessing for a successful journey and future?’ Although at this point in my life, I was quite distant from the concept of a Rebbe and his blessing, I loved my father and did not want to hurt him more than necessary. I agreed to visit the Rebbe and petition his blessing. I put on a yarmulke, even though I no longer believed in anything. I was going purely to assuage my father’s pain. The Rebbe looked at me and said, ‘You grew up here and were exposed to the sacred life of a religious Jew. However, a Jew is a baal bechirah, blessed with free will. You have decided to renege your Yiddishkeit. I want you to know that you will not leave this world without repenting your ways.’I bid the Rebbe farewell, removed my yarmulke, threw it into the garbage and prepared for a new, bright future as a chalutz.
“When I went swimming last week, and the current was pulling me down, I saw my departure from this world becoming a reality. I remembered the Rebbe’s blessing that I would not die without teshuvah, so I screamed that I was absolutely not repenting. I knew that nothing else could save me from certain death.”
Now, let us analyze this man. Truthfully, he is messed up and suffering from Bilaam syndrome. He has no hope for survival other than a deeply rooted conviction in the Rebbe’s blessing. Can a person be more mixed up than this? Is he a believer or an apikores, heretic? He opted to live like a goy, but still wanted/expected to die as a Jew. The Pintele Yid would just not allow him to throw it all away.
