Heard the one about the donkey who laughed at the prophet?

• Published date: 26 June 2021
• Author: Daniel Pinner
• Date: 26 June 2021

In their fear – "Moab was very frightened of the nation, because it was so numerous" (v. 3) – Moab proposed an alliance with their neighbour, Midian

Moab and Midian are about to become allies?! Surely you jest! As several Midrashim (Bamidbar Rabbah 20:4, Tanhuma Balak 3, and Sifri, Numbers 157 and others) note, these two nations had been enemies for as long as anyone could remember: they had already been fighting each other centuries earlier, way back in Parashat Vayishlach (Genesis 36:35).

But when it came to fighting Israel, suddenly these two sworn enemies became friends!

Of course, today this joke has been repeated so many times, it has become somewhat jaded. Whether King Hussein of Jordan and President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt collaborating to attack Israel in 1967 after years of mutual hatred and repeated attempts to destroy each other, or Iraq and Kuwait, or the PLO and the Hamas, or Sunnis and Shiites, or neo-Nazis and communists, or white supremacists and Muslims – all these sworn enemies suddenly become friends and brothers when it comes to fighting Jews.

Come to that, lehavdil, even Yitzchak Rabin and Shimon Peres – two sworn, bitter, lifelong enemies – were able to make a temporary alliance in order to sign the Oslo Accords back in 1993 and condemn thousands of Jews to gruesome death.

If that doesn't make you laugh, nothing will.

But when the historic enemies Moab and Midian first allied with each other to fight against Israel, this joke was still fresh.

King Balak of Moab, needing a spiritual mercenary to fight Israel, called on the prophet Balaam, son of Beor, in Pethor in Aram (a few hundred miles away, north of the River Euphrates).

Explaining to him why he wanted this prophet to curse the Jews, he used his own subtle humour: "I know that whomever you bless is blessed, and whomever you curse is cursed" (Numbers 22:6).

He was, of course, parodying G-d's covenant with the Jewish nation – the nation whom he wanted to curse: "I will bless those who bless you, and he who curses you, I will curse" (Genesis 12:3).

If Balak knew of G-d's blessing to Abraham and its wording, then this message to Balaam is surely rank cynicism. And if Balaam knew of G-d's blessing to Abraham – which he may well have done, being a prophet who hailed from Aram, Abraham's birthplace – then his acceptance of Balak's parody of G-d's promise to Abraham is even worse.

Balaam, not entirely convinced by this royal humour, told the Moabite emissaries to stay overnight, "and...