Everything Depends On Middos

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah

In this week’s parsha we are introduced to a gentile prophet, Bilaam. He is known in our history as Bilaam Harasha because he tried to use the tremendous spiritual powers Hashem gave him to harm Klal Yisrael. Why did Hashem give such a wicked man the power of prophecy?

Rashi (22:4) answers that Bilaam serves as a refutation to the gentiles, who may try to claim that had there been a prophet in their midst, they would have done teshuva and become holy like the Jews. By supplying them with Bilaam, the goyim no longer have such an excuse.

Ironically, Bilaam made the gentiles worse. Rashi explains that until Bilaam, the gentiles had restrained themselves from sins of immorality, but Bilaam undid that by advising them to employ such sins in trying to bring about Yisrael’s downfall (Rashi, ibid.).

Still, couldn’t the gentiles claim: Hashem, why didn’t you give us a good prophet? Instead you gave us Bilaam Harasha!

Rav Aharon Yehuda Leib Steinman answers that there was no one among them to give, because what a person does with his abilities – even the ability of prophecy — depends on his middos. No human being is born without some bad middah that he must work on. “A man is born a wild-donkey” (Iyov 1:12), and this applies to gentiles and Jews alike. There was no gentile at the time who was constantly working to perfect his middos. Therefore, any powers of prophecy they would have received would have been ruined by bad middos. The Rambam (Yesodei HaTorah 7:1) describes a prophet: “He is mighty [in dealing] with his middos… and he makes his mind rule over his evil inclination at all times.” Anything less than that leads only to ruination.

This applies to all of us at our level. A person’s middos direct the way in which he develops. The more he works on his middos, the more he can bring out his abilities and succeed. However, if he fails to work on himself, his bad middos will lead him in the wrong direction. The greater his abilities, the worse he will become.

Since middos ultimately determine whether we succeed in our task in life or not, Rav Chaim Vital asks: Why is there no specific mitzvah commanding us to refine our middos? How could something so critical to our progress in ruchniyus be left out of the Torah entirely?

Rav Chaim Vital answers that refining one’s middos is so basic to avodas Hashem that it goes without saying. It is a prerequisite whose importance is self-evident and needs no support from a commandment. In fact, middos play such a key role in our spiritual lives that, in Rav Chaim Vital’s words, “one must be more careful in middos than in mitzvos, because without that, one lacks the basis for fulfilling mitzvos” (Shaarei Kedusha 1:202).

This principle helps to answer a puzzling statement in Pirkei Avos (Chapter 5): “If one has a good eye, a humble temperament and a lowly spirit, he is of the talmidim of Avraham Avinu.  Whoever has an evil eye, a haughty temperament and an insatiable spirit is of the talmidim of Bilaam Harasha.”

We can ask: These are three aspects of a person, but do they sum up the difference between Avraham and Bilaam? Surely they differed in innumerably more ways! One was a tzaddik and the other was a rasha!

Rather, this Mishna goes directly to the root of the difference between them: middos.

Bilaam teaches us that even one who possesses a brilliant mind  can descend to the level of a fool due to his bad middos, says Rabbeinu Bachye. Bilaam failed to see even the most obvious things. His own donkey began arguing with him, and even won the argument! Was this normal? Couldn’t he see that Hashem was performing miracles in order to stop him from carrying out his diabolical plan?

Moreover, did Bilaam really think Hashem would let him curse Klal Yisrael? Bilaam declares himself a “yode’a daas Elyon,” that he was privy to Hashem’s thoughts! He therefore serves as an eternal reminder that no level of genius, not even the highest level of prophecy, can help a person who does not work to improve his character. Bilaam’s being “privy to Hashem’s thoughts” notwithstanding, he made stupid errors that none of us would have made.

Many of us assume that we have nothing in common with Bilaam, but perhaps we too harbor such bad middos inside of us, wonders Rav Levinstein. Perhaps a nisayon will bring them to the fore just as happened to Bilaam. How many of us can truly claim that we are happy with our fellowman’s success? How many of us run away from kavod? How do we really feel about money? Are we excited by it? Maybe inside we are quite close to being considered among Bilaam’s disciples.

How can we uproot such bad aspects of ourselves? First, one must identify his weak points, and then work on them constantly, studying sections of Mussar sefarim that deal with his issues, and taking small but consistent steps to correct them.

Once, the principal of a Talmud Torah had to decide between two potential teachers. He came to the Chazon Ish, explaining that one of them had more teaching experience, while the other had much more refined middos.

“Hire the teacher who has better middos,” replied the Chazon Ish, “because this is the root, and one needs to work on this from a young age.”

A person must begin a career of perfection of character while still a youth, and of course, this must remain his lifelong task, a never-ending process of self-perfection.

Rav Chaim Friedlander was mashgiach of Yeshivas Ponovezh, and was known by all as a man of the highest level of perfection in middos. Toward the end of his life, when his doctors told him that his end was near, he asked Rav Shach (who had come to be mevaker choleh): “What should I work on in these last few months?”

“Work on making your good middos even better,” replied Rav Shach.

May we be zocheh to make perfection of character our life’s work!