Parashat Balak
„If the spiritual grows in its flood and seeks to sweep everything away, and matter and life are regarded as nothing and swept aside, that spirituality will not endure.”From Shemonah Kevatzim IV, 18
In this week's portion, Balak, we witness an exceptional event in the Torah, a donkey that opens its mouth. The commentators explain that the donkey is a symbol of materiality, and the fact that Balaam did not see it is part of the conception of the spirit in the non-Jewish world, in which the spirit is opposed to matter. In the conception of Judaism, by contrast, the spirit is not meant to nullify the body, but to elevate it. Balaam, who strikes his donkey again and again because it does not obey him, is like a person who lives contrary to his nature. He does not try to elevate it but to suppress it, and so too, for example, is the conception in Christianity that a holy person may not be married, and so on. Rav Kook warns: only when the spirit knows how to embrace the body as well, to elevate it and to listen to it, only then does it truly become light. This is the spirit that is not separate from life, but sanctifies it.
*
From the community archive of Mishpetei HaRav Kook — studying Rav Kook's teachings since 2011.