I may have gone a bit overboard, what with striking poses and brandishing my tool before the poor frightened ass, making her speak truth to the bigger ass that is her master and who sees nothing, but I could not resist; I am a dramaturge at heart.
He is a sneaky one, that Balaam. (You did catch the problem in his behaviour, did you not?) It is my job to let him know that we are not fooled, and to make him confront his deceitfulness. To that end I wave the sword in his face, but the ass protects him by swerving out of the way. What a loyal soul, and righteous, too, loudly protesting the beating she gets as a reward from her still-unseeing master.
I open Balaam's eyes and explain matters, and I truly believe he finally gets the point when, having twice reluctantly blessed the Israelites, as God commands, he seems enraptured by the vision of their encampment:
“How goodly your tents, O Jacob, / your dwellings, O Israel! / Like palm groves they stretch out, / Like gardens by a river, / Like aloes the Lord has planted, / Like cedars by the water” (Numbers 24:5-6).[i]
Such poetry! How can I not think that the lesson (in which I played a not inconsiderable part) has found root in Balaam’s heart, that this song is as much his own as it is the Lord’s.
But I am mistaken. Blinded by my sense of self-importance, I miss the significance of the denouement: “And Balaam rose and went and returned to his place, and Balak, too, went his way” (Numbers 24:25).
Balaam has learned nothing. Instead of throwing in his lot with the people he has just seen in all its glory, he goes back to his place, returning not only to where he came from, but to who he was: a hexer-for-hire.
And the ass? What place can there be in the world for a being so loyal, so filled with a sense of justice and integrity as Balaam’s ass? Can the two of them go back to being burden and beast of burden, master and slave? Can the speaker of truth be silenced again, to bray, but not to speak?
The story doesn't tell. I alone know that among the kerfuffle in Balak’s camp with all the blessing and damning and damning and blessing Eyzele wanders off to think things over, and somehow gets mixed in with the Midianite livestock. When Israel finally attacks, she is one of the 61,000 donkey souls taken as spoil, one of the 30,500 given to those who went out to the army, one of the 61 set aside as tax for the One Above (Numbers 31:31-39)—to be of pleasing odor to the Lord.
I know, and I grieve; it is my fault, my fault....
[i] Translation Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary (New York: Norton, 2004)
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