"He took up his parable, and said: This is the
word of Balaam the son of Be'or, and the saying of the man with the blinded eye. (Num. 24:3)
"This is the saying of the man who sees well." (Onkelos)
I heard in the name of the Baal Shem Tov the
intention of Onkelos here. The Midrash asks why G·d chose to rest His
Presence on such a wicked gentile as Balaam? And it answers, so that the gentile
nations will not have any allegation [against G·d] saying, "Had you given
us prophets, we too would have improved our ways."1
It is known, though, that the attainment of prophecy requires very great
holiness. Now, a person has five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch.
These correspond to five spiritual senses, as it is written: "My heart has
seen much wisdom", (Ecclesiastes 1:17) "You have given to Your servant a
listening heart", (I Kings 3:9) "And he shall smell with the fear of G·d".
(Isaiah 11:3)
And likewise with the other senses. (See
Midrash Raba, Eccl. 1:36) When a
person purifies and sanctifies his external [physical] sense, holiness rests
upon his spiritual ones, and the spirit of prophecy descends upon him.
...G·d...blinded him in one of his eyes, and...holiness and prophecy rested upon it.
But the wicked Balaam was the opposite of this. He defiled all of his physical
senses, as our Rabbis said, that he practiced bestiality with his donkey. (Sanhedrin
105a) In addition, he was a necromancer, a diviner,
a sorcerer, and a soothsayer. How was it possible for prophecy to have rested
upon him? It was not possible! And yet, it was extremely necessary for him to
become a prophet, so that the nations of the world could not have a claim
[against G·d], "You rejected us!" But the matter was still very
difficult, for there was no idea what could be done with him. What did G·d
do? He blinded him in one of his eyes, and because he could not sin with that
eye, holiness and prophecy rested upon it.
The Targum reveals this to us by translating "blinded eye" as "who sees well."
That is, because he was blind in one of his eyes, he was able to see well with
prophetic vision. But had he not been blind in that eye, there would not have
been any way for prophecy to rest upon him.
[Translation from Sefer Baal Shem Tov and commentary by Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Shore; first posted on //BaalShemTov.com]
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