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Why did Balak fear Jewish conquest more than Sichon and Og's brutal dominion? The Midrash on "vayar" reveals that wicked vision seeks immorality. Balak preferred military subjugation under Sichon and Og, which preserved his license for moral hefker, over Jewish moral governance that would constrain his roving eye.
This shiur explores the Midrash's interpretation of "Vayar Balak ben Tzipor" and the nature of wicked vision through three interconnected Midrashic statements. The first Midrash suggests that Balak saw how all other nations failed to conquer the Jewish people despite their attempts at subjugation, leading him to seek a different approach - not physical destruction but spiritual uprooting through Bilam's curse. The second Midrash states that "it would be better for the wicked to be blind because their vision brings evil to the world," connecting Balak's "vayar" to other biblical instances of destructive seeing: the sons of God seeing the daughters of man, Cham seeing Noach's nakedness, and Pharaoh's servants seeing Sarah. Rabbi Zweig initially questions this connection, noting that those other cases involved lustful desires while Balak's vision seemed defensive.
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Parshas Balak
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