דבר תורה בלק

Lo, a people that rises like a lion, Leaps up like the king of beasts, Rests not till it has feasted on prey And drunk the blood of the slain.

BEHOLD A PEOPLE THAT RISETH UP AS A LIONESS. This hints that Israel will conquer the kings of Canaan. It seems most logical to interpret it this way regarding a soon-to-occur event, such as the war against Midian. A war like it was unprecedented. No Israelites were lost in this war and five kings died in it, along with thirty-two thousand females who never slept with a man.

הן עם כלביא יקום "Behold, it is a nation that arises like a lion etc." The word הן suggests that the speaker concurs with something another person has said. An example would be what we learned in Shabbat 119 that on Friday night when the Jew returns from the synagogue to a house in which the table is set for the Sabbath meal, also the "evil angel" who accompanies him has to answer Amen to the wish expressed by the "good angel" that this Jew should do likewise in the week to follow. [The concept is preserved in the song יום שבת קדש הוא sung on Friday night, i.e. ומלאך רע יענה אמן. Ed.] In our situation Bileam expressed the wish that the Israelites continue their virtuous ways. Bileam mentions two categories of lion in this verse. לביא refers to a lion that arises for the first time. Soldiers who are inexperienced in battle do not usually distinguish themselves for bravery the first time they go to war. Not so the lion. He displays bravery already the first time he faces an adversary. Bileam applies this quality to the Jewish people. The Jewish people proved valiant though they had a history of hundreds of years of slavery behind them. Nonetheless they overcame such mighty kings as Sichon and Og. Bileam continues וכארי יתנשא, saying that unlike other nations who gradually lose their strength, becoming exhausted by the many wars they fight, the Israelites will lift themselves up like a mature lion time and again without showing signs of age.

הן עם כלביא יקום וגו׳ BEHOLD, THE PEOPLE RISES AS A LIONESS, etc. — When they rise from their sleep in the morning they show themselves strong as a lioness and as a lion to “snatch at” the Divine precepts (to perform them immediately) — to clothe themselves with the Tallith, to read the Shema and to lay Tephillin (cf. Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 14).

One should strengthen himself like a lion to get up in the morning to serve his Creator, so that it is he who awakens the dawn. Rem"a: At least, one should not delay beyond the time when the congregation prays (Tur). Rem"a: "I have set the Lord before me constantly" (Psalms 16:8); this is a major principle in the Torah and amongst the virtues of the righteous who walk before God. For a person's way of sitting, his movements and his dealings while he is alone in his house are not like his way of sitting, his movements and his dealings when he is before a great king; nor are his speech and free expression as much as he wants when he is with his household members and his relatives like his speech when in a royal audience. All the more so when one takes to heart that the Great King, the Holy One, Blessed Is He, Whose glory fills the earth, is standing over him and watching his actions, as it is stated: "'Will a man hide in concealment and I will not see him?' - the word of God" (Jeremiah 23:24), he immediately acquires fear and submission in dread of God, May He Be Blessed, and is ashamed of Him constantly (Guide for the Perplexed III 52). And one should not be ashamed because of people who mock him in his service of God, and should also go modestly. And when he lies on his bed he should know before Whom he lies, and as soon as he wakes up from sleep he should rise eagerly to the service of his Creator, May He Be Blessed and Exalted (Tur).