NAALEH.COM and YU TORAH Ludicrous Licentiousness Parshat Balak 5773 By: Mrs. Shira Smiles

Most of Parshat Balak recounts King Balak hiring of the prophet Balaam to curse Bnei Yisroel and the subsequent blessings Hashem puts in Balaam’s mouth instead of the planned curses. Unable to turn Hashem’s wrath against Bnei Yisroel through curses, Balaam suggest another tactic to arouse God’s ire: Entice the men of Bnei Yisroel to sin with beautiful Moabite girls who will get them to worship their idol Baal Peor. That would surely arouse God’s anger and wreak havoc against Bnei Yisroel, their mutual enemy. Unfortunately, this plan succeeds. The worship of Baal Peor was the most depraved of all idol worship and involved performing one’s bodily functions before this god. Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz of the Mirrer Yeshiva raises two major questions on this sequence of events. First, what is the connection between cohabiting with the Moabite women and worshipping Baal Peor, and secondly, how could Bnei Yisroel fall to such a depraved level. click here for Summary by Channie Koplowitz Stein.