The Angel’s Mistake

Ten things were created at twilight on the first Shabbat. Or maybe it was thirteen things. Or maybe fourteen.

God definitely created Balaam’s donkey’s mouth then (was the rest of the donkey created before twilight? or at the same time as her mouth?). God may also have created the ram that Abraham sacrificed at that time – or maybe not.

I think Balaam’s donkey and Abraham’s ram studied together and were best friends for the hundreds of years before the ram’s time came. God taught them how to create with their words, and the donkey and the ram were better at creating than any human that has ever lived.

The donkey and the ram could teach people how to bless with such powerful blessings that they forgot how to curse.

But the angel of the Lord botched things with the ram. He stopped Abraham from killing Isaac before the Lord had a chance to open the ram’s mouth – and Abraham killed the ram before the ram could speak. Had Abraham listened to the ram, he would have offered branches from the thicket the ram was caught in – a thicket of palm, myrtle, willow, and citron – and his heart would have opened and he would have given Isaac such a great blessing that we would be reciting it instead of the priestly blessing. But the ram got sacrificed – and so did Isaac’s blessing – and God had to give Isaac the blessing of his father after his father died.

The angel learned from his mistake. The Lord opened the mouth of Balaam’s donkey to talk to him before Balaam opened his mouth to curse Israel – an open mouth out of which blessings came, not curses. The donkey’s words were so powerful that Balaam gave a blessing they sing in the synagogue every morning. I think the donkey taught Balaam those words.

But because the angel botched things, we will never in this world know the blessing Abraham was supposed to give to Isaac.