Taste of Torah
13 Tammuz 5785 / July 9, 2025

Parashat Balak
Talking Animals and Other Magical Creatures in Torah
​​Torah Portion: Numbers 22:2-25:9
Haftarah Portion: Micah 5:6-6:8

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Shalom!

Generally speaking, the Torah seems quite clear in its opposition to magic, sorcery, and divination. We are told: “You shall not tolerate a sorceress” (Exodus 22:18). And also: “You shall not practice divination or soothsaying” (Leviticus 19:26). Not to mention: “Let no one be found among you who … is an augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead” (Deuteronomy 18:10-11). But this week’s Torah portion, Balak, is named after the Moabite king who hires Balaam, a sorcerer, to curse the Israelites… and the portion is also most well-known for featuring a talking donkey.

We might expect a magical creature to be considered an abomination, given the Torah’s insistence that magic is bad and God is the exclusive source of miracles. But as it turns out, that talking donkey is actually sanctioned by God. The animal is able to perceive “the messenger of Adonai” (Numbers 22:22) that is trying to keep Balaam from doing Balak’s will. This is why the donkey swerves off the road several times, preventing its owner from casting his intended spell.

In fact, rabbinic tradition holds that the talking donkey was created by God, in the liminal time after the six days of creation but before the first Shabbat starts.[i]

Ultimately, Balaam – guided by his talking donkey – gives up on cursing the Israelites. Instead of doing the job he was hired to do, he becomes a mouthpiece for God, uttering a now-famous blessing upon the Israelites: “How fair are your tents, O Jacob / Your dwellings, O Israel!” (Numbers 24:5). So it’s fair to say that Jewish tradition is somewhat variable on the issue of divination and magic… especially since the talking donkey in this parashah is by no means the only magical creature in the Hebrew Bible.

In fact, one of the earliest Torah stories features a talking animal so familiar that its oddity is easy to overlook. The destiny of human beings hinges on the actions of the shrewd snake, who reassures the first woman: “You are not going to die, but God knows that as soon as you eat of [the tree in the middle of the garden] your eyes will be opened and you will be like divine beings who know good and bad” (Genesis 3:4-5).

A few generations later, right before the story of Noah, we learn about a mysterious race of beings called the Nephilim, “divine beings [who] cohabited with the human women, who bore them offspring” (Genesis 6:4). The medieval French commentator Rashi claims the name Nephilim comes from the Hebrew root nun-peh-lamed (to fall or throw down) and was given to them because they brought about the downfall of the world.[ii]

Rashi understands Nephilim to be giants, a scale of size that they share with the Leviathan—which is yet another magical creature mentioned several places in Tanakh. The prophet Isaiah talks of the Leviathan when he foretells of an “elusive … twisting serpent … the dragon of the sea” (Isaiah 27:1), while the Psalms suggest the monster might have multiple heads (Psalms 74:15), and Job claims it has scales and breathes fire and smoke (Job 41:7, 11-13).

But it’s hard to top the story of shamir –  a small, rock-gobbling worm that assisted King Solomon in building the Temple.[iii] What’s more, Solomon is said to have fought Ashmedai, the drunken king of the demons, for the shamir. On top of that, the path to its acquisition apparently required Solomon to make it through “the angelic minister of the sea” and “a wild rooster,” who kills itself after it loses the shamir to Solomon.[iv] (Yes, these bizarre narratives do indeed exist in our sacred texts!) And the shamir, like the talking donkey, numbers among the additional things said to have been created by God at twilight on that sixth day of creation.

What can the rabbis mean by offering us such wild tales? The story of the shamir answers a textual problem: God tells King David he has too much blood on his hands to be able to build God’s temple; it will be his son who will accomplish the task (I Chronicles 22:8-9). Seemingly miraculously, the Temple is built with uncut stones, and “no hammer or axe or any iron tool was heard in the House while it was being built” (I Kings 6:7). The shamir is posited as the answer to this seeming impossibility: It allows us to imagine the dwelling place of God as being constructed without exploitation.

Maybe that’s the biggest invitation we receive from all these magical creatures: an invitation to imagination. To envision other turns a tale might take. As we read the story of the talking donkey this Shabbat, may we be attuned to the possibilities present in a fantastical tale. What reality does the fiction allow us to face? 

Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Salem Pearce
Director of Spirituality
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[i] Mishnah Pirkei Avot 5:9.
[ii] Rashi on Genesis 6:4.
[iii] Babylonian Talmud Sotah 48b.
[iv] Babylonian Talmud Gittin 68a-b.

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