Musar sobre Números 23:5

Now we understand what is meant by the Talmud that "Moses wrote his own book and the book of Bileam." Do not err to think that only because G–d taught him did Moses reach levels Bileam had reached, and that his learning was vicarious, second hand. Rather, Moses had attained the levels Bileam had attained by his own independent intellectual and spiritual efforts. The Talmud tells us that Moses learned all this as an experience, not like we learn history, i.e. from books describing what happened once to someone else.. Whatever Bileam had been able to work out by himself concerning Israel's future, Moses had been able to work out without special assists from G–d. What the Talmud means is that actually the whole portion of Bileam could just as easily have been recorded by Moses without instruction from G–d. There would have been no need for Bileam to pronounce blessings to enable us to learn all the lessons that our sages derive from them. The only "novelty" in the whole phenomenon is the fact that the קטיגור, "counselor for the prosecution," turned into a סניגור, "attorney for the defense." This is something that could only have occurred through Bileam, since he was Moses' counterpart among the nations. We have now illustrated the statement we set out from. The סטרא אחרא is bound to become a source of blessing if one only traces it far enough towards its holy source. We have described this earlier as "blood turning into milk." It follows (again as we have tried to describe earlier) that it is the Gentile nations who are in reality the source of Israel's refinement and consequently of its redemption.

It may well be that this is what Rashi meant when he described the שכינה as supplying extra attributes to each of these blessings. When Rashi comments in Sanhedrin 106, that a בת קול, a "heavenly echo," added the words נטע השם in 24,6, this need not be meant literally, but refers to a prophetic insight granted Bileam by G–d at the time, which he was forced to express. Since it had been his original intention to employ the formula of blessing as a curse, the term בת קול used by Rashi is quite appropriate. Just as an echo is a follow-up to the original sound, so these words were "follow-ups" to the first part of the blessing. In the discussion of the Talmud of Bileam's blessings on folio 105, Rabbi Eleazar says that the words וישם השם דבר בפי בלעם, refers to an angel who instructed Bileam, whereas Rabbi Yonathan says that G–d put a fishhook in Bileam's mouth, i.e. He had to pronounce this prophecy whether he liked it or not.