The prophetic donkey Not only can animals smell, hear and see things that humans cannot, at times they can even intuit spiritual forces of which humans seem to be oblivious. Both the Ramban and Rashi are intrigued by the capacity of Bilam’s donkey to “see an angel of Hashem” (Bamidbar 22:23). “Even humans do not see angels other than in visions or dreams,” [1] says the Ramban, “angels are spiritual forces that cannot be detected by the senses”. For this reason, he suggests initially, this particular animal simply intuited a danger that stopped its progress in its tr..

Bamidbar 19 Writing and teaching while I am traveling poses the challenge of discovering new insights with very limited resources by way ofsefarim. That’s not a bad thing: it makes me realize how dependent we are on the giants of Torah, both to stimulate our own thought processes and to verify them. When we don’t have access to the array of sefarim normally available (and I still haven’t got used to using the internet as a substitute,) we are left to our own resources. We are compelled to go deep inside ourselves to verify the truth of a thought or insight. I for one, certainly ..