<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Rb'n Toby asked: I haven't looked at the meforshim but does anybody comment on how strange <br>it was for Bil'am to engage in conversation with his donkey? <div><br></div><div>A very cogent response is given by Prof. Yitzhak Levine in a lecture he gave in 1999 on Parashat Balak</div><div>entitled: <b><p style="display: inline !important; ">Did Balaam's Ass Speak to Him?</p></b> Prof. Levine says: <b><p style="display: inline !important; ">The assumption that the story of Balaam </p></b></div><div><b><p style="display: inline !important; ">and his ass was experienced in a dream, a prophetic dream of Balaam's, is consonant with Maimonides' </p></b></div><div><b><p style="display: inline !important; ">view on this event as set forth in <i>Guide for the Perplexed</i>, especially Part III, ch. 52. Maimonides' opinion </p></b></div><div><b><p style="display: inline !important; ">follows from his consistent assumption that alprophecy and all visions of angels and the like that are recounted </p></b></div><div><b><p style="display: inline !important; ">to us by Scripture were experienced in a dream and were not things that actually took place in the external waking </p></b></div><div><b><p style="display: inline !important; ">hours of reality, save for the prophecy of Moses. This argument is based first and foremost on an analysis of what </p></b></div><div><b><p style="display: inline !important; ">is said in Numbers, chapter 12, and on his philosophical analysis of the essence of prophecy and the definition of </p></b></div><div><b><p style="display: inline !important; ">the concept of an angel.</p><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; ">There are those who would consider this interpretation as near heresy. However, I believe we have much documentation</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; ">to the contrary and it is said that just because one doesn't subscribe to this interpretation is reason to attack an opinion</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; ">contrary. </span></div><div><br></div></b></div></body></html>