Parsha:

Balak 

Description

Balak knew that he could not defeat the Jewish People physically, so he called upon Bilam to destroy us spiritually through a curse. Black magic is the real use of spiritual forces to go against the will of Hashem and thus destroy. Rav Kook describes two types of evil - Cosmic and Moral. He also expands upon the four basic ways that humanity has attempted to deal with suffering. One is making evil into good, one is escaping evil, one is avoiding the physical, and the last is fixing evil. Hashem ends opening Bilam's eye to see the ultimate good, which is the End of Days and the ulitimate revelation of complete tov (good). We should be careful not to fall in pessimism, yet also not fall prey to being blind to the reality that there is evil in the world.