Summary of the Parasha
Balak, king of Moab, sees what Israel did to the Amorites and is afraid. With the elders of Midian, he sends for Balaam son of Beor, a prophet of the nations, to curse Israel. God tells Balaam: “Do not go with them, do not curse this people, for it is blessed”. Balak sends a second, more distinguished delegation; God allows Balaam to go, but to say only what He tells him.
On the way, Balaam’s donkey sees an angel with a drawn sword and turns aside three times; Balaam beats her, and she opens her mouth: “What have I done to you?” Then Balaam sees the angel. The Rambam (Guide for the Perplexed) explains that the episode took place in a prophetic vision; the Ramban defends the literal reading of a real miracle.
Balak takes Balaam to three summits; each time seven altars are built and Balaam, instead of cursing, blesses: “How can I curse whom God has not cursed?”, “a people that dwells alone and is not counted among the nations”; “God is not a man that He should lie”; and the third time, seeing Israel’s tents arranged to protect each family’s privacy: “Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, how goodly are your tents, Jacob”, the verse that opens the morning prayers. Furious, Balak dismisses him; Balaam then prophesies about the end of days: “A star shall come forth from Jacob, a scepter shall rise from Israel”, which the Rambam reads as a prophecy of the Mashiach, and about Amalek, the Kenites and other nations.
But the parasha ends with a fall: at Shittim, the people are drawn with the daughters of Moab into the worship of Baal Peor, on Balaam’s advice (Numbers 31:16). A plague strikes and 24,000 die. Pinchas, Aaron’s grandson, rises and kills Zimri and the Midianite princess who were publicly defiling the camp; the plague stops.
Summary of the Haftara
“V’Hayah She’erit Yaakov” (“The remnant of Jacob shall be”)
Text in Micah 5:6–6:8
Micah announces that the remnant of Jacob will be among the peoples “like dew from Hashem” and like a lion among the beasts of the forest; God will destroy idolatry. Then God pleads with His people: “My people, what have I done to you? I brought you up from Egypt… Remember what Balak king of Moab plotted, and what Balaam answered him”. The haftara ends with one of the finest verses in the Bible: “With what shall I come before Hashem? With thousands of rams?… He has told you, O man, what is good: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
Parasha-Haftara Connection
The prophet explicitly names Balak and Balaam: God turned the curse into a blessing, proof of His love for Israel. And to those who think everything can be bought with sacrifices, like Balak with his seven altars, Micah answers that God wants justice, kindness and humility.