Parshas Balak: Assimilation Was Bilam's Final Chance
After Bilam was unsuccessful at cursing Bnei Yisroel, before leaving he gave Balak an idea. Since "their Hashem hates immorality", lure them to the daughters of your nation. The gemara in Sanhedrim 106a says that we see this from the pasuk "Licha Iatzicha Asher Yaaseh HaAm HaZeh LiAmecha", I will advise you what this people will do to your people. The gemara asks that this seems to imply what Bnei Yisroel will do to Moav and not vice versa. And how do we see what the gemara says in the words of this pasuk?
The Iturei Torah brings from Rebbi Akiva Eiger's son-in-law Rav Shmuel Birnbaum of Dubna as follows. The gemara says that if a Jewish man father's a child with a non-Jewish woman the child is not Jewish. With this halacha we can explain the pasuk. Licha Iatzicha" I will advise you. "Asher Yaaseh HaAm HaZeh LiAmecha", how you can make this Jewish nation into your own nation. That is where the gemara sees that the strategy that Bilam suggested to Balak was immorality and assimilation. Through this, all the Jewish offspring will disappear replaced by a generation of children that are not Jewish.
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