Rabbi Israel Rider Explains Choice, Providence Through Balak and Rabbi Moshe Aaron Stern

In a special lesson on Parashat Balak, Rabbi Israel Rider discusses an apparent contradiction in God’s instructions to Balaam. At first, God says, “Do not go with them,” but later says, “Rise and go with them.” Even after Balaam sets out, an angel blocks his path with a drawn sword. Yet when Balaam asks, “If it displeases You, I will return,” the angel replies, “Go with the men.”

Rider cites the Talmud in Makkot for the principle, “In the way a person wants to go, he is led.” He explains that God initially prevents a person from taking a wrong path, but if the person persists, he is eventually allowed to proceed. That is why the Sages said, “One who comes to defile himself is given an opening, and one who comes to purify himself is assisted.” Balaam, driven by an inner attraction to evil, was permitted to choose that direction.

He contrasts that with someone who truly seeks holiness. Rabbi Rider recounts the story of the late mashgiach Rabbi Moshe Aaron Stern. As a child, Stern was seriously ill, and his father asked him to take on a spiritual resolution. He accepted never to pray without a minyan.

Years later, while traveling to the United States for yeshiva business, he landed in Amsterdam, knew no one, and did not know where to find a morning prayer quorum. A car suddenly stopped beside him, and a Jewish man asked where he needed to go. When Stern said he was looking for a minyan, the man brought him to a place where exactly eight Jews were waiting for the tenth. Stern would repeat the story with emotion as proof that “one who comes to purify himself is assisted.”