Balak: The Appeal of Baal Peor (and Darwin)

Synopsis: This is the audio version of the 4-page article I wrote and published on rabbischneeweiss.substack.com/ on 6/24/26 (originally on 7/7/17) titled: Balak: The Appeal of Baal Peor (and Darwin). Worshiping an idol by defecating on it: what could the appeal possibly be, and what does it have to do with us today? Rav Hirsch has a theory, and it has to do with Darwinism.

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Transcript

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Hello, I'm Rabbi Matt Schneweiss, and this is the audio version of the four-page article I wrote and published on my Substack at rabbi Schneewiss.substack.com on June 24, 2026. Originally written on July 7th, 2017. And the article is titled Balak, The Appeal of Baal Pa'or and Darwin. Preface. When I wrote this back in 2017, I had very little awareness of ancient Near Eastern scholarship and the other fields of academia that have a bearing on topics such as these. Now, nine years later, I am well aware of the discrepancies between a what Khazal and Aur Muffarshim wrote based on the knowledge they had, B, what they knowingly wrote for homiletical, polemical, and other didactic reasons, C, what modern scholarship currently says, and D the historical reality which we may never know. I'm not going to attempt to rewrite this article with its contents neatly sorted into those four categories. I'll leave that to readers who are interested in such an exercise. My purpose here is to find meaning in the text, and as far as that is concerned, these classifications, the classifications mentioned above, scarcely matter. The facts. Parshis Balak concludes with yet another tragic wilderness episode. Quote, from Bamidbar 25, 1 through 3, Israel settled in Sheetim, and the people began to commit harlotry with the daughters of Moab. The women called the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. Israel attached itself to Baal Pa'or, and the wrath of Hashem flared against Israel. End quote. This mode of worship is alluded to in the deity's name. Pa'or Pein Raish means to open and denotes the opening of an orifice. In this case, the rectum, as we shall soon see. Thus, Baal Pa'or means master of the rectum opening. The written Torah mentions nothing about how Baal Pa'or is worship was worshipped, but the Oral Torah codifies it in a Mishnah. Quote, from Sanhedrin 7-6, one who defecates on Baal Pa'or is liable, for this is how it is customarily worshipped. End quote. The Gemara in Sanhedrin 64A provides a vivid description of how this was implemented in practice. Quote, Ravihuda said in the name of Rav, There was an incident involving a Gentile woman who was very sick. She said, If I am healed, I will go and worship all the Avodazara in the world. She was healed, and went to worship all of the Avodazara in the world. But when she came to the Avodazara of Pa'or, she asked one of the priests, How do you worship this one? He said, You eat and drink laxatives and defecate in its face. She said, I would rather be sick again than to worship Avodazara like this. End quote. The Gemara then reports that the highest level of Baalpa'or worship was, sadly, demonstrated by a Jew. Quote. But the Jews were not this way. There was an incident involving Savta ben Elas, who rented out his donkey to a Gentile woman. When they reached Pa'or, she said to him, Wait here until I go in, worship, and come out. After she came out, he said to her, You too wait for me until I go in, worship, and come out. She said, she asked him, But aren't you a Jew? He responded, That's none of your business. He went in, defecated in its face, and wiped himself on its nose, causing the priests to praise him, saying, We've never seen anyone worship like this before. End quote. The question. Those who learn these facts about Baalpa or for the first time are likely to react by falling to their knees, gazing heavenward with outspread palms and shouting, Why? As civilized Westerners with modern sensibilities, it's difficult enough to relate to standard of vodazara practices, such as bowing down to a statue or offering incense and libations, but at least we have a frame of reference for understanding that appeal and such the appeal in such rituals. Balpa'or, on the other hand, runs contrary to all of our common sense assumptions about religion, both modern and primitive. Human feces is regarded as repulsive across all cultures and time periods. The notion of a religion built around bowel movements strikes us as absurd. The question is, what was the appeal of Balpa'or? How could dung be devotion? How could people regard excrement as sacrament? How could Pu prove piety? Okay, that's enough scat talk for now. Rafersh's explanation. Rafersh on Bamidbar 25.3 offers a fascinating theory of Baalpaor which addresses this question. Quote There were various Baalim, deified powers. There was Ba'ziphon, a midnight god of the desert, Shemos 14.2. In contrast, there was Baal Maon, Bamidbar 3238, a god of dwelling places, and Baalbris, Shoftiam 833, a god of the union of people. There was also Balzavuv, Lord of the Flies, Malachim 2, 1-2, apparently a god of decay, to whom they would turn in times of illness and inquire of him about life and death. And there was also Baalpa'or, a god of shamelessness, who was worshipped by giving brazen prominence to the most bestial aspects of human life. Hence Hosea says, They came to Baal Pa'or and dedicated V'Naziru from the same root as Nazir themselves to shamefulness from Hosea 910. That is to say, they dedicated themselves to shamefulness. The cult of Pa'or is an illustration of the type of Darwinism that glories in man's descent to the level of the beast, where, stripping himself of his divinely given nobility, he comes to regard himself as merely a highly developed animal. End quote. To repeat Rehersh's answer, quote, Baal Pa'or was a god of shamelessness. They dedicated themselves to shamelessness, end quote. This, in essence, was the appeal of Baal Pa'or and its peculiar form of worship. Elucidating Rehersh. In order to understand the underlying philosophy and nature of this cult, we need a brief refresher on the relationship between shame and pleasure. Now I have an end note here. I don't usually have end notes, but this is uh, I made this an end note because it's a very, very long footnote. Um, and I'm actually not sure when I want to read it, so I think I'm gonna save it for the end, as end notes are supposed to be. So, note. This is on the relationship between shame and pleasure. Okay. Ever since, so this is back in the text. Ever since the khate, the sin of Adam and Khava, the human psyche has been forced to operate under the ever-present surveillance of the conscience. The fear, shame, and guilt generated by the conscience are virtually inescapable. Although the conscience was given to us for our benefit, as a counterforce to keep man's instinctual nature in check to help mitigate the consequences of the kate, it has also given rise to a number of difficulties, some of which are objective, for example, shoulds and religious guilt, and others of which are subjective. One of these subjective difficulties is the fact that it is impossible for us to simply enjoy pleasure like an animal does. Instead, we are compelled to justify our pursuit of pleasure within the parameters of the value systems, uh sorry, of the value systems to which we subscribe. When our pleasures run contrary to our values, we experience cognitive dissonance, usually in the form of fear, shame, or guilt. The easiest way to get out of this conflict is through rationalization. Rather than confronting the causes and effects of these moral failings, real or imagined, it is easier to explain away our misdeeds by coming up with excuses. If such moral lapses become habit, we tend to alter our value systems in order to legitimize our new pattern of behavior. Ultimately, morality yields to habit and desire. Perhaps the reason why the cult of Baal Pa'or, the god of shamelessness, was so attractive is that it granted license for the unbridled indulgence in physical pleasure by sanctifying the rejection of the conscience. In other words, the appeal was twofold. One, Baal Pa'or worshippers were granted the freedom to gratify all their basist animalistic desires. And two, their rebellious flaunting of shamelessness, epitomized the how in the hallowed ritual of public defecation, was imbued with religious value, thereby allowing them to bypass the cognitive dissonance that they ordinarily would have experienced. This dual allure of Balpa'or worship carries tremendous power. Imagine informing a lazy student that in that neglecting his homework and tearing up his tests will earn him an A in his least favorite class, or telling an alcoholic that nightly binge drinking will win him more free booze the next day. Similarly, if a priest of Balpa'or tells people there is a god who wants them to abandon themselves to their hedonistic tendencies, and that the path to freeing oneself from shame is to revel in shamelessness, such a religion is bound to attract a multitude of followers. Add to this the perk of not needing to pay exorbitant sums of money for lavish offerings, excluding the cost of food and laxatives, and you've got yourself a recipe for a powerful cult. We can now understand why the worship of the god of shamelessness was accompanied by the sexual dimension that the Torah emphasizes as the leading cause of the Israelites' downfall. On the surface, it would seem that there is no relationship between fecal rites and sexual promiscuity, but in light of Reversh's explanation, the connection is clear. The licentiousness of the daughters of Moab was sanctioned by the religion of shamelessness. Their unrestrained sexual depravity was fueled by their worship of Balpa'or, who, in their minds, found favor in acts of wanton debauchery. According to Reversch, this explains the enormous number of Jews who died as a result of their attachment to Balpa'or. Quote, from Bamidbar 25, 9, the number of those who died was 24,000, end quote. Reverse compares this tally to the number of deaths at the Chit Haegel, the sin of the Golden Calf, and offers an explanation for the discrepancy. Quote, in the incident of the Golden Calf, only 3,000 deaths are enumerated, see Shemos 3228. Even though there were, in addition to these 3,000, other sinners who died by sudden death, see 30 Shemos 32 35, it seems that the number that died in the Baal Poor incident was substantially larger. A pagan cult of licentiousness is infinitely more serious than a mere metaphysical aberration of idolatry. End quote. In other words, both the Chita Egel and the Chit of Baalpa'or involved a metaphysical aberration of idolatry. But in the case of Balpa'or, this error became anchored in the world of taiva, lust, which opens the doors to a more diverse range of consequences and is far more difficult to remedy, especially when the sexual immorality involves mingling with foreign women and a foreign culture. Rehersh's link to Darwinism. Interestingly, Rehersh associates the philosophy of Balpa'or with Darwinism. Refersh, 1808 to 1888, and Charles Darwin, 1809 to 1882, were contemporaries and wrote their major works at around the same time. It is important to note that Reversch was not opposed to the theory of evolution per se. To the contrary, he writes, quote, even if this notion of evolution were ever to gain complete acceptance by the scientific world, Jewish thought, unlike the reasoning of the high priest of that nation, probably referenced to Thomas Huxley, who advocated who advocated Darwinism with missionary fervor, would nonetheless never summon us to revere a still extant representation. Sorry, let me go back to that sentence. Even if this notion of evolution were to gain complete acceptance by the scientific world, Jewish thought, unlike the reasoning of the high priest of that nation, would nonetheless never summon us to revere a still extant representative of this primal form, an ape, as the supposed ancestor of us all. Rather, Judaism in that case would call upon its adherents to give even greater reverence than ever before to the one soul God, who, in his boundless creative wisdom and eternal omnipotence, needed to bring into existence no more than one single amorphous nucleus and one single law of adaptation and heredity in order to bring forth from what seemed chaos, but was in fact a very definite order, the infinite variety of species we know today, each with its unique characteristics that sets it apart from all other creatures. Uh end quote. Was that one sentence? Yeah, okay, end quote. Uh from the collective writings, volume 7, page 264. Nevertheless, Reversch sensed that lurking beneath Darwinism was a hidden moral ideology which tapped into the same underlying sentiments as the ancient worship of Balpa'or. In contrast to the Balpa'or devotee who assuages his conscience by depositing stool at the shrine of shamelessness, the Darwinian accolade rationalizes his animalistic behavior by embracing a philosophy that preaches, you are essentially an animal. It is only natural to act like one. Here we have two examples of metaphysical outlooks that cater to the same core appeal. Both rationalize surrender to animality on borrowed authority, one from religion and the other from science. Both thereby undermine the conscience, the greatest tool Hashem gave us to liberate us from the enslavement to our animalistic tendencies so that we can live as the Telemelochim bearing truth seekers we were created to be. Concluding thoughts. One takeaway lesson here may be stated as follows: Beware the seductiveness of a belief system which caters to the desire to live like an animal, unsaddled by the yoke of conscience and unbound by the confines of objective morality. These doctrines will appear to be legitimate due to their authoritative veneer, whether it be the religious appeal to the spiritual mind or the rational appeal to the scientific mind, but know the terrible cost of hearing their siren song. Thus, the account of Balpa'or isn't merely a historical record of a sin committed by our ancestors. It stands as a contemporary warning about the ever-present threat of moral degeneracy masquerading as an elite ideology. And that's the end of my article. Now we're going to go back to the end note, and remember this is on uh the sentence. Um the sentence, uh, we need a brief refresher on the relationship between shame and pleasure. So the footnote says, The underlying, sorry, the understanding of the conscience here is rooted in my Roshai Yeshiva's explanation of the Ramam's Morahandukim 1-2. Here is an excerpt from a student's write-up of my Roshai Yeshiva's explanation. Quote, God's punishment is different from that of man. A punishment from God is given to help benefit man. An analysis of the verses subsequent to the sin can help us to understand the punishment and its ramifications with respect to the human personality. In chapter 3, verse 7 states, quote, and the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Prior, end quote, prior to the sin, prior, end quote from the Pasak, prior to the sin, the Torah explicitly tells us that they were not ashamed of their nakedness. The Torah is teaching us, by contrast, uh this I think this is a typo from the transcriber. The Torah is teaching us by contrasting, oh never mind, by contrasting these facts, that prior to the sin, man did not experience embarrassment. Shame is a function of man's conscience. Before man sinned, man's energies were naturally directed to Chokma, to intellectual pursuits. After the sin, man fell prey to the instinctual. The intellectual was overpowered by the instinctual. However, man now had an additional ally to help combat the forces of the physical, his conscience. The conscience of man helps him to determine good from evil. The Yzaratov, man's good inclination, helps man to withdraw his energies from the world of the physical and redirect it to the world of Chochmah, wisdom. However, before man sinned, he did not possess the ability to discern good from evil. His mind was naturally drawn to the intellectual. After the sin, man's energies flow first to the physical, which is capable of paralyzing him. God thereby instilled in man a conscience to help him progress into the world of the ideational and not stagnate in the world of the physical. It is only with the aid of the Yiterhato, the ability to discern good, that man can use his free will to channel his energies to the acquisition of wisdom. It is therefore no coincidence that immediately after God pronounced his punishment for the sin, and man was endowed with both good and evil inclinations, man began to utilize his conscience to channel his energies properly. First he experienced shame and covered his nakedness. Then, as chapter 3, verse 20 relates, quote, and the man called his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. It seems incongruous that this occurs immediately after the pronouncement of man's punishment. However, the reason is now readily apparent. This manifests that man was using the Yetzer Hatov to help direct his energies toward wisdom. He exercised his intelligence to classify and name his wife. It was a definitional exercise that required his intellectual abilities. From this we can ascertain that a punishment from God is unique, as it is executed for the benefit of man. This particular event bestowed man with good and evil inclinations. It is only with the aid of VHR Tov that man can overcome the pitfalls of sin and withdraw his energies away from the physical and utilize his intellect to live a life based on wisdom.