The Rising Lion: From Balaam to Leibowitz and Back Again

Warren Zev Harvey

Warren Zev Harvey is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous studies on medieval and modern Jewish philosophy and the recipient of the EMET Prize in the Humanities (2009).

The great prophet of the gentiles, Balaam son of Beor, blessed the people of Israel with a blessing for military success: “Behold, a people shall rise up as a lion [labiʾ], and exalt himself as a regal lion [ari],[1] and shall not lie down until he eat of the prey and drink the blood of the slain” (Numbers 23:24).[2] Israel shall leap up like a lion and not rest until it has fully conquered its enemies. The prophet’s blessing is raw, forceful, and not politically correct. It is just because of verses like this that Friedrich Nietzsche so admired the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, what is the lion rising up and exalting himself if not the terrible blonde Bestie? Such is the morality and style of ancient Hebrew Scripture.

But “the language of the Torah is one thing, and that of the Sages something else” (BT ʿAbodah Zarah 58b). The Sages took Balaam son of Beor’s militaristic prophecy and turned it into a prophecy concerning a spiritual “rising up.” They changed “prey” and “blood” to “Torah” and “mitzvot.” In Midrash Tanḥuma (Mantua, Balak [14], 88b; Buber, Balak 23, 73a; cf. Numbers Rabbah 20:20), we read: “Behold, a people shall rise up as a lion – there is no nation in the world like them. Although they had been asleep to the Torah and the mitzvot, they awoke from their slumber like lions, eagerly recited the Shemaʿ, and proclaimed the kingship of the Holy One, blessed be He.”[4] The midrash speaks of a metaphorical slumber (cf. Maimonides, Laws of Repentance 3:4),[5] that is, a period during which Jews neglected the Torah and the mitzvot, such as the Babylonian exile, but in the end they awakened from their slumber and arose like lions to proclaim the unity of God and to crown Him as King.

In his Commentary on Numbers 23:24, Rashi quotes this text from Midrash Tanḥuma, but with significant changes. First, he does not interpret the Israelites’ sleep as metaphorical, but as literal. Second, he understands the lion to refer not to the Israelite “nation,” but to the individual Jew. Third, he conceives the character of the lion in light the Mishnah: “Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a gazelle, and mighty [gibbor] as a lion to do the will of your Father in heaven” (Abot 5:20).[6] Rashi writes: “‘Behold, a people shall rise up as a lion — when they awake [ʿomdin] from their sleep in the morning, they rise up mightily [mitgabberin] like a lion or regal lion [ke-ari] and eagerly perform the mitzvot: donning the tallit, reciting the Shemaʿ, and laying tefillin.”[7] In Rashi’s artfully revised midrash, the subject is not a historical event in which the people of Israel have sinned but now repent and return to monotheism, but rather it is the daily routine of the individual Jew who arises mightily each morning as a lion to perform the mitzvot. Rashi adroitly shifts the focus from nation to individual, from national morality to personal morality. Inspired by the Mishnah, he employs the verb mitgabberin (“they rise up mightily / valorously / heroically”). The Jew awakens every day at dawn and as a mighty lion he eagerly performs the mitzvot. In the words of Maharal, commenting on Rashi: “The mitzvot are acts of valor” (Gur Aryeh, ad loc.).[8]

When Rabbi Jacob ben Asher sought an opening for the “Laws of Conduct in the Morning” (Hilkhot Hanhagot ha-Adam ba-Boqer) at the beginning of his Arbaʿah Turim, he selected the Mishnah: “Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a gazelle, and mighty [gibbor] as a lion to do the will of your Father in heaven” (Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 1). But when Rabbi Joseph Karo sought an opening for his analogous “Laws of Conduct in the Morning” (Hilkhot Hanagat ha-Adam ba-Boqer) at the beginning of his Shulḥan ʿArukh, he recalled Rashi’s Commentary on Numbers 23:24, and wrote: “One should be mighty as a lion to arise [yitgabber ke-ari laʿamod] in the morning for the service of one’s Creator, and one should awaken the dawn! [cf. Psalms 57:9]” (Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 1).[9] The first three Hebrew words here reflect three words in Rashi’s Commentary: mitgabberin, ke-ari, and ʿomdin. Rabbi Joseph Karo thus transformed Rashi’s descriptive account of one’s morning conduct into an explicit command: One should be mighty as a lion to arise in the morning for the service of one’s Creator!

This stirring opening of the Shulḥan ʿArukh made a profound impression on the Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz. He quoted it frequently in his writings and lectures. In one passage he writes: “The slogan of theocentric religion is ʿabodah, the service of God, and its purpose is formulated in the first paragraph of the Shulḥan ʿArukh: One should be mighty as a lion to arise in the morning for the service of one’s Creator! In contrast to a religion conceived in terms of what it endows a person, there stands a religion conceived in terms of what it demands of a person. No opposition is deeper than this!” (Yahadut, Am Yehudi, u-Medinat Yisrael, Tel-Aviv 1975, p. 338).[10] The purpose of the demanding religion of Torah and mitzvot, Leibowitz emphasizes, is articulated in the imperative: Yitgabber! Be mighty, be valorous, be heroic! He further clarifies: “Life according to Torah and mitzvot is a life of heroism [geburah] in which a human being conquers his natural inclinations and needs and subjugates them to the service of his Creator” (ibid., p. 61).[11] The heroism of Rashi, Maharal, Rabbi Joseph Karo, and Leibowitz is that of performing the mitzvot.

At present the State of Israel has embarked on a difficult war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and has named its campaign “Operation Rising Lion” (ʿAm ke-Labiʾ). During the long years of Exile, our Rabbis, like the homilists of Midrash Tanḥuma, Rashi, and Rabbi Joseph Karo, creatively developed a spiritual exegesis of the prophecy of Balaam son of Beor. They had a different morality and a different style. Now, with the independence of the sovereign State of Israel, we have – for better or for worse — returned to the original interpretation of the great prophet of the gentiles.

Notes:

* A Hebrew version of this article appeared in Yashar Magazine, 20 June 2025.

[1] It is difficult to translate labiʾ and ari. Hebrew has at least a half-dozen words for “lion” (ari, aryeh, kefir, labiʾ, layish, and shaḥal), while English has only one. Labiʾ may have influenced the Greek léōn, the Latin, leo, the English lion, and the Yiddish leyb. I have translated labiʾ as “lion” and ari as “regal lion” (cf. Rashi on Genesis 49:9).
[2] הֶן עָם כְּלָבִיא יָקוּם וְכַאֲרִי יִתְנַשָּׂא, לֹא יִשְׁכַּב עַד יֹאכַל טֶרֶף וְדַם חֲלָלִים יִשְׁתֶּה.
[3] לשון תורה לעצמה, לשון חכמים לעצמן.
[4] הֶן עָם כְּלָבִיא יָקוּם. אין לך אומה בעולם כיוצא בהם. הרי הם ישנים מן התורה ומן המצות, ועומדין משנתן כאריות, וחוטפין קריאת שמע וממליכין לקב”ה. I thank Rabbi Dr. Yaakov Jaffe, who has noted the very many places where the Rabbis turn military descriptions into spiritual ones; e.g., BT Berakhot 4a and 18b, Shabbat 63a, Pesaḥim 68a, Sanhedrin 7b, and 93b, and 111b, and Ḥagigah 14a.
[5] עורו ישנים משנתכם ונרדמים הקיצו מתרדמתכם וחפשו במעשיכם וחזרו בתשובה וזכרו בוראכם

(“Awake, you who sleep…from your slumber, search your deeds, return in repentance, and remember your Creator”). Cf. Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, ed. L.W. Beck, New York 1950, p. 8: “David Hume…interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy a new direction.”
[6] הווי עז כנמר, וקל כנשר, ורץ כצבי, וגיבור כארי, לעשות רצון אביך שבשמים.
[7] הֶן עָם כְּלָבִיא יָקוּם. כשהן עומדין משנתם שחרית, הן מתגברין כלביא וכארי לחטוף את המצוות, ללבוש טלית, לקרוא את שמע, ולהניח תפילין.
[8] ומפני שהמצוות הן גבורה, לפי שמי שעושה מצוה פועל פעולה אלוהית נפלאה (“The mitzvot are acts of valor, for whoever performs a mitzvah performs a wondrous divine act”).
[9] יתגבר כארי לעמוד בבוקר לעבודת בוראו, שיהא הוא מעורר השחר!
[10] סיסמתה של הדת התיאוצנטרית היא ‘עבודה‘, עבודת השם, ותכליתה מנוסחת בסעיף הראשון של שולחן-ערוך: ‘יתגבר כארי לעמוד בבוקר לעבודת בוראו‘. מול הדת הנתפסת מבחינת מה שהיא מעניקה לאדם, מוצגת הדת הנתפסת מבחינת מה שהיא תובעת מן האדם. ואין לך ניגוד עמוק מזה.
[11] החיים במסגרת של תורה ומצוות – הם חיי גבורה, שבהם האדם מתגבר על נטיותיו הטבעיות ועל צרכיו הטבעיים ומשעבד אותם לעבודת בוראו.