The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot (5:19) asks a strange question and gives an even stranger answer. “What is the difference between the students of Avraham Avinu and the students of Bilam? The students of Avraham posses a good eye, a humble spirit and a moderate appetite. While the students of Bilam have an evil eye, a haughty spirit and a limitless appetite.”
Is that really the difference? Isn’t the difference that the students of Avraham believed in Hashem and the students of Bilam beloved in idols? What were chazal trying to teach us here?
The Sefer Shlalei Rav suggests that most of us misunderstand the question of the Mishnah. It was not asking what Is different between the two groups of students. Rather, it is asking, what was the character of the students of Avraham that led them to follow Abraham’s teachings and become believers in Hashem? That was a generation of idol worship, so how did they come to avoid all that?
With this the understanding of the question, now we understand the Mishnah’s amazing answer- good middot. When a person is not entangled in bad middot he can see the truth. This was the foundation of Avraham’s students. On the flip side, the students of Bilam lived through years of crazy miracles and yet they didn’t come to believe in Hashem; why not? They had bad middot and this brought them close to Bilam and the service of idols.
We all know that middot are important, but it seems to me that the message here shows us a deeper meaning to middot. We need them to allow us to be real believers in Hashem. It shows us that the Bein Adam L’chaveiro and Bein Adam L’makom are interconnected. We cannot believe in Hashem without first working on our personal character.
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