Translation:Likutei Moharan/43
Know! the words of a wicked person who has daat (knowledge) engender [the desire for] adultery in the listener. This is because union is drawn from daat, as is written (Genesis 4:1), “Adam knew his wife Chavah.” And it is written (Numbers 31:17), “every woman who has known a man.”
However, there are two types of unions: the union of holiness — this is binding with the tzaddikim and the Torah and the Holy One, which stems from holy daat; and the unions of sin, [which] stem from the daat of the evil forces.
Now, the spoken word is the revelation of Daat. For the only way we know what is in Daat is through speech, as is written (Psalms 19:3), “and night following night expresses daat.” “Expresses” connotes speech. The spoken word speaks that which is in Daat. Thus when a wicked person speaks and expels air from his mouth, he produces the poisonous air of adultery. And whoever hears his words and breathes in, takes this air into his body.
It therefore [says] of Bilaam that he corresponds to the daat of the evil forces. As our Sages expounded on the verse (Deuteronomy 34:10), “Never [again] did there arise… like Moshe” — there did not arise in Israel but there did arise among the nations. And who was he? Bilaam (Sifri; Zohar II, 21b). For Moshe is daat, which is why his generation [of Jews] is called the Generation of Daat (Vayikra Rabbah 9:1).
Thus when the Moabites sought counsel from the Midianites, they said to them: “His power is only in the mouth.” This is because the mouth reveals the daat. The Moabites responded: “We, too, will come against them with a person whose power is in the mouth.” For he is also daat of the evil forces, as is written (Ecclesiastes 7:14), “God made one to contrast the other.”
And this is what is written (Numbers 24:16), “who knows the Daat of the Most High.” On this our Sages expounded: He knew when the Holy One was angry (Berakhot 7a).
For when the daat is not calm, there is anger, as our Sages taught: Whoever gets angry, his wisdom leaves him (Pesachim 66b). Therefore, when Moshe Rabbeinu, may he rest in peace, got angry at the soldiers returning from Midian, his daat left him. Elazar then had to teach the laws relating to the immersion of vessels. But when the daat is whole, there is no anger, as is written (Isaiah 11:9), “They will do nothing evil or vile in all of My sacred mountain, for the land will be filled with daat.”
But Bilaam would focus on the daat of the evil forces, which is the extraneous matter of the Daat of the Most High. When it would change, he knew that the Holy One was angry.
We see, then, that Bilaam is the daat of the evil forces, and through his speech he produces the poisonous air of adultery. Therefore, when [the Israelites] returned from the battle against Midian, it states (Numbers 31:14-16): “But Moshe became angry at the army officers… saying, ‘Why have you spared all the women? They are the very ones who carried out Bilaam’s word.’” Specifically “word,” for through his word, which is a revelation of his daat, he engendered adultery in Midian.
Consequently, when they returned from the battle against Midian, it is written (ibid.:48-50), “The officers approached Moshe… and said, ‘We therefore want to bring an offering to God… to atone for our souls before God.’” And our Sages expounded (Shabbat 64a): This is what they said: “Even though we avoided sinning, we did not avoid evil thoughts.”