- קריאה as a reading, even as a “reading in”, as opposed to קרי which is just the text. A orthopraxic approach is pure בלעם-קרי, a נעשה without a נשמע, a חוק without יתן בו טעם. To בלעם this was the essence of a safe approach to Torah that would avoid the dangers of religion completely, that would ensure the Rambam’s שלא יטעה את עצמו, that would be a תורת השם instead of a תורת משה. But this is a violation of the integration required by Teshuva and therefore of גאולה itself, and would mean that there would be no חצר or מחנה , no contextual meaning only the event: מי בקש זאת מידכם רמוס חצרי. The very thing that allows the context making possible כי היא חכמתכם ובינתכם לעיני העמים...חוקים ומשפטים צדיקים is why there needs to be the במה יודע איפא: it must be visible in context. This is why the primary explanation of ויקרא in the opening of the book is “invitation”: come in to My חצר; the very opposite of רמיסת החצר, the loss of context, of מסכת.
The rejection of Bilaam’s approach, in such a hilarious fashion—something that violated all the patterns of evolution, something that had no context for its words, just the text which shut him up with pure context and personal history: a talking ass!—was important enough to go back to Creation. The battle is reflected in the very beginning of the post-עגל post-שבירת הלוחות world with the ונפלינו-שלא תשרה שכינה על נביאי עכו"ם and concludes the Torah: לעיני כל ישראל=שבירת הלוחות ולא קם בישראל=בלעם! And indeed בלעם is certain that with his approach there never would have been an עגל: וישם אל המדבר פניו-להזכיר עון העגל. But, then again, there could be no תשובה and no גאולה and no זכרון and thus ultimately no שם.
Rambam can prove ואינו מחכה לביאתו from בלעם as well—which gives us a completely different reading of his understanding משיח. The historical continuity, the שני משיחין, the irony that must have torn Bilaam to pieces that it would be he who would see the ultimate pattern, that of שיבה וגאולה! But it is because nothing else will satisfy the nature of the identity of a nation which embodies both קרי and קריאה we must long for this final integration because ultimately that is what we are not simply what we must do.

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