Commentaire de citation sur Avot 5:8

And behold, another ram was caught in the thicket by its horns. The word acher [another/after] implies as if there were two rams here and it wants to distinguish between them, saying that this is a different ram from the first one. Although according to this interpretation, the letter chet should have been vowelized with a tzeirei, nevertheless we can interpret it as if it had a tzeirei, because the current vowelization of the chet with a patach doesn’t fit so well, since the word acher is written between ayil [ram] and ne’echaz [was caught]. And some say that this ram was not one of those rams that were created during the six days of creation, but rather it was a different ram, because the ram of Isaac was created on the eve of the first Sabbath, during twilight (Avot 5:8).

אולי נטתה מפני, “if she had not turned aside on my account, etc.” The word אולי which often means: “maybe, perchance,” here means “if not.” The words “instead of killing her” clearly demonstrate that after the she-ass spoke the angel killed her. He now told her that the she-ass’s very speaking had been the reason he had spared her master, Bileam.
The Midrash cites another possible reason for the ass being killed, namely to prevent the Emorites deifying an ass that was able to speak like a human being (Tanchuma Balak 9). A third reason is simply that the ass had performed the function it had been created for and kept in limbo since dusk on the sixth day of creation (Avot 5,8). We observe a similar phenomenon with the fish whose purpose on earth (in water) had been to swallow and subsequently spit out Jonah. We read in the Book of Jonah 2,2: “G’d appointed a large fish, דג גדול, to swallow Jonah.” The reason that fish was described as גדול “large,” is “great in years,” i.e.very old. Although there were many fish in the sea with bodies larger than that which swallowed Jonah, there was none that was as old, i.e. which had been assigned this particular task since the days of creation.The intention of the author of the Book of Jonah in writing the word וימן is to tell us that this fish and none other had been appointed for this specific task already during the dawn of history. This thought is also reflected in the word לבלוע, “in order to swallow,” instead of the simple ויבלע, “it swallowed,” when the Book of Jonah describes this fish. The peculiar wording alerts us to the fact that the sole purpose of G’d creating this fish when He did was to swallow Jonah. It is also peculiar that initially the fish is described as דג, fish (masculine) whereas in the course of the narrative the author changes to describe it as דגה, fish (feminine). Jonah is described as praying from the entrails of the דגה (Jonah 2,2) after he had first spent three days inside the דג. The term דגה repeatedly occurs as describing dead fish such as in Exodus 7,21 when the fish of the river Nile which had died due to the plague of blood are described as והדגה אשר ביאור מתו. [Perhaps the fact that the fish had died was the catalyst which caused Jonah to pray. Ed.]. When he said: מבטן שאול שועתי, “I have cried out from the belly of Sheol,” he meant that the fish had become his grave (Jonah 2,3).