Shedding some light on Bilaam and Midian (Parshat Pinchas)

I’d like to address 2 questions. One has long puzzled me - why does the Torah digress into a long story about Bilaam? The other only recently occurred to me - what are the Israelites doing battling Midian? They were poised to enter the Land of Israel, encamped north of the Dead Sea. Midian is [...]