Confronting The Snake

It takes us just a week to read a story that spans almost forty years. Punished for ingratitude and lack of faith, the Jews were forced to wander in the wilderness. Parashat Chukat describes thirty-eight years of those travels. By its end, the generation that left Egypt has passed away. They would not be the generation that entered Israel. Their children would succeed where they failed.

In the midst of their various travels, the Torah tells us one of its strangest stories:

They journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Sea of Suf, to circumnavigate the land of Edom: and the spirit of the people was disheartened because of the journey. And the people spoke against God, and against Moshe, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, nor is there any water; and our soul loathes this wretched bread.” And God sent venomous snakes among the people, and they bit the people; and many people of Israel died. The people came to Moshe and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against God, and against you; pray to God, that He takes away the snakes from us.” And Moshe prayed for the people. God said to Moshe, “Make for yourself a serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall be, that anyone that is bitten, shall look at it and live.” (And) Moshe made a snake of copper, and put it on the pole, and it was, that if a snake had bitten a person, and he gazed at the copper snake, he lived. (Bamidbar 21:4–9)

This is an unusual story. The punishment symbolically fits the crime. Rashi[1] explains that the first recorded negative speech was the snake in the Garden of Eden. The Jews who spoke negatively were fittingly punished by that species. However, the cure is bizarre: Instead of praying, Moshe is told to make a snake. It seems to magically cure all who look upon it. Judaism outlaws molten images, not least when powers are ascribed to them. The copper snake on a pole seems foreign to the Judaism that we know.

There is another fascinating incident, earlier in the Torah, which parallels some of this story:

Amalek came and fought with Israel in Refidim. (And) Moshe said to Yehoshua, Choose for us men, and go out, fight with Amalek: tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand. So Yehoshua did as Moshe had said to him, and fought with Amalek,  and Moshe, Aharon and Ḥur went up to the top of the hill. And it came to pass, when Moshe held up his hands, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hands, Amalek prevailed. Moshe’s hands were heavy; so they took a stone, and placed it under him, and he sat on it; and Aharon and Ḥur supported his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were a sign of faith until the setting of the sun. And Yehoshua weakened Amalek and his people by the edge of the sword (Shemot 17:8–13).

Amalek attacked the Jewish people soon after they left Egypt. Moshe dispatches his trusted student, Yehoshua, to engage them. Moshe himself stays out of the fray, but in sight. He climbs a hill, stretching his hands heavenwards. When Moshe raises his hands, his people begin to win. When he lowers them, Amalek gets the upper hand. A similar question can be asked, and the Mishnah does just that:

Did the hands of Moses make war when he raised them or break war when he lowered them? Rather, the verse comes to tell you that as long as the Jewish people turned their eyes upward and subjected their hearts to their Father in Heaven, they prevailed, but if not, they fell. Similarly, you can say: The verse states: “Make for yourself a serpent, and set it upon a pole and it shall be, that anyone that is bitten, shall look at it and live” (Bamidbar 21:8). Once again it may be asked: Did the serpent kill, or did the serpent preserve life? Rather, when the Jewish people turned their eyes upward and subjected their hearts to their Father in Heaven, they were healed, but if not, they rotted from their snakebites. (Rosh HaShanah 3:8)

Both the snake on the pole and Moshe on the hill were pointers rather than icons. They directed the eyes of their beholders to God. Our question returns with renewed force: Why did Moshe not go and pray on a hill again? Why was a snake used to direct them to God, instead of their leader?

The snake represents the sin for which the people were punished. In this story, God gives the people the most effective and authentic road to redemption. Do not look to your leaders, look to your sins. Do not look outwards, but inwards. The remedy is within their own reach: when you know what the problem is, you can work on the solution. This is clearly the motivation of the story. The people asked Moshe to pray for them, and he did. God’s response was “Make a snake…”. They cannot fix things without looking at what went wrong. They must look at the snake.

This is a crucial stage in the maturation process of the Jews. The war with Amalek immediately followed the exodus from Egypt. Back then, they could still look to Moshe to save them. Forty years later, they cannot; they must look to themselves. This is the transformation between generations and the pivot upon which this parasha turns: Many of its stories reflect earlier stories in the Torah, with one crucial difference. The emphasis turns from Moshe to the People. It is not simply because he would not always be there for them to depend on; rather, they should not depend on him. This is not abandonment, but empowerment. Our destiny is in our own hands.

This idea might also explain why Moshe did not do precisely what God told him. God told him to make a snake and put it on a pole. It was Moshe’s initiative to use copper. Why? Copper in ancient times was used for mirrors. This has precedent in the Torah itself[2]. Moshe made the snake out of copper because it was reflective. The people were supposed to look at the snake and see themselves in it. When they reflected on the cause of their punishment, they could begin to fix it and heal.

The Jews learned that they cannot run from their snakes; they must look at them. When they do that, they live.

[1] Bamidbar 29:6

[2] Shemot 38:8