There is a strange biblical episode in this week’s portion of Chukas.
When poisonous snakes attack the Jews in the desert, G-d instructs Moses to fashion a special healing instrument: a pole topped with the form of a snake. Moses sculptures a snake of copper and duly places it on top of a pole. Those who had been afflicted by the snake bite would gaze on the serpentine image on the pole and be cured.
According to some historians, this was the forerunner of the caduceus, the snake-entwined rod that is today the emblem of the medical profession.
Yet the question is obvious: What was the point of placing a snake on top of the pole to cure the Jews who were bitten? If it was G-d who was healing them miraculously, why the need to look up at a copper snake atop a pole?
The question is raised in the Talmud: "But is the snake capable of determining life and death?!" the Talmud asks. And the answer is this: “Rather, when Israel would gaze upward and bind their hearts to their Father in Heaven, they would be healed; and if not, they would perish." Fixing their eyes on the snake alone would not yield any cure. It was looking upward toward G-d, it was the relationship with G-d, that brought the cure. But if so, why bother to carve out a copper snake in the first place, which can only make people believe that it is the copper snake that is the cause of healing?
In fact, this is exactly what occurred. The copper snake that Moses made was preserved for centuries. In the passage of time, however, its meaning became distorted, and people began to say that the snake possessed powers of its own. When it reached the point of becoming an image of idolatry, the Jewish King Hezekiah (in the sixth century BCE) destroyed the copper snake fashioned by Moses, and that was the end of that special copper snake.
Which only reinforces the question: Why ask people to look up at a man-made snake that can lead down the path to a theological error of deifying it?
There is another question. The snake was the reptile that caused the harm in the first place. Healing, it would seem, would come from staying far away from serpents. Why in this case was the remedy born from gazing at the very venomous creature that caused the damage to begin with?
A Tale of Two Snakes
The snake in the biblical story - as all biblical stories capturing the timeless journeys of the human psyche - is also a metaphor for all of the “snakes” in our lives. Have you ever been bitten by a "venomous snake"? Poisoned by harmful people, burnt by life, or by abusive situations? Have you ever been crushed by a clueless principal, a manipulative boss, a deceiving partner, a toxic relationship? Were you ever back-stabbed by people you trusted? Is your anxiety killing you? Are you weary and demoralized by your life experience?
What is the deeper meaning of suffering? And how do some people know how to accept affliction with love and grace?
These are good questions that cannot be answered easily, if at all. But one perspective is presented in the story of the serpent. G-d tells Moses: “Make a serpent and place it on a pole. Whoever gets bitten should look at it, and he will live.” The key to healing, the Torah suggests, is not by fleeing the cause of the suffering but by gazing at it. Don’t run from the snake; look at it. Because deep inside the challenge, you will find the cure. Deep inside the pain, you will find the healing light.
But there is one qualification: you must look up to the snake; you must peer into the reality of the snake above, on top of the elevated pole, not at the serpent crawling here below.
To be continued...
RABBI YY JACOBSON
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