In Parshas Chukas, the Am Yisroel finds itself only a few miles away from their final destination of Eretz Canaan, and yet, because they are forbidden from passing through Eretz Edom, they make a detour and set out on a long and circuitous route in order to enter Eretz Canaan. And as they turned to begin this rigorous trek, we are told by the Torah about an episode of complaining among the people.
What happened? They were already passing alongside inhabited lands—past nations that were living not in tents, but in real homes; nations that were eating not food from the sky, but real food. And for some of the Am Yisroel, these sights caused a certain amount of dissatisfaction. The spirit of the nation became impatient because of the way (Bamidbar 21:4). It means they began to hanker after a way of life they saw somewhere else.
“If only we could be living like the Edomites are living, in real houses instead of tents! And real food that grows from the ground! You expect us to succeed with such a diet, with this ל≈ ֹ̃לּ¿ ַ̃ה ם∆חּ∆ל? If only we could be living like the Edomites are living, then we’d be happy! Then we'd be able to succeed in our lives.”
The Response
Now, how did Hashem respond to their complaints? He sent upon the complainers a visitation of nechashim hasrafim; fiery serpents were suddenly slithering everywhere, and on all sides people were being bitten (ibid. 6).
But not just bites; many died on the spot, and others were in grave danger – the venom of a snake spreads quickly through a person’s blood, and death comes quickly – and so the people came running to Moshe begging him to daven to Hashem, to save them.
A Mysterious Remedy
Now, what happened then was something very queer. Because at that time Hakadosh Baruch Hu commanded Moshe as follows: Make for yourself a figure of a poisonous snake and put it on a standard, on a high pole, and anybody who was bitten, let him look at that pole and he will become healed. (ibid. 8).
Now, just to ascribe to this snake some sort of mystical benefit is not following the ways of the Torah. No, we don’t find such things in the Torah. So you’ll say there’s a benefit of raising your eyes to heaven and praying – a high pole encourages you to look upwards – and it’s true. The Mishnah says that: So long as they were looking upwards towards Hashem, and subjugating their minds to Him, they would heal (Rosh Hashanah 3:6).
But that’s not enough of an explanation, because why did they have to raise their eyes to a serpent? Better it should be a tall pole with nothing on top, like an arrow pointing up to shamayim! And so you look up and you see the sky and you’re reminded about the Yosheiv ba’Shamayim – Hashem, Who sits on High. That would be a way to be healed! But a snake? What’s a snake doing on top of the pole?
The Teacher Teaches
So you have to understand that this wasn’t left unanswered. When Moshe Rabbeinu fulfilled this commandment of Hashem, he didn’t merely place a copper serpent on top of a high pole, like a segulah, and retire back to his tent. Oh no! We call him Moshe Rabbeinu – ‘Rabbeinu’ means ‘Our Teacher’ – because that’s what he was to us always. He was always speaking to the people, always teaching them. And so you can be sure that had we been fortunate enough to be there, we would have heard a long peirush, a long explanation of what it means this copper snake on a pole.
What did he say? I couldn’t presume to tell you all the details but there’s no question that he began his shiur to the Am Yisroel from Bereishis, from the parsha of the nachash in the beginning of the Torah.
Everyone remembers the story of the downfall of Adam and Chava when they were persuaded by the nachash to eat from the eitz hada’as. That’s something that every child knows; the first time the nachash appeared in the Torah, his function was to make Adam and Chava feel dissatisfied. They had everything! ל≈כ‡ֹּ ̇ לֹכָ‡ ןָּ‚ַה ı≈ﬠ לֹּכƒמ – You can eat from the fruits of all the trees (Bereishis 2:16). Only one thing that they didn’t have, the fruit of just one tree. And the job of the nachash was to make them see only what they didn’t have and to make them want davka that.
Not Really a Snake
Now, you’ll recall that Hakadosh Baruch Hu sentenced the serpent to forever have to slither on its stomach: You should go on your belly (ibid. 3:14). From then on that’s how he moves about. But it was explained here once that the snakes we are familiar with existed already from the beginning. There were always slithering snakes – they’re part of the ecology, part of Hashem’s system whereby all living things work in tandem with each other as one perfect system. And so the nachash in Gan Eden was a being of a different sort; we call it nachash only as a sheim mush’al, a borrowed name, but actually it’s the yetzer hara. Hashem only portrayed it in the form of a snake-being so that we should understand its ways of tempting us.
So what does it mean that the yetzer hara was sentenced that it should have to crawl on its belly like the ordinary snakes we know? After all, it’s not really a snake. And so pay attention now to what I’m going to tell you.
Careful in the Country
If you ever go walking in the woods behind your bungalow colony you have to be careful; if you’re stepping over a log, you have to take a good look before you put your foot down, there shouldn’t be any snakes close by. Now, if a snake had legs, like a rabbit, and was hopping around, so you could spot him from a distance; and if you see that he’s streaking towards you, you would protect yourself. But now that he’s as close to the ground as he can get, he’s almost invisible.
And that’s why when people are out in the woods for a good time and they’re not careful, it comes without any warning. “Oh! I’m bitten.” Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave the snake an opportunity to attack its victims by means of stealth. He does his work, and by the time you realize what’s happening, it’s too late.
Camouflaged Snakes
That’s also why a desert snake is beige-like, copper colored; because that’s the best color for blending in with the background. You know, sometimes it happens that your wife tells you to go out and buy an air conditioner and now you’re in the department store and you don’t know what color you should buy. All you know is that she wants a color that will suit the décor of your dining room, something that matches. Now, if you buy a white one, she might say it’s no good. A black one, no good. And you have no interest in making trips back and forth to the store all Sunday. So what’s the best thing to do? Ask for a beige colored air conditioner. A beige one, she won’t be able to criticize too much – it’s a color that fits in with everything.
And that’s why when the snake is lying in the ground among leaves and twigs you can’t see his shape. He blends in with everything. That’s why nechoshes, copper, and nachash are the same word because the snake’s color is what gives him an edge. That’s how he accomplishes his task best, by not letting you know he’s getting close.
You understand now why Moshe fashioned his snake from copper. It doesn’t mean the polished copper of today; Moshe used ordinary copper, like the copper they used in the good old days, a beige, inconspicuous color. Now, he could have taken silver or gold. Even wood. Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn’t say metal; He said “Make for yourself a serpent,” that’s all. But Moshe chose to make a copper snake, because he understood that the camouflage is what makes a desert snake. Its color is what allows it to blend into the background and that’s how it does its job in this world, unnoticed.
The Yetzer Goes Incognito
And that, Moshe Rabbeinu was teaching us, is the same modus operandi of the yetzer hara. Because that’s what it means that the yetzer hara was sentenced to crawl like a snake. It’s a mashal. It doesn’t mean that the yetzer hara stopped existing and became a snake. No! The yetzer hara didn’t retire. He didn’t go out of business.
You should always go on your belly, means that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was giving the yetzer hara what it needed most in order to function: You’ll take other forms, other disguises, and you’ll be able to slither around incognito.
It has to be that way because if the nachash would have continued to exist in the form that it had in the time of the cheit, so we’d already know how to watch out for him. On the contrary, the yetzer hara doesn’t bother anymore with the form of a snake. He has other forms, new ways of appearing to man. Sometimes it's in the form of a temptation like it was then. Sometimes it's in the form of a newspaper or a reform rabbi. Sometimes in the form of women's lib or another movement.
He comes in the guise of governments. Let's say in Albany, in the Department of Dis-Education. They wear suits and ties there but actually they’re the worst type of snake. The Department of Education insists on evolution as being one of the subjects – if you want to be an accredited school in New York you must teach about evolution. A lot of government money is being spent on that and they want it in the yeshivas too, the Beis Yaakovs. So there's no question that it’s the yetzer hara incognito.
All Types of Snakes
Today the yetzer comes in the form of Dior from France. I told you once that this fellow named Dior in Paris is also one of the big men who works for the yetzer hara. Any new style in dresses that comes from Paris is not an accident. “Oh, it’s just a style,” a frum woman says, “Nothing wrong.” Oh no! It's purposely planned, an attack on mankind. He wants you to cut a few inches off from the bottom. And then if the Jewish woman survives that attack he come from the other side, from on top, with a new style to take inches off from there.
College professors too. Not all of them – there are good frum ones too – but many college professors are just the yetzer hara in disguise. And so if you won't listen to the miniskirt representative of the yetzer hara, he has plenty of others.
He's not particular. He has people with big beards too; sometimes he even puts on a shtreimel with long payos. In a Beis Yaakov school a principal wearing a long beard gave out the New York Times for the girls to read. I protested but they thought I was a silly fellow, a kana’ai for nothing at all. Because they were blind; the snake was camouflaged with “But the girls have to know this and this and they have to know how to read and write.” All types of excuses.
And so the snake of the yetzer hara was made very cunning. Whatever appearance it makes it’s going to be incognito, camouflaged as this or that. All kinds of disguises! Whatever it can do to lead you away from the path of the Torah, from the path of success, it’ll try. It doesn’t give up.
