With this, let’s take one more point. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch speaks about the copper serpent. Immediately after Bnei Yisrael complains about the manna, saying, “We are disgusted with this wretched bread,” Hakadosh Baruch Hu sends the fiery serpents. Immediately, Hakadosh Baruch Hu instructed Moshe to make a fiery serpent and place it on a pole, and anyone who is bitten should look at the serpent and live. Rav Hirsch writes, the sole purpose of the serpent bites was to awaken the people to recognize the dangers lurking in the desert at every step, and to bring them to the realization that only Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s miraculous power kept these dangers at bay, to the extent that they were entirely unaware of their existence. Now, every bitten person must firmly fix the image of the serpent in his heart, so that it always stands before his eyes, even after Hashem, in His kindness, removes
