This week’s parasha deals with yet another instance of rebeliousness by the yotz’ei Mitzra-yim, with a very peculiar twist. As Israel was rounding the borders of Edom in the approach to the Holy Land, ותקצר נפש העם בדרך: וידבר העם באלקים ובמשה למה העליתנו ממצרים למות במדבר כי אין לחם ואין מים ונפשנו קצה מלחם הקלקל: וישלח ד' בעם את הנחשים השרפים וינשכו את העם וימת עם רב מישראל: ויבא העם אל משה ויאמרו חטאנו כי דברנו בד' ובך התפלל אל ד' ויסר מעלינו את הנחש ויתפלל משה בעד העם: ויאמר ד' אל משה עשה לך שרף ושים אתו על הנס וגו' (“...and the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against G-d and Moshe, 'Why did you bring us up from Egypt to die in the desert, for there is no bread and no water, and our soul is revolted by the man [lehem qëloqél]. And Ha-Shem sent amongst the people the venomous snakes [ha-nëhashim ha-sërafim], and they bit the people, and a great mass of Israel died. And the people came to Moshe and said, 'We have sinned [in] that we spoke against Ha-Shem and you; pray to Ha-Shem, that he remove from us the nahash; and Moshe prayed for the people. And Ha-Shem said to Moshe, Make for yourself a saraf and place it on the pole, and it will be, everyone bitten who sees it will live. And Moshe made a copper snake [nëhash nëhosheth] and placed it on the pole....”; XXI, 4-9).
G-d’s instructions to Moshe appear to contradict His earlier prohibition לא תעשה לך פסל וכל תמונה אשר בשמים ממעל ואשר בארץ מתחת ואשר במים אשר מתחת הארץ (“You will not make for yourself a statue or any image [of] what is in the sky above and what is on the earth below and what is in the water below the earth”; Exodus XX, 4). Arguably the Këruvim, concerning which G-d subsequently gave detailed instructions (ibid., XXV, 18-22), show that He need not be consistent; but the point is the prohibition of ‘avoda zara, idolatry, and there is no evidence of any idolatrous cult developed around the këruvim. This was not the case with the copper snake, as shown by the later action of King Hizqiyahu, about whom we read: וכתת נחש הנחשת אשר עשה משה כי עד הימים ההמה היו בני ישראל מקטרים לו וגו' (“...and he cut up the nëhash ha-nëhosheth which Moshe had made, for by those days the bënei Yisra’él were burning incense to it...”; II Kings XVIII, 4).
This being so, it seems to me that there are some fundamental questions to be asked here:
(1) Why were nëhashim sërafim the appropriate response to rebellious lashon ha-ra‘ this time?
(2) G-d sends nëhashim sërafim; the people ask that the nahash be abated, but G-d tells Moshe to make a saraf, yet Moshe makes a nëhash nëhosheth. Why the alternation in wording?
Let us deal with the second question first.
Though Moshe could have chosen to avoid the “image” issue by, e.g., stuffing a snakeskin (עיי' עירובין י"ג: רש"י דה"מ טהור שאין עור שרץ שמת טמא ), he chose, instead, to make a nëhash nëhosheth. Rashi tells us, basing himself on the Yërushalmi, that Moshe chose the material, copper, because of the similarity between the words nahash and nëhosheth. To quote the Yërushalmi directly: "עשה לך שרף" לא פירש אמר משה עקרה (של שרף) לא נחש הוא?! (שהארס שורף) לפיכך "ויעש משה נחש נחשת" (“‘Make for yourself a saraf’: [G-d] did not specify; said Moshe, 'Is not the main point [of a saraf] the snake [whose venom burns -- soréf]'?!; therefore ‘And Moshe made a nëhash nëhosheth’”; ירושלמי ראש השנה פ"ג ה"ט, המלים שבסוגריים ע"פ פי' הפני משה שם); the Pënei Moshe echoes Rashi’s point that nahash and nëhosheth are לשון נופל על לשון, based on the similarity of language.
So nahash appealed more to Moshe than saraf; but what was so important that it be of copper?
An answer suggests itself in a remark by the Bë’ér Moshe on our parasha, based on the Talmud (ראש השנה כ"ט.): "עשה לך שרף" וכי נחש ממית או מחיי'? אלא בזמן שישראל מסתכלין כלפי מעלה ומשעבדין לבם לאביהם שבשמים היו מתרפאין כו' נמצא שכל כוונת עשיית הנחש הי' בכדי לעורר אותם להסתכלות עמוקה של חשבון הנפש שיש עמה תשובה (“‘Make for yourself a saraf’; does then a snake kill or revive? Rather, when Israel look upward and subjugate their hearts to their Father Who is in Heaven, they are healed....We find that the entire intention of making the snake was to awaken them to the deep introspection of the heshbon ha-nefesh [‘accounting of the soul’] which has with it tëshuva”).
Thus we see why the snake was hoist on a pole, but the Rebbe stops short of explaining why it is of copper. It seems to me that the reason is that the most common material of which mirrors were made in the ancient world was copper. If one looks up at the form of the bearer of the eres ha-soréf, the “venom which burns”, and sees oneself reflected in its material, it is surely a strong allusion to the introspective heshbon ha-nefesh to which the Rebbe alludes.
The idiomatic use of the imperative singular with the word lëcha, (as I suggested in Parshath Shëlah), (and as we find here in G-d’s words, ‘asé lëcha) provides scope for human initiative. Hence, Moshe felt himself free to interpret G-d’s word, saraf, in terms of the nahash.
C.
Why were the nëhashim ha-sërafim sent in response to the rebellion?
In the desert, the bënei Yisra’él lived in a miraculous cocoon: The ‘ananei ha-kavod shielded them from the desert heat; their clothes did not wear out; food fell from the sky on a daily basis; and so on. Yet, every time there was a hint of adversity in the desert they began to whine and complain.
The evident, underlying reason was a lack of bittahon, trust that G-d was really running things, discernible in every incident from that of the Golden Calf, when the ‘am panicked because Moshe had failed to descend from Mt. Sinai on schedule, due to a misunderstanding of the schedule, to this one. In each case (as we learn explicitly in the case of the Calf; Exodus XXXII, 4, Rashi ad loc.) the instigators were the ‘erev rav, the “mixed multitude” who had accompanied Israel; but in each case, the rot spread to the ‘am, the lowest spiritual stratum in Israel.
The ‘erev rav were susceptible to this because, as idolators sons of idolators, they lacked a truly religious sensibility. Rather than being religious, they were superstitious, and this, too, finds allusion in G-d’s choice of the nahash in response to the complaint.
The root on which nahash is formed also yields nihush “divination.” The very English word, derived from the Latin for “god,” illuminates the idolatrous mindset. The effect of nihush on the human soul is encapsulated in a remark by Rabbi Yëhuda ha-Nasi’ in the Talmud: כל המנחש לו נחש (“Anyone who engages in divination does it to himself”; נדרים ל"ב. ורש"י שם דה"מ לו נחש), on which the Torah Tëmima comments: ר"ל כל העוסק בניחושים ורואה בכל דבר ענין ניחוש, הניחוש רודף אחריו, כי מטבע האדם כך הוא, שכל מה שמשקיע דעתו ברעיון אחד ומאמין בו אותו הרעיון רודף אחריו, ומטרידו בכל הלכותיו ומעשיו ו והגיוניו (“He wishes to say that one who engages in nihushim and sees in everything an omen, the nihush pursues him, for it is human nature that the more one invests himself in a single idea and believes in it, the idea pursues and disturbs all of his conduct and deeds and reasoning”; בפירושו לבמדבר כ"ג כ"ג וע"ע ירושלמי שבת פ"ו ה"ט ששם הלשון כל המנחש סופו לבא עליו).
True religion is the recognition and acceptance that G-d runs the world and, in Rabbi ‘Aqiva’s famous words, כל דעביד רחמנא לטבא עביד (“Everything the Merciful does, He does for good”; ברכות כ"ח:). Accepting this fact, when it appears that bad things are happening, the truly religious person sees an opportunity for self-correction, a warning that something is not quite right; that is, it inspires the heshbon ha-nefesh and tëshuva to which the Rebbe alludes above.
Someone enveloped in a spirit of nihush, on the other hand, sees himself as a helpless victim of inchoate forces beyond his control or comprehension, and neurotically glances anxiously about him for some sign or glimpse of what is to occur. The truly religious man is free, understanding that events will take their course, and that he influences them only by what he does as a free moral actor. One in the grip of nihush is a self-perceived victim, at the mercy of those events, a slave of his fears.
The complaint of the ‘am, “why did you bring us... to the desert to die” reveals the mindset of the complainers, who saw themselves at the mercy of others, not responsible in and for themselves. By sending nëhashim, and inspiring Moshe to make the nëhash ha-nëhosheth, G-d was sending the message that this attitude, which expresses itself in nihush, strictly forbidden in Israel (cf. e.g. Leviticus XIX, 26, Deuteronomy XVIII, 10, and Bil‘am’s words in Numbers XXIII, 23), is derived from an incorrect reading of the miracles in the desert.
The nëhash ha-nëhosheth became an object of ‘avoda zara in a later generation only when, under the influence of their idolatrous neighbors, some of the people of Yëhuda forgot its pur-pose, and saw the snake as an instrument of salvation. Hizqiyahu had no choice but to destroy it.
Only the religious person, cognisant of the true relationship between himself, G-d, and the world, is truly free. Hazal have the last word: "והלחת מעשה אלקים המה והמכתב מכתב אלקים הוא חרות על הלחת", אל תקרא חרות אלא חירות שאין לך בן חורין אלא מי שעוסק בתלמוד תורה (“And the tablets were G-d’s work, and the script G-d’s script, carved [haruth] on the tablets’ [Exodus XXXII, 16]; read not haruth but rather héruth [‘freedom’], for no one is free save one who is occupied in Torah study”; אבות פ"ו ה"ב), the only source of true religion.
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