It's not the snake that kills - but sin (Chukat-Israel)
Why did Hashem command Moshe to make the lifeless serpent, and to raise it on a pole?
We read in our Parasha, that after ‘the people spoke against G-d and Moshe..G-d sent the fiery serpents against the people and they bit the people’ many of whom died; and the people pleaded with Moshe, saying:’We have sinned..Pray to Hashem that He remove from us the serpent. Moshe prayed for the people.
‘Hashem commanded Moshe: ‘Make a fiery serpent and place it on a pole..anyone who will be bitten will look at it and live’- Rashi: and those who didn’t, would not.
Rav Shlomo Kluger notes that - literally read - Moshe did not accede to the entreaty of the people: they had asked that he ‘Pray to Hashem that He remove from us the serpent’; yet, notes Rav Kluger, Moshe - instead - prayed ‘for the people’.
Expounds the Rav: ‘Our Sages say (Shabbat 151:):’An animal does not overpower a man, unless the man appears to it as an animal’. It depends on the man - and not the animal - whether it can harm him; if he acts like an animal, he empowers the animal to be able to harm him. Our Sages further said (Shabbat 33.):’it is not the ערוד: the snake, that kills, but sin that kills.’ The Gemara there relates the wondrous incident, of a snake that was harming people. The people informed the Sage Rabbi Chanina, who instructed them to show him its den; they went and showed him. He placed his heel at the den’s entrance, the snake emerged and bit him- and died! He carried the dead snake on his shoulder to the Beit Hamidrash, and said to them: ‘My sons - see! It is not the snake that kills, but sin that kills.’
Comments Rav Kluger:’The people - in our Parasha - did not understand the root of their predicament, thinking that the plague of the snakes, was due solely to the snakes; they therfore pleaded with Moshe, that he pray to Hashem, to remove the serpents. Moshe Rabbeinu, however, understood that it was not dependent on the snakes, but on the people themselves - should they not transgress, then the snakes would not be able to harm them. He therefore did not do as they asked - to pray for the removal of the snake - but instead prayed ‘for the people’: that they should repent, and thus not appear to the snake ‘as an animal’, as then the snake would be unable to harm them.’
Here we ask:Why was the punishment of the people by snakes?
Our Sages teach that Hashem’s punishment, is always measure-for-measure - in what way, was the punishment by the snakes, a commensurate punishment, for their transgressions?
The Netivot Shalom answers:’Although all of the people’s needs were met by Hashem, they were ingrates, being dissatisfied with the manner in which Hashem led them, on their journeys.
‘This, too, is the way of the snake: Although its food is always before it - the earth being its sustenance - and it lacks for nothing, it - because of its bad character, it strikes and harms men, despite - as our Sages relate - not doing so for food, or for benefit.
‘Thus, it is appropriate that the punishment of the ‘ungrateful’ people, should be at the hand of ‘the ungrateful animal’: the snake.
The unique severity of the punishment meted to the people in our Parasha teaches that being dissatisfied with our lot - as allocated by Hashem - is the most grievous of all transgressions.’
The Alshich Hakadosh adds:’It is known that the snake does not killl, but, rather, that sin does; when the snakes bit the people, it was not the snakes that did so, but the משחית: the evil force created by their transgressions, which ‘clothed’ itself in the guise of a snake, and bit them.
‘This is alluded to by the extra word את: ‘the’, in the sentence:’Hashem sent THE serpents against the people’.
‘If the people bitten, in their hearts, ascribed the matter to natural causes - instead of to Providence - they would not recover, and would die.
‘This is why Hashem commanded Moshe to make the lifeless serpent, and to raise it on a pole, so that the person who had been bitten, would say in his heart:’Since a live snake bit me, and this one, which is lifeless , if I gaze at him, will heal me, this is surely to teach me that, only by lifting my eyes upwards, and recognizing that it is miraculous, and all is from Him, will the live serpent have no power to harm.
‘And when this ,משחית: the force above, is silenced, so too, the one below, will not bite - and, with this thought in mind, the afflicted person will return to Hashem, and be healed.’
Rabbeinu Bahya proffers a different answer, as to the commensurate punishment:’The complaint of the people, was that they were receiving their food and water, in a different manner than the other nations.
‘Unlike the other peoples, they only received their bread one day at a time - and this, too, governed in the manner of ‘reward and punishment’, dependent on their merits.
‘They spoke against the manna- ‘a food which is readily digestible and absorbed within the body’ - and, instead of thanking Hashem for this lofty bread, which was the ‘food of angels’, they disparaged it.
‘Thus, they transgressed by speaking lashon ha’ra, they were punished by being bitten by snakes’, the ‘original’ speaker of lashon ha’ra.
‘These snakes were, in fact, the snakes which had always been present in the desert, as denoted by the Torah referring to them as ‘THE snakes’, which for the forty years that the people traversed the desert, had not once bitten them; but now, that they spoke with ingratitude about the lofty manna, Hashem ‘sent’ the snakes that bit them.’
Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch adds:’The word ‘sent’ here, is not to be understood in the literal, causative sense; but rather, as in the sense of ‘and Pharoah sent Bnei israel’: removing any opposition or barrier to their departure.
‘Thus, when the Parasha states that Hashem ‘sent the snakes’ against them, it meant that He permitted them to behave in their natural manner - whereas till then, Hashem prevented the snakes from attacking the people, they were now given free rein..
‘This was the mesure-for-measure punishment, for the people not appreciating the wondrous Divine Providence with which Hashem protected and sustained them, all these years.
‘Now, by their salvation from the snake bites being the contemplation of the dead copper snake on the pole - they had a constant reminder that the world is full of dangerous situations, from which only Hashem’s chesed saves us, and they would mend their errant ways.’
The Malbim offers a very different understanding of our Parasha:’As a result of the sin of Adam Harishon, within each of us reside three ‘entities’: man, his spouse, and the yetser ha’ra - the intellect and the understanding are the ‘man’; the body, is the woman; and the desires are the yetser ha’ra, which are ‘the snakes’ in each of us, which, if allowed to take control, seek to pull us down towards their habitat: the earth.
Thus, when the people pleaded with Moshe to ‘remove from us the serpent’, they were alluding to the harmful serpent within them, and which cast its poison into them.
No comments:
Post a Comment