CHUKAT 5781
Spiritual Healing
I begin with a question that most of us have asked this past year: Why is there illness in the world? According to the Midrash, there was no illness until Father Jacob asked for it. Why would anyone in his/her right mind ask to be sick? Before Jacob, suggests the Midrash, when it was one’s time to leave this world, one simply sneezed and expired. That perhaps explains the universal custom of following a sneeze with everyone saying, “Gd bless you!” Father Jacob didn’t want the suffering that sickness often brings, he just wanted to have some warning before he died, says the Midrash, so that he would have time to put his affairs in order.
In our experience, illness is, for the most part, derech hateva (the way of nature). Sometimes we become ill just because we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time and breathe in a droplet in the air that has a virus in it—as we all tragically know from the Covid-19 pandemic. But for whatever reason illness occurs, the Talmud (Brachot 60a?) suggests that we use illness as an opportunity to review our lives and the direction we are going in order to make corrections and better ourselves. When we use an illness to draw us closer to Gd we open ourselves up to healing from above.
When we are ill, we all want healing, and we want it fast! No one wants to wait even 20 minutes for an aspirin to work when one has a headache. In today’s Torah portion Moses creates an amazing breakthrough in medical technology for instant healing. Let me set the scene for you.
Moses’ sister Miriam and brother Aaron die. Moses is suddenly all alone leading the Jewish people. To make matters worse, it was, as the Midrash points out, because of the merit of Miriam that they were able to find water in the desert—so after Miriam died, the people clamored for water. It was Aaron that was the peacemaker among the people—now after he died, there was a constant bickering. They went as far as to ask Moses, “Why did you take us out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread and no water! Our souls are dry from this disgusting food” [referring to the miraculous manna]. (Num. 21:5) What chutzpa!
So Gd sent snakes that were called seraphim and they bit the people and many died. The people then came repented and begged Moses to ask Gd to take away the snakes. Moses prays to Gd to help his people who have just insulted him. Gd then commands Moses to make a saraph copper snake and place it on a high pole—so that whenever one is bit by a snake, one just has to look upon it and be healed.
As an aside, Rabeynu Bachya learns from this that, “if someone asks a person for forgiveness for insults committed against him, the injured party should not be cruel and refuse,” but should be like Moses who not only forgives, but prays for those who insulted him.
What was this seraph snake? The word saraph means “to burn.” In the Bible it Seraphim were fiery angels. Why was this snake called a seraph? Some of the commentators note that it was because its venom burned like fire. Archeologists have uncovered in Israelite and ancient Near Eastern writings and drawings evidence of a winged snake perched on a standard, just as the Torah described the snake statue of Moses.
The Bible recalls that later generations setup this snake statue in the Temple itself, calling it N’chushtan—a pun on the Hebrew word for snake, nachash, and on the Hebrew word for copper, n’choshet. Other relics from the age of Moses like the rod of Aaron or a flask of manna were kept in storage in the Temple—out of sight. But the N’chushtan was erected publicly in the Temple courtyard. Why? Since the Torah indicates that one could be healed just by looking at the statue, probably when the Israelites made their offerings in the Temple, they made sure they also gazed upon the N’chushtan statue hoping for a similar miracle to what ailed them.
The Book of Kings II (18:4) records that King Chizkiya—the great reformer king of ancient Israel—“broke the copper snake that Moses had made into pieces, for until that time the Israelites had been offering sacrifices to it.” What a chutzpa! The seraph statue was made by Moses from the command of Gd Himself. King Chizkiya was one of the most pious of all the kings of Israel. The seraph statue had amazing healing powers. How could he destroy it?
Rashi explains, that originally, when one would look upon the snake one would think of Gd and repent for ultimately, healing comes only from Gd. But when the people looked at the seraph statue as an idol and worshiped it, it went from a symbol of Gd’s healing to an object that wounded the soul. That’s why Hezekiah destroyed it—despite the fact that it was made by Moses according to Gd’s command.
We don’t have a seraph statue today to heal us…or do we? Dr. Allen Rosenthal—founding president of our shul, may he rest in peace—once gave me a fascinating book to read called, The Cosmic Serpent. In it, the author Dr. Jeremy Narby—a noted anthropologist—points out the symbol of the snake in all ancient cultures was that of a healer. The shamans of almost all cultures have visions of the cosmic serpent that is very often doubled. There is much in their descriptions that led Dr. Narby to see amazing similarities to today’s research of the double helix of DNA. We’ve all seen that doubled snaked medical symbol. Science now tells us that with the completion of the mapping of DNA, it is now only a matter of time till we will be able heal practically any illness—even Covid-19. In fact we may eventually be able to alter our DNA and prevent illness. How cool would that be?
But maybe Father Jacob was right—i.e. that sometimes sickness has a good purpose. Since illness will not be eliminated in our lifetime unless, hopefully, the mashiach comes, it is crucial that we understand that ultimate healing comes only from Gd. A powerful spiritual principle is surrender. Do what you can to get the best medical help available and then surrender to Gd. Once you surrender to Gd, trusting in His goodness, then you allow His healing to enter.
My friends, not every ill person can be healed physically. This is the derech hateva (the way of nature). Sometimes one can be swept up in a pandemic! But remember that Rashi on the seraph statue: “when one would look upon the snake one would think of Gd and repent?” From looking to Gd and repenting, from finding ways to come closer to Gd, comes spiritual healing that may open one up to physical healing as well…who knows? Let’s look upon our snake—our double helix DNA—and the wonders of the human body, and lift our hearts toward heaven…for there is where the healing comes for our shattered souls. Amen!
