22 Jun CHUKAT: THE PAIN DOES NOT DISAPPEAR, BUT IT CAN HEAL ME LOOKING UP: THE MEANING BEHIND THE SNAKE ON THE POLE

No Complaining
After seventy years
of communist
oppression and
seven hours of
flying, Boris, a
burly immigrant
from Moscow steps off the plane in a free
land to begin his new life in his new home,
Israel. Standing at the Ben Gurion airport
in Tel Aviv, a young and enthusiastic Israeli
reporter plunges a microphone in front of
him with a level of excitement that is only
seen when an inside scoop is about to be
caught. The reporter asks with focus: “Tell
me, what was life back in Russia like?”
To which the Russian immigrant replies: “I
couldn’t complain.”
An obviously unexpected answer, the
young reporter continues to probe: “Well
how were your living quarters there?” To
which the Russian responds “I couldn’t
complain.”
Not expecting this answer either, the
reporter decides to hit him with a question
that is bound to get the answer he is looking
for: “What about your standard of living?”
To which the Russian replies again: “I
couldn’t complain.”
At this point, the reporter’s frustration with
the new immigrant’s answers reaches a
crescendo, and so in a derogatory tone the
reporter yells out, “Well, if everything was
so wonderful back in Russia, then why did
you even bother to come here?” To which
the new immigrant replies with gusto:
“Oh, here I can complain!”
The Serpents
It is a strange biblical episode — in this
week’s parsha, Chukat.
When poisonous snakes attack the Jews in
the desert, G-d instructs Moshe to fashion
a special healing instrument: a pole topped
with the form of a snake. Moshe sculptures
a snake of copper and duly places it on top
of a pole. Those who had been afflicted by
the snake bite would gaze on the serpentine
image on the pole and be cured.
According to some historians, this was the

forerunner of the caduceus, the snake-
entwined rod which is today the emblem of

the medical profession.
Yet the question is obvious: What was the
point of placing a snake on top of the pole
to cure the Jews who were bitten? If it was

G-d who was healing them miraculously,
why the need to look up at a copper snake
atop a pole? The question is raised in the
Talmud:
“But is the snake capable of determining
life and death?!” the Talmud asks. And the
answer is this: “Rather, when Israel would
gaze upward and bind their hearts to their
Father in Heaven, they would be healed;
and if not, they would perish.” Fixing their
eyes on the snake alone would not yield
any cure; it was looking upward toward
G-d, it was the relationship with G-d,
which brought the cure. But if so, why
bother to carve out a copper snake in the
first place, which can only make people
believe that it is the copper snake that is the
cause of healing?
In fact, this is exactly what occurred. The
copper snake that Moshe made was
preserved for centuries. In the passage of
time, however, its meaning became
distorted, and people began to say that the
snake possessed powers of its own. When
it reached the point of becoming an image
of idolatry, the Jewish King Chizkiyahu (in
the 6th century BCE) destroyed the copper
snake fashioned by Moshe, and that was
the end of that special copper snake.
Which only reinforces the question: Why
ask people to look up at a man-made snake
which can lead down the path to a
theological error of deifying the snake?
There is another question. The snake was
the reptile that caused the harm in the first
place. Healing, it would seem, would come
from staying far away from serpents. Why
in this case was the remedy born from
gazing at the very venomous creature
which caused the damage to begin with?
A Tale of Two Snakes
The snake in the biblical story — as all
biblical stories capturing the timeless
journeys of the human psyche — is also a
metaphor for all of the “snakes” in our
lives. Have you ever been bitten by a
“venomous snake”? Poisoned by harmful
people, burnt by life, or by abusive
situations? Have you ever been crushed by
a clueless principal, a manipulative boss, a
deceiving partner, a toxic relationship?
Were you ever backstabbed by people you
trusted? Is your anxiety killing you? Are
you weary and demoralized by your life
experience?
What is the deeper meaning of suffering?

And how do some
people know how to
accept affliction with
love and grace?
These are good
questions that cannot be
answered easily, if at
all. But one perspective
is presented in the story
of the serpents. G-d tells
Moshe: “Make a serpent
and place it on a pole.
Whoever gets bitten should look at it and
he will live.” The key to healing, the Torah
suggests, is not by fleeing the cause of the
suffering, but by gazing at it. Don’t run
from the snake; look at it. Because deep
inside the challenge, you will find the cure.
Deep inside the pain, you will find the
healing light.
But there is one qualification: you must
look up to the snake; you must peer into
the reality of the snake above, on top of the
elevated pole, not on the serpent crawling
here below.
The Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein (1889-1951), who had three
Jewish grandparents and was considered
by many to be one of the greatest
philosophers of the 20th century, once said
that his aim as a philosopher was, “to show
the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.” The
fly keeps banging its head against the glass
in a vain attempt to get out. The more it
tries, the more it fails, until it drops from
exhaustion. The one thing it forgets to do is
look to the sky.
Every experience in life can be seen from
two dimensions – from a concrete, earthly
perspective, or from a higher, more sublime
vantage point, appreciating its true nature
and meaning from the Divine
perspective. There is the “snake” down
here, and there is the very same “snake” up
there. I can experience my challenges,
struggles, and difficulties in the way they
are manifested down here. But I can also
look at these very same struggles from a
more elevated point of view. The
circumstances may not change, but their
meaning and significance will. From the
“downer” perspective, these challenges,
curveballs, painful confrontations, and
realizations can throw me into despair or
drain me of my sap. From the “higher”
perspective, the way G-d sees these very
same realities, every challenge contains
the seeds for rebirth. Within every crisis

lies the possibility of a new and deeper
discovery.
Many of us know this from our personal
stories: Events that at the time were so
painful to endure, in retrospect were those
that inspired the most growth. Those
painful events moved us from the surface
to the depths, challenging us to become
larger than we ever thought we can be, and
stimulating conviction and clarity
unknown to us before.
This is not about suppressing the pain. On
the contrary, it is about taking the pain
back to its deepest origin; going with it
back to its primal source, seeing it for what
it really is in its pristine state.
To perceive clarity from the midst of
agonizing turmoil we must train ourselves
to constantly look upward. When faced
with a “snake,” with a challenge, many
people look to their right or to their left.
Either they fight, or they cave in. But there
is another path: look upwards. See the
“snake” from the perspective above.
And in that upward gaze, you might find a
new sense of healing: the questions might
become the very answers, the problems
may become the solutions, and the venom
may become the cure. Remarkably,

snakebites today are cured with anti-
venom manufactured from small quantities

of snake venom that stimulate the
production of antibodies in the blood.
It’s the same idea taught by Moshe: The
source of the affliction itself becomes the
remedy. This is true in all areas of life. As
viewed by the Creator, from the perspective
above, transgression is the potential for a
new self-discovery; failure is the potential
for deeper success, holes in a marriage are
the seeds of “renovation” to recreate a far
deeper relationship, the end of an era is
always the beginning of a new one, pain is
a springboard for deeper love and
frustration is the mother of a new
awareness.