13 Jul IS YOUR ANXIETY KILLING YOU? 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 portion of Chukas.

When poisonous snakes attack the Jews in the

desert, Hashem instructs Moses to fashion a

special healing instrument: a pole topped with

the form of a snake. Moses 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 Hashem 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 Hashem, it was the

relationship with Hashem, 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 Moses

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 Hezekiah (in the 6th century

BCE) destroyed the copper snake

fashioned by Moses, 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

back-stabbed 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.

Hashem tells Moses: “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 Hashem 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 Moses: 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. Bless Me This is

surely the meaning in that famous, enigmatic

passage in Genesis 32 in which Jacob, far from

home, wrestles with an unknown, unnamed

adversary from night until the break of day. The

mysterious man maims Jacob, causing him to

limp. And yet at the end of a struggling night, a

night to remember, Jacob says to the

stranger/angel/God: “I will not let you go until

you bless me.” “Bless me?!” Is this how you bid

farewell to a man who attempts to destroy you?

Jacob was teaching us the secret of Jewish

resilience. To be a Jew is to possess that unique

ability to say to every crisis: “I will not let you

go until you bless me.” I know that deep down

your entire objective is to elevate me, to bring

me to a higher place, to climb the mountain

leading to the truth, allowing me to emerge

stronger, wiser, more blessed.