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Chukat: Return of the Snake · A Thought for the Week

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to a Thought for the Week, a Torah in
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  Speaker 1: Motion podcast. I'm Jake Hellman, founding director of Torah in Motion,
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  Speaker 1: and it's a pleasure to have you here with us.
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  Speaker 1: Change is very hard for people. It involves lots of
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  Speaker 1: work critically assessing our strengths and weaknesses, and people don't
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  Speaker 1: like to do that. We like to go with the flow,
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  Speaker 1: the status quo. And that's why often people who really
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  Speaker 1: want to get things done they have to go out
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  Speaker 1: on their own. They have to start a new business,
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  Speaker 1: a new organization, a new school, a new world, because
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  Speaker 1: it's very hard to change the old and often to
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  Speaker 1: get fresh ideas, you got to start from scratch. Then
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  Speaker 1: at Seevrov, I've tell it's to who to Berlin, the Russiaeshiva,
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  Speaker 1: the head of the Yeshiva belusion for close to forty
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  Speaker 1: years in the nineteenth century in Russia. He explains in
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  Speaker 1: his introduction to his commentary on the book A meet
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  Speaker 1: Bar that the book is basically a book of transition.
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  Speaker 1: It's a book of change, a book where we transition
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  Speaker 1: from the supernatural to the natural, where the beginning of
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  Speaker 1: Jewish history is all miracles, ten plagues and the splending
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  Speaker 1: of the sea and the food from heaven, et cetera,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera. And when we get to Israel, they're going
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  Speaker 1: to have to live a natural life. They're gonna have
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  Speaker 1: to plant and plow and harvest and vast that they're
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  Speaker 1: they're gonna have to gather their grain. That transition, he says,
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  Speaker 1: it's actually cute that just like when a mother weans
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  Speaker 1: a baby, she doesn't go from one day breastfeeding in
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  Speaker 1: the next day food. You slowly bring in the food
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  Speaker 1: and you kind of do both. So during the fortieth
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  Speaker 1: year in the desert, that was the year that where
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  Speaker 1: we're going to begin the transition to wean the people
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  Speaker 1: the supernatural. Now it's in Parsha Trukat that we have
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  Speaker 1: the transition from generation one to generation two. That's the
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  Speaker 1: Parret Dooma, the story of death. Really, that's what happened
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  Speaker 1: in thirty eight years. Tori tells about how we purify
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  Speaker 1: from death. That's part of the narrative, and the tour
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  Speaker 1: never actually tells us we're in the second generation. It's
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  Speaker 1: actually a fascinating idea, but not for now, and we
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  Speaker 1: open up. We open up in year forty and Miriam
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  Speaker 1: Dice and the tor tells us the Miriam dice and
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  Speaker 1: unlike her brothers, there is no sin attached to her death.
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  Speaker 1: She died of natural causes. And right after she dies,
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  Speaker 1: the tor tells us there was no water for the
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  Speaker 1: people and rush. She quotes the meat rush that the
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  Speaker 1: forty years in the desert, the water came in the
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  Speaker 1: merit of Miriam. And basically what our stages are teaching
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  Speaker 1: us is that Miriam was the most important of leader.
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  Speaker 1: We all know that water is more important than food.
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  Speaker 1: Without Miriam, the wouldn't have been a Jewish people, there
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't be a Mosha Abnu. And she was perhaps behind
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  Speaker 1: the scenes, but she she was the main ingredient for
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  Speaker 1: our survival in the desert, and the water was lost
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  Speaker 1: when she died, And it was really only after her
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  Speaker 1: death that people realized this. After she died, there was
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  Speaker 1: no water lens until that point, they didn't realize their greatness.
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  Speaker 1: So common and so sad that people don't recognize what
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  Speaker 1: they have. Of course, they no longer have it. But
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  Speaker 1: with Miriam not living and the miraculous water from the
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  Speaker 1: well not there, Dibu started yelling at the Moosha, why
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  Speaker 1: didn't you kill us like you killed those other people.
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  Speaker 1: It would have been so much better. What do we
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  Speaker 1: need this for? Why did you take us out of Egypt?
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  Speaker 1: They weren't even taken out of Egypt. It's so ironic.
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  Speaker 1: They were the next generation. But okay, conceptually, why do
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  Speaker 1: you take the Jewish people out of Egypt? Fascinatingly, God
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  Speaker 1: does not get mad at them. God doesn't get mad
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  Speaker 1: the Jewish people. He understands, no water, what are they
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  Speaker 1: going to do? It's even though you know it's a
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  Speaker 1: it's a new generation, but still we can understand why
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  Speaker 1: they're complaining. What he does is he tells Mosha, and
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  Speaker 1: Aaron tells Mosha, go speak to the rock. And then
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  Speaker 1: of course you have this uh cryptic event. In many
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  Speaker 1: ways you don't know exactly what was done wrong, but
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  Speaker 1: they'll take the classic reason. Mosha hit the rock, and
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  Speaker 1: God gets mad at Mosha and our Un and he
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  Speaker 1: tells them you're not going to enter the land of Israel.
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  Speaker 1: And very soon afterwards Arun Dice also in partial fukat
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  Speaker 1: arn Dice Areun the peacemaker. Oh he' shalm vo they've
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  Speaker 1: shalam loving peace and seeking pace, seeking peace. And when
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  Speaker 1: he died there was a perception among the enemies, so
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  Speaker 1: to speak, of the Jewish people, that we are weakened.
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  Speaker 1: We've lost Miriam, we've lost our own Mosha not going
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  Speaker 1: to take the people in, and hence Arad, the king
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  Speaker 1: of Kannan, attacks the Jewish people. Did you if people
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  Speaker 1: cry out to God and God answers them and they
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  Speaker 1: defeat the Cananites and they dedicate the spoils to God,
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  Speaker 1: That's what the Tora says. And they named the place Horma.
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  Speaker 1: That's what it says, Horma. It means destruction, dedication, whatever means.
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  Speaker 1: What's fascinating is we have the term. We've had Horma before.
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  Speaker 1: When after the Sin of the Spies, when Mosha told
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  Speaker 1: the people they're not going to the land of Israel,
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  Speaker 1: there were Jews said we're going, We're going to go
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  Speaker 1: now to Israel. We realize our mistake, and they started
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  Speaker 1: going emotions, don't go, don't go, and they didn't listen,
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  Speaker 1: and they went anyways on their journey to Israel. And
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  Speaker 1: the Tora tells us to the Amalaki and the Cananate
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  Speaker 1: defeated them at Rmah. So I find this very interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Forty years earlier, Horma was the place that signified the
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  Speaker 1: sins of the Jewish people, the inability to enter the
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  Speaker 1: land of Israel. And now Houorma is where we defeated
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  Speaker 1: our enemies as we're about to enter and conquer the
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  Speaker 1: land of Israel. So the crisis of lack of water
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  Speaker 1: and war was dealt with successfully, and now other people
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  Speaker 1: should be on their march to the land of Israel.
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  Speaker 1: They could have horror. They leave horror up to where
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  Speaker 1: Ron is buried, and all of a sudden, like out
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  Speaker 1: of left field, the Jewish people start complaining, but the
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  Speaker 1: sarm but there. If they got there, they were upset
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  Speaker 1: and started yelling and screaming, we don't know why the
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  Speaker 1: torre doesn't tell us there's no food, there's no water.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed like everything is fine. And once again they say,
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  Speaker 1: why did you take us out of Egypt to kill
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  Speaker 1: us in the desert. There's no bread, there's no water.
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  Speaker 1: We don't like the bread. I mean, you don't like
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  Speaker 1: the bread. I thought you just said there's no bread.
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  Speaker 1: This is most likely a lie. But even if it's
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  Speaker 1: not a lie, and they really didn't have water, do
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  Speaker 1: they really think after what they just with this In
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  Speaker 1: the last few weeks that God is going to abandon them.
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  Speaker 1: So this time God does angry at the Truish people
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  Speaker 1: and he sends snakes. Send snakes, and why snakes? So
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  Speaker 1: the commentary has explained very interesting. The snake, of course,
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  Speaker 1: was the first one introduced lush on horror evil speech
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  Speaker 1: into the world. You know, tell me God for bajit
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  Speaker 1: from the fruit and to convince to eat from the fruit.
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  Speaker 1: So the snake is the symbol of lush on hern
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  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, the Talmud takes it a
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  Speaker 1: step further and says, you know, the snake when it
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  Speaker 1: bites somebody, it doesn't really get any pleasure from it.
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  Speaker 1: It's not like it's not like a lion attacks and
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  Speaker 1: that's prey and likes the food. No snake just hurts
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  Speaker 1: the person or kills the person, doesn't get any pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: And that's just like lush on it way you speak evil,
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  Speaker 1: you don't get any real benefit. It doesn't help you.
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  Speaker 1: It's not like, okay, non cosia food, I enjoyed it.
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  Speaker 1: So the snake is the symbol of lush on herah. Also,
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  Speaker 1: I think, and I have a sort of a more
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  Speaker 1: simple explanation, is that okay, the Jewish people are questioning
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  Speaker 1: the miraculous protection of God. I'm gonna show you and
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna have natural life in the desert. And when
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  Speaker 1: nature takes over in the desert, there are lots of snakes. Now,
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  Speaker 1: what's very interesting is that the tour tells us that
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  Speaker 1: I'm rov rove. Now. I don't know why, and I
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  Speaker 1: actually ask a lot of people. I looked this up
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  Speaker 1: in all the commentaries, and nobody had a response. Why
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  Speaker 1: does the tour not specify a number? You know, by
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  Speaker 1: the sin of the Golden Cafa specifies the number by
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  Speaker 1: Corpus specifies the number by all sins, pretty much by
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  Speaker 1: we're going to read with Mijian the Seduction of the
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  Speaker 1: Woman of Mijan. The Dori always tells us how many
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  Speaker 1: people died, and here just says I'm rov Now, I'm
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  Speaker 1: rov could me. I don't think it quite means this.
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  Speaker 1: It could mean the majority of the people that would
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  Speaker 1: be robo or about amra means a lot, a lot,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people, like probably more than anybody any
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  Speaker 1: other sin of the Jewish people, and perhaps out of
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  Speaker 1: the honor of the Jewish people. We know Moshrabina when
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  Speaker 1: he rebukes him at the beginning of a me bar
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  Speaker 1: Russian points out. He hints, he doesn't give direct rebukeing
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  Speaker 1: it's this place that place you want to you want
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  Speaker 1: to insell people. So it's an amazing thing. This was
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  Speaker 1: apparently a terrible, terrible sin at this point in the journey,
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  Speaker 1: after everything, to say, why do you take us out
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  Speaker 1: of Egypt? We don't have bread, we don't have water.
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  Speaker 1: God got really mad, and the Jewish people said, katana.
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  Speaker 1: The Jewish people realize their sin. The Tora tells us
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  Speaker 1: they realized their sin. Okay, pray and Mosha puts up.
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  Speaker 1: The Uh tells uh put up. You have to put
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  Speaker 1: up the snake. This the silver snake. You look up
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  Speaker 1: at the snake and you got healed. And that was it,
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  Speaker 1: and it seems to have worked. The Jewish the tora
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  Speaker 1: them records and went from here. They went here. It
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  Speaker 1: seems like they're journeying very quickly, and all of us
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  Speaker 1: and then they're singing the song of the Well. This
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  Speaker 1: a cryptic song. At the end of Persia, tlu got
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  Speaker 1: things are all going well into we'll read next week
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  Speaker 1: by luck and the problems that happened there. But Jewish
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  Speaker 1: history is a very long journey, and it took a
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  Speaker 1: long time, and we know it took forty years. It
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  Speaker 1: took a transition from one generation to the next generation
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  Speaker 1: that left Egypt for very understandable reasons, was incapable of
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  Speaker 1: entering the land. But even this second generation unfortunately proved
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  Speaker 1: they weren't so much better, but hopefully a little better.
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  Speaker 1: And what choice do we have? How long is this
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  Speaker 1: going to go on? And we have to wear on
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  Speaker 1: a long journey. The journey continues. The journey is continuing
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  Speaker 1: to make this world a better place, to bring peace
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  Speaker 1: and comfort to people and solve social problems and all
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  Speaker 1: the issues we have in the world. That's the journey
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  Speaker 1: we are on that we are tasked to do. And
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  Speaker 1: part of that journey is to know to go back
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  Speaker 1: in beginning, when to change and when not to change,
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  Speaker 1: when when we have to do new approaches, and where
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  Speaker 1: we take the approaches of the past. And that's not
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  Speaker 1: always an easy thing to know, but to get that right,
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  Speaker 1: that's the secret to our survival and our growth and
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  Speaker 1: our success. May we learn properly you We hope you
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed A thought for the week at Torah in Motion podcast.
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  Speaker 1: thank you very much, looking forward to learning with you
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  Speaker 1: next week.