Ilustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
Midrash מִדְרָשׁ
(ט) וַיַּ֤עַשׂ מֹשֶׁה֙ נְחַ֣שׁ נְחֹ֔שֶׁת וַיְשִׂמֵ֖הוּ עַל־הַנֵּ֑ס וְהָיָ֗ה אִם־נָשַׁ֤ךְ הַנָּחָשׁ֙ אֶת־אִ֔ישׁ וְהִבִּ֛יט אֶל־נְחַ֥שׁ הַנְּחֹ֖שֶׁת וָחָֽי׃
(9) Moses made a copper serpent and mounted it on a standard; and when bitten by a serpent, anyone who looked at the copper serpent would recover.
This is a really unusual approach to healing snake bites. How did it actually work?!
To answer this, here’s a midrash from inside a mishnah. (In the Mishnah or Gemara, a midrash is often called “aggadah” in Hebrew, or “aggadeta” in Aramaic.)
The mishnah is talking about the mitzvah of hearing the shofar (we promise, we will come back to snakes!). The mishnah imagines two people walking by a synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, and hearing a shofar sound coming from the building. Both people heard the same sound, but only one had כַּוָּנָה (kavvanah, inner intention) to be fulfilling the mitzvah. Kavvanah is so important here that only the person who had kavvanah fulfilled the mitzvah of hearing the shofar. The other person heard the exact same sound, but it didn’t count for them.
And now, the snake connection:
וְכִי נָחָשׁ מֵמִית, אוֹ נָחָשׁ מְחַיֶּה?!
אֶלָּא, בִּזְמַן שֶׁיִּשְׂרָאֵל מִסְתַּכְּלִין כְּלַפֵּי מַעְלָה וּמְשַׁעְבְּדִין אֶת לִבָּם לַאֲבִיהֶן שֶׁבַּשָּׁמַיִם, הָיוּ מִתְרַפְּאִים. וְאִם לָאו, הָיוּ נִמּוֹקִים.
Could a copper snake have the power to make a person die or live?!
What really happened is that when Benei Yisrael would look upwards, and turn their hearts in service to their Father in Heaven, then they would be healed. But if they didn’t, they would rot from their snake bites.
According to this midrash-in-a-mishnah, the copper snake wasn’t magic. It was there to inspire people to pray (to God, not the snake) with proper kavvanah. And if they did that, then God would heal them!
- Why is it so important to have kavvanah in prayer or when hearing the shofar? When else is it important to have kavvanah?
- How can you tell when you are praying or acting with kavvanah? Is kavvanah something you can see with your eyes, or is it something else?
-------------------
-------------------
