This sheet on Numbers 21 was written by Josh Pernick for 929 and can also be found here
Though plagues are common throughout the book of Numbers, the plague of the snakes stands out from the rest. The nation complained about food and were punished with so much quail that it “came out of their nostrils” (11:20). They did not have faith that God would bring them to the promised land, so they were refused entry (14:23). Their complaints in our chapter can thus be expected to be met by a similar tit for tat, “midah k’neged midah”
“…The people became disheartened because of the hardship of the journey. The people spoke against God and against Moshe, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in this desert, for there is no bread and no water, and we are disgusted by this rotten bread.’ The Lord sent against the people the venomous snakes, and they bit the people, and many of the people of Israel died” (21:4-6).
The complaint here is not specific; it is fatigue of the journey itself. The Israelites are finally on their way to Canaan, but the journey remains circuitous, filled with twists and turns. Twists and turns, it should be noted, that mirror the movement of the snake, a being unable to travel in a straight line towards its destination.
There is only one cure for the plague of the snakes; confronting the snake, and the inevitable frustrations on the journey of life which it represents, face to face. “Moshe made a copper serpent and mounted it on a standard; and when anyone was bitten by a serpent, he would look at the copper snake and recover” (21:9). Sometimes, it turns out, the snakebite is a blessing in disguise, forcing us to address our struggles and challenges head-on and allowing us to grow from each twist and turn along our journey.
Josh Pernick is a fourth-year rabbinical student at YCT and a member of the Hillel Office of Innovation Fellowship for Rabbinic Entrepreneurs.
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