Snakes on a Plain - Parshat Chukat

(4) They set out from Mount (Har) Hor by way of the Sea of Reeds to go around the land of Edom. But the people grew restive on the journey, (5) and the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why did you bring us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread and no water, and we have come to loathe this miserable food.”

(6) The Eternal sent seraph snakes against the people. They bit the people and many of the Israelites died. (7) The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned by speaking against the Eternal and against you. Pray to the Eternal to take the snakes away from us!” So Moses prayed for the people.

(8) Then the Eternal said to Moses, “Make a seraph figure and mount it on a post. And if anyone who is bitten looks at it, they shall recover.” (9) Moses made a copper snake (nachash ha-nechoshet) and mounted it on a post; and when anyone was bitten by a snake, they would look at the copper snake and recover.

They bit the people - Let the snake which was punished for slander come and strike those who utter slander!

A copper snake - He had not been told to make it of copper, but Moses said, “The Holy Blessed One calls it a nachash (נחש), so I will make it out of nechoshet (נחשת), and let this language fall on this language.

It appears to me that the secret of this matter is that it is the way of the Torah to do everything as 'a miracle within a miracle.' Thus [the Torah] removes injury by means of the cause of the injury, and heals illness by means of the cause of the sickness, (as the Rabbis have mentioned in connection with the verse, and the Eternal showed him a tree, and as occurred with the salt that Elisha cast into the water).

Now it is a well-known medical principle that all people bitten by poisonous creatures become dangerously ill when they see them, or even when they only see their likeness, so that if people who have been bitten by a mad dog or other mad animals look into water, they see there the image of the dog or the attacker, and this can cause them to die, as is written in medical books and mentioned in the Gemara of Tractate Yoma. Similarly doctors keep people from mentioning in their presence the name of the animal that bit them, because their minds cling to this thought and do not turn away from it altogether until it kills them.

These doctors have already noted that it is an empirical fact, amongst the wonders of the species, that if the urine of a person bitten by a mad dog is put in a glass receptacle after he has become rabidly sick, there will appear in that urine the image of puppies. And if you pass the liquid through a cloth and filter it, you will not find any trace of them at all; but if you return the liquid to the glass bottle, and it remains there for about an hour, you will again clearly see puppies in it. This is a true fact, and one of the wonders of the forces of life.

Now in view of all this, it would have been correct that the Israelites, who had been bitten by the fiery snakes, should not look upon a snake, and should not mention it or bring it to mind at all. But the Holy Blessed One, commanded Moses to make for them the likeness of a serpent, which was the thing that killed them.

And it is well-known that these fiery snakes have red eyes and wide heads, and their bodies at their necks are like copper. Therefore Moses could not fulfill God's command to make a fiery serpent except by making a snake of copper, which appears similar to a fiery snake. For had he made it of any other material, it would have had the likeness of a snake, but not that of a saraf, a fiery serpent.

And those who said [that Moses made a copper snake] in order to “let this language fall on that language,” meant that the mention of the name alone would usually have been harmful. But the principle here is that God commanded that they be healed with the very thing that causes harm. So they had to make it like that in both form and name, so that when a person gazed upon the copper snake which completely resembled the damaging agent, they lived. And this was all to make them realize that God alone gives death and life.

(18) The Eternal God said, “It is not good for Adam to be alone; I will make a fitting helper for him.” (19) And the Eternal God formed out of the earth all the wild beasts and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them; and whatever Adam called each living creature, that would be its name. (20) And Adam gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to all the wild beasts; but for Adam no fitting helper was found. (21) So the Eternal God cast a deep sleep upon Adam; and, while he slept, God took one of his sides and closed up the flesh at that spot. (22) And the Eternal God fashioned the side that had been taken from Adam into a woman; and God brought her to Adam. (23) Then Adam said:

“This one at last

Is bone of my bones

And flesh of my flesh.

This one shall be called Woman (isha),

For from Man (ish) was she taken.”

This one shall be called 'Woman,' for from 'Man' was she taken - This language falls on that language. From here we learn that the world was created with the Holy Tongue.