Chukat: I See Your Calf and Raise You a Snake

Even if you're not that familiar with the Torah or all the stories contained within it, you probably know a few central ideas. You might have heard of Adam & Eve, Noah, Abraham, slavery in Egypt, the Ten Commandments, and a handful of other key points. One such concept that I think is pretty well-known is that you're not supposed to make graven images. No idols, no statues for worshipping, no house gods of any shape or size, and just no bowing down to, or praying to, anyone or anything but God. And the most infamous example of what not to do has got to be the Golden Calf, which the Israelites built in the desert and venerated as if it were a god. And clearly, based on that story, we all learned that no such images or statues can be used in ANY way. Right?? Well... yes and no. This week, our Torah reading offers us a surprising and bewildering example of a permitted statue, and - just like so many other stories in the Bible - it leaves us with more questions than answers. As it should be.

It starts the same way too many other stories from this time period already have, namely with the people rebelling against Moses, Aaron, and especially God. The people bark at their leaders: "Why did you make us leave Egypt to die in this wilderness?!? There is no bread and no water, and we have come to loathe this miserable food [the manna]!" (Numbers 21:5) By this point, God is getting pretty darn fed up with these ingrates, and God sends against the people a plague of poisonous, deadly snakes! When the people inevitably repent and cry out for help, God instructs Moses to do something most surprising: "Make a seraph [winged snake] figure and mount it on a standard. And if anyone who is bitten looks at it, he shall recover." (v. 8) So I guess part of the message we're meant to take from this is, calves are bad and snakes are good? Now, we should acknowledge that God directing Moses to do something is quite a bit different than the people just erecting a statue on their own. Nor does anyone ever call out to the flying-snake-thingy: "This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" as they did for the Golden Calf in Exodus, 32:4. Nevertheless, I think the use of an animal statue is understandably confusing... 

I also feel it necessary to point out that our fears regarding the serpent-statue are not unfounded. Centuries after the Exodus, we find an intriguing reference back to this mystical healing device in the Second Book of Kings, during the religious reformations under King Hezekiah: "He [Hezekiah] abolished the shrines and smashed the pillars and cut down the sacred post. He also broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until that time the Israelites had been offering sacrifices to it; it was called Nechushtan." (II Kings, 18:4) Despite God's best intentions, some people simply couldn't resist the urge to offer sacrifices TO the snake-statue as a graven image. The commentaries speculate wildly about what's going on here. One perspective suggests God used a snake to remind the Israelites of the conniving serpent that misled Adam & Eve back in the Garden of Eden. That snake was punished for his incendiary words; and the Israelites were similarly punished for their own inflammatory attacks on God and Moses. Another commentary posits that the serpent is a poignant symbol of how dangerous the desert can be, and might help remind the Israelites that the only reason they've been surviving for 40 years is because of God's favor.

To me, an important lesson that comes from this story is intentionality. The same act can be either a destructive transgression or a source of healing. Similarly, when we express a sentiment to another person, our decision to infuse our comment with kindness versus passive-aggression versus outright hostility can change everything about how it's received. Even the energy with which we express ourselves can vastly alter our words, regardless of whether we do so intentionally or not. Perhaps the text is suggesting that have to be mindful of ourselves and how we are perceived by others all the time. We cannot hide behind saying a certain act or a particular phrase "always" means one thing and not another, it's much more complex than that. Our body language, our energy, our facial expressions, our intentions, and our tone of voice; all of them contribute to how we are perceived and how our sentiments are understood. At times, the text can seem inconsistent, as if it's prioritizing one act over a seemingly identical one elsewhere, possibly for arbitrary reasons. But those moments invite us to look closer, read more sensitively, and pay more attention to nuance, contrast, and intention. When we do that, we can learn so much more from the text, and even learn more about our own behaviors as well.

CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Wellcome Images on Wikimedia Commons
2. 7ustalvin on Wikimedia Commons
3. Jubjang on Rawpixel
4. Sheila Brown on PublicDomainPictures