By Eman Chayim
When the people grumbled about their journey in the desert again, Hashem sent a plague of fiery snakes. To bring healing, He told Moshe to make a serpent and place it on a pole, but curiously, He didn’t specify what it should be made of.
Why did Moshe choose copper?
The Ramban explains: Moshe chose copper because it resembled the color of the desert snakes. The similarity in sound between נחש (nachash – snake) and נחושת (nechoshet – copper) reinforced the connection.
Why add to the Trauma?
But this raises a deeper question: Why would Moshe show a snake to people traumatized by snakes? Imagine a child bitten by a dog. Showing him a picture of a dog immediately afterward would seem cruel and irresponsible.
A powerful spiritual lesson:
Sometimes what appears to harm us is also the source of healing. Just like the bitter waters in Marah were sweetened by a tree, or the salt water was purified by Elisha’s salt, the snake itself became the vehicle for healing.
This teaches us to look beyond the nature of what we think is truly “bad”. What seems bad can contain hidden good. Everything comes from Hashem. There is no true evil, only concealed purpose.
What about our working with Nature?
Yes, the normal course of life is for Hashem to operate through nature. The default is that He asks for our hishtadlut, our effort, within the natural order. This is seen with Noah and the flood, where the name Elokim is used, a name numerically equal to HaTeva (nature). Hashem instructs Noah to build a physical ark, one that appears to naturally shelter the animals from the coming flood. Though the event is miraculous, it’s wrapped in human effort.
But there are moments, like the copper snake, where healing comes outside nature, completely miraculously. Perhaps, that’s why here, the Torah uses the four-letter name of Hashem (YHVH), the name that transcends time and space.
In those moments, Hashem shows us that salvation can come from the very place we least expect. In rare, supernatural times, pain begins to lift when we look higher and remember that beneath the surface lie deeper truths about our suffering, truths we often miss.