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Under the Stars
* June 30, 1996
mbols Outweigh
Religious Observance
7:00 pm
Breathtaking ambience at Temple
Israel's new L'dor V'dor Garden
featuring the string quartet Concertante.
Performing will be Marina Leonova, Tammy
Sherman, Rita Kislyuk, and Lyudmila
Soboleva.
Shabbat Chukat-Balak:
Numbers 19:1-25:9; Micah 5:6-6:8
RABBI ELIEZER COHEN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Seating is limited, please bring lawn chair
or blankets.
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This concert is part of the ongoing Schmier
Chapel Chamber Series and is co-sponsored
by the Temple Israel Treasures.
Under the Stars
The Shabbat Services Under the Stars will
take place each Friday at 8 pm beginning July
5, and continuing through August 16, weather
permitting.
Temple Israel
5725 Walnut Lake Road,
W. Bloomfield 48323
(810) 661-5700
casual dress, no jeans
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Fine Designer Furniture • Accessories • Gifts
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810 855-1600
n this week's sedrah, Chulzat-
Balak, we are presented with
a very enigmatic incident in
the story of the Jewish people's
travel through the wilderness.
The Torah (Numbers 21:4-9) re-
lates that the people spoke
against God and Moses out of
frustration at the lack of water
and the desire for food other than
the manna.
As a response to these com-
plaints, God sends against the
people poisonous snakes that
cause the death of many of the
nation. When the people come to
Moses and admit their sin and
ask that Moses pray that God re-
move the snakes, this is how the
Torah describes the answer to
Moses' prayer: "And God said. to
Moses, make a poisonous snake
and put it on a pole and it will be
that any that are bitten will see
it and live. And Moses made a
copper snake and put it on a pole
and it was that if the snakes bit
a person, he would look at the
copper snake and live."
An attempt to explain this
bizarre event (the snakes were
not removed by God; instead, a
person bitten would look at the
statue made by God's command)
in terms acceptable within the
traditional Jewish religious con-
text brought in a Mishnah in
tractate Rosh Hashanah: "And
does the snake (statue) kill or give
life? Rather, when the Jews
looked upward (toward heaven)
and made their hearts sub-
servient to their Father in heav-
en, they were cured — and if not,
they decayed." According to the
Mishnah, the snake statue was
a reminder, a symbol, of God's
presence and concern — to pun-
ish and to cure.
If the guilty party realized his
mistake and looked to God for
help — if he truly made himself
subservient to God's will again
—he was cured. The copper
snake had no power at all; it
served simply as a sign to direct
one's attention heavenward to-
ward God and to re-establish the
proper relationship with the Di-
vine.
It is particularly enlightening
to see what became of this copper
snake in later generations. The
Talmud states" "King Hezekiah
... ground up (destroyed) the cop-
per snake and the rabbis con-
Eliezer Cohen is rabbi of
Congregation Or Chadash.
curred." The commentaries ex-
plain that in later generations the
copper snake that Moses made
at the behest of God had itself be-
come the object of worship. The
people had made the very sym-
bol of their relationship with the
Divine an object of idolatrous ven-
eration — either independent of
God or in an attempt to magical-
ly induce God to do their will.
Hezekiah, realizing the destruc-
tive nature of such worship, had
the copper snake destroyed.
It is all too easy to substitute
the tangible symbol for the spir-
itual purpose for which it was or-
dained. We often delude
ourselves into thinking that the
outward observance or demon-
stration of honor for the symbol
have real spiritual efficacy. Cer-
tainly, formalized prayer is an ex-
ample; we say words as if they
We observe
without real
meaningfulness.
are some magical formula guar-
anteed to bring Divine blessing.
At times, the mumble of the
words is done in a way to pre-
clude having real spiritual sig-
nificance to us even if we do
understand them (and, in fact,
how many of us really under-
stand the words we say?).
The same thing can be said of
myriad other ritual observances.
The Talmud itself speaks of
`Those fools that stand before the
Torah but do not stand before its
scholars." Those who intend to
give honor to the object simply do
not understand the paradox.
Likewise, those that stand in
honor of the Torah but do not fol-
low its ways seem to have gotten
it backwards. We observe with-
out real meaningfulness; we sim-
ply go through the motions
without real emotion; we affect
without effect.
Our relationship with the Di-
vine reality (which, after all, is
what religion is really all about)
cannot simply become a venera-
tion of objects or practice or ritu-
al behavior if they don't in some
way enhance our closeness to
God and improve us as human
beings. If it doesn't, have we not
created our own form of magic,
or even worse, idolatry?