Magic. Sometimes the Torah condemns it. But sometimes the Torah condones it. Like in Parshat Chukat, for example.
Magic in Parshat Chukat
Parshat Chukat. Its name comes from the Hebrew word “chok.” Literally, a rule or a ruling. In rabbinic Hebrew, a rule or custom whose rational meaning we don’t know.
Parshat Chukat is about grief and the liminal space that puts people in. The twilight space, the threshold space, between conscious and subconscious. In Chukat, emotions run high and magical things do happen.
Moses learns a ritual for dealing with grief. His sister Miriam dies. There’s no water for the people to drink. They complain. God says, speak to this rock and water will flow from it. Moses, angry at the people, hits the rock instead. Water flows from it anyway.
Moses’s brother Aharon dies. Fiery snakes attack the camp. Then, many people die. Moses displays a magical bronze snake sculpture. People look at it and are healed.
Local kings Sichon and Og—last of the gigantic ancient nefilim––refuse passage through their lands. Israelite warriors, led by Moshe, defeat the giants in battle. The people sing a song of praise to the well.
Fiery Snake Bites
Let’s focus on one of those magical moments: hanechashim haserafim, the fiery snakes.
The Hebrew word nachash means snake. The same root also means bronze or copper. And divination or magic. In modern Hebrew, a trace of this remains: nachash means to guess.
The word saraf literally means “burning.” But it can also refer to a angel, imagined as a snake with wings.
Maybe the nechashim serafim are saw-scaled vipers, a snake native to the Sinai region. Its venom can be deadly to humans. When it slithers by moving the scales on its belly, it makes a slithering sound in the sand. Or maybe nechashim serafim are hooded cobras, who look like snakes with wings—at least if you’re backing away from them quickly.
Nachash and saraf. Let’s listen to the way these sounds and meanings blend in a kind of prayerful incantation. Listen for the sound ssss, the sound of a hissing or slithering snake. And listen for the sound shhhh, the calming human sound.
After Aaron dies, people in the grieving community people are upset. They complain angrily. “There’s no food,” they say. “Well there is, but it’s terrible.”
So God sends the snakes. They bite the people and many die. Listen to the Hebrew:
VayiSHalach Adonai ba’am et hanechaSHim haSerafim, vayinaSHchu et ha’am, vayamat am rav miYiSrael. (Num 21:6)
Healing Snake Magic
Then, the people apologize to Moses. He prays to God to help them. God tells Moses make a seraf and mount it on a pole. Anyone who was bitten who sees it will live.
ASeh licha Saraf, viSim oto al neS, v’haya kol hanaSHuch, vira’ah oto vachai. (Num. 21:8)
So Moses does that—sort of. With his own interpretive twist. He makes a magical bronze snake and mounts it on a pole. So if a snake bites someone, the person can look at the magical bronze snake and live.
VayaaS MoSHe nichaSH nichoSHet, vayiSimeyhu al haneS, vihaya im naSHach hanachaSH et iSH, vihibit el nechaSH hanechoSHet vachai. (Num. 21:9)
A calming incantation. A mixture of sounds that also appear in other ancient Near Eastern texts. Like the snake incantations in Ugaritic texts from 1200 BCE. And Babylonian medical snake prescriptions from 600 BCE.
I like to imagine that each person bitten by a snake had two people helping them. A medical helper attending to the wound. And a spiritual helper calming the soul with magical sounds that go straight to the heart.
Hints of Magic
In some places—Leviticus and Deuteronomy—the Torah speaks against magic. Don’t allow anyone who practices it in your community. Why? Some say this protects grieving people. Sometimes a con artist will approach someone vulnerable, promise healing, and deliver only disappointment.
But the book of Numbers is different. It recognizes the power of magic to speak to the deepest levels of our psyche.
If you don’t believe me, go the second book of Kings (18:4). For hundreds of years, it says, Israelites continued to burn incense in the presence of Nechushtan, the magical bronze snake that Moses made.
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Image: Modern monument to Nechushtan (Church of St. Moses, Mt. Nebo). Information on ancient snake texts from scholar Avigdor Hurwitz. Additional inspiration from scholar Richard Lederman in TheTorah.com
Originally offered as a dvar Torah, Or Shalom Synagogue.
