Chukath: the staff

 Chukath: the staff

There are two poles in Chukath, this week's parsha: One staff that famously hits the rock that pours forth water  for the thirsty and complaining Israelites in the desert.  The other is the scepter that supports the image of the copper serpent that rescued those bitten by the fiery snakes sent to punish the complainers.  Striking the rock was the capital offense that consigned Moses to death in the wilderness.  The caduceus may be the origin of the Jewish doctor. 

The parsha starts with the red heifer. It opens with the words: 

זֹ֚את חֻקַּ֣ת הַתּוֹרָ֔ה

This is the chok of the Torah

The work chok ( I have discussed it before) means "apportionment"  It is a prescribed quantity or rule. A chok defies questioning. It is arbitrary. Based on this linguistic construction, the red heifer is assigned the status of the most mysterious thing in the world. The purifier is polluted.

The mystery is not so much the red heifer; it is the stain of death that these inanimate ashes come to cleanse. And death informs the greater mystery, the life that precedes it.  The complexity of life makes it inscrutable .  Add  to that the wonders of interaction with the environment and consciousness...Death is the cancellation of wonders. 

There is an immediate recognition of legacy. The ritual is to be preformed by Elazar, not Aaron. Aaron is still alive, but it is his son, Elazar who receives the heifer, sprinkles its blood toward the tabernacle (from a distance), and before whom the carcass is burned to the purifying ashes.  It will not be long before those ashes are used to cleanse the mourners of his aunt Miriam and his father Aaron. 

The healing copper snake adds to the legacy of Moses.  Gd told Moses to create this therapy. It is clear that Moses' effort is a part of this miracle cure. ( The stick that supports the image of the serpent is called a nais, a word that also means miracle).  Six hundred years later, king Hezekiah  destroys this magical implement. The partnership between Gd and Moses... and the object Moses created at the behest of Gd,  could be misunderstood. The image had been created as an antidote to the bite of the fiery serpent.  The fiery serpent had been sent to punish the people for their complaints against Gd and Moses. The object was intended to restore the reputation of  both Gd and Moses.  When power was ascribed to the object itself, it had to be crushed. 

Hitting the rock was a tiny transgression, a bit reminiscent of preforming the incense service incorrectly [cf  Nadav and Avihu and Korach].  Moses and Aaron had acted as if  their actions had brought the water from the rock. They were supposed to bring the staff and talk to the rock. Moses hit the rock. (In my worldview, rocks may [sometimes] feel the pain of injury).  Moses  weaponized the staff.  The staff had been used to bring several of the plagues that brought the expulsion from Egypt.  It is only the plague of lice, the plague recognized by the Egyptian engineers of magic as the finger of Gd, that involved striking the land with the staff.  In all the other plagues, that involved the staff, the rod was extended, no object was stricken. 

The problem that devolved from Moses taking a more active physical role in the eliciting of water from stone is reflected in a poem quoted in the parsha. 

יז  אָז יָשִׁיר יִשְׂרָאֵל, אֶת-הַשִּׁירָה הַזֹּאת:  עֲלִי בְאֵר, עֱנוּ-לָהּ.	17 Then sang Israel this song: Spring up, O well--sing ye unto it--
יח  בְּאֵר חֲפָרוּהָ שָׂרִים, כָּרוּהָ נְדִיבֵי הָעָם, בִּמְחֹקֵק, בְּמִשְׁעֲנֹתָם; וּמִמִּדְבָּר, מַתָּנָה.	18 The well, which the princes digged, which the nobles of the people delved, with the sceptre, and with their staves. And from the wilderness to Mattanah;

The poem is the legacy of memory;  it is how the people remember the event.  The legend of the event recalls princes and staves, not Gd. 

The scepter mentioned in the poem is special. It is a mechokayk, it is an emblem of the power to make arbitrary decisions, to apportion sustenance, to mete out life and death. It is imputed to the princes and nobles.  There is really only one source to which all are subject.