HEALING FROM THE SERPENT AND COVID The first of this week’s parashot describes how the Israelites are punished by G-d with an attack of fiery snakes. They had complained about their bread and water. In the plague that followed, the serpents “bit the people and many of the Israelites died” (Numbers 21:6). The cure G-d prescribes is an unexpected one. He tells Moses to make a copper serpent and place it on a pole, and instruct the people to stare at the snake and become cured. “Make for yourself a fiery serpent and place it on a pole, and it...

TURNING JUDAISM OUTWARDS Earlier this week, was the yahrzeit of one the greatest Torah teacher and leader of the twentieth century: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitche Rebbe, who died in 1994. He espoused a Judaism that saw the good in every human being and inspired his followers to reach out to all parts of the world. Unsurprisingly, he shows us a positive angle on Korach, one of the villains of the bible, the antihero of this week’s parasha. He gave a talk in 1974 to a group of teenage girls. In it, he reflects on the Midrash that...

JOURNEYING FROM LOCKDOWN On the face of it, the episode of the spies was a tragedy. The Children of Israel were on the threshold of the land of Israel. They had asked for reconnaissance about the land, which G-d and Moses agreed to give them. Twelve distinguished representatives set off on their expedition. The negative report of ten of them, led to the forty-year wandering in the desert. But what would have been the alternative?  Had they not failed, the people would have advanced straight to the land, led by pillars of fire and clouds of glory. The land of...