Speedy justice after the rock, and life goes go

Bamidbar 21:5-8 contains what might be the quickest sin, punishment, retribution and repentant turnaround in all of the Torah.

“The people spoke out against G-d and Moses, ‘Why did you take us out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread and no water! We are getting disgusted with this wasteless/insubstantial food.’ G-d sent poisonous snakes against the people, and when they began biting the people, a number of Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned by speaking against G-d and you. Pray to G-d, and have Him take the snakes away from us’.”

G-d then gives Moshe the solution for those who have been bitten: a copper snake raised on a pole (an international symbol for pharmacy), for people to gaze upon in order to be healed (this is a simplistic understanding of how the snake “worked”).

Chasam Sofer asks, why now, after 40 years in the wilderness, are the people complaining about the manna? To further his question, we can wonder how the new generation — most of them born and grown up in the wilderness, where this is the only reality they’ve known — could they complain that the manna is just absorbed in the body; they’ve never experienced waste-producing food!

He suggests that once they encountered other nations, and engaged with them in trade, they discovered the foods the Edomites (and others) ate, and had their first major exposure to the digestive system. However, the wheat they may have eaten did not produce waste, so they felt the manna had destroyed their bodies.

Rabbenu Bachaye notes that the whole purpose of the manna while they were traveling was to train them to have trust and faith in G-d. The moment they spoke falsehoods about G-d, they were punished with snakes, the symbol of speaking falsehoods (think Garden of Eden). (He quotes the Medrash Tanchuma that the punishment of snakes measure for measure in a different way: the snake who eats anything and it all tastes the same to him will come and punish those who complain about eating the one thing that has many possible flavors.)