Bresishis - Willy-Nilly Goes the Snake
At first the Snake spoke...
Look at how the future human relationships with the snake is described in Genesis:
God tells us the snake will bite man at the heel, while man will crush the snake’s head.
What’s the connection between head and heel?
The Sages say the snake originally had legs and walked upright. He also spoke. A very different creature than the one that slithers today.
It is not surprising that the snake could speak. According to many verses in Tanach...especially in Tehillim... animals spoke. Trees, mountains, rivers, even the Sea itself. This was the original order. I take these verses literally, unless a metaphor is required by context, such as the “outstretched arm” of God. These creations still speak, as we know from the teachings of Shlomo HaMelech...and his father, of course. The problem is, we can no longer hear them. We lost that ability when we began to eat them during the generation of Noah. It is very difficult to eat something that has a first name, and says hello to you. God permitted humans to eat animals only after the flood. Before that we were vegetarians!
Look at how the future human relationships with the snake is described in Genesis:
God tells us the snake will bite man at the heel, while man will crush the snake’s head.
What’s the connection between head and heel?
The Sages say the snake originally had legs and walked upright. He also spoke. A very different creature than the one that slithers today.
It is not surprising that the snake could speak. According to many verses in Tanach...especially in Tehillim... animals spoke. Trees, mountains, rivers, even the Sea itself. This was the original order. I take these verses literally, unless a metaphor is required by context, such as the “outstretched arm” of God. These creations still speak, as we know from the teachings of Shlomo HaMelech...and his father, of course. The problem is, we can no longer hear them. We lost that ability when we began to eat them during the generation of Noah. It is very difficult to eat something that has a first name, and says hello to you. God permitted humans to eat animals only after the flood. Before that we were vegetarians!
בְּרֵאשִׁית ט׳:ג׳
“כָּל־רֶמֶשׂ אֲשֶׁר הוּא חַי לָכֶם יִהְיֶה לְאָכְלָה כְּיֶרֶק עֵשֶׂב נָתַתִּי לָכֶם אֶת־כֹּל.”
Genesis 9:3 (translation):
“Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. As I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.”
“כָּל־רֶמֶשׂ אֲשֶׁר הוּא חַי לָכֶם יִהְיֶה לְאָכְלָה כְּיֶרֶק עֵשֶׂב נָתַתִּי לָכֶם אֶת־כֹּל.”
Genesis 9:3 (translation):
“Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. As I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.”
Standing Up Against the Snake
What is it about a snake’s movement that’s so hypnotic? It’s the back-and-forth motion of the spine, I think.
There is something snake-like in us. It’s our spine.
When we stand upright, we do the opposite of the snake. We engage gravity from our heels, not from our bellies.
I am blessed with a difficult back. It forces me to be aware of my posture at all times. I say blessed, because without the pain, I’d remain unaware of gravity’s constant pull. Now, I believe that being conscious of this struggle speaks to the very essence of upright living...in every sense.
Allow me to explain.
Sleep and the Struggle to Live
The Sages say that sleep is 1/60 of death. Why 1/60? Because that’s the point at which something just begins to be perceptible.
Sleep is a taste of death because it’s the blissful removal from the struggle to live. In sleep, there’s nothing to do but surrender. If we’ve lived a full day...acted, worked, struggled...we can sleep well. And that gives us a glimpse of the next world. Peaceful rest, earned by exertion.
But then we wake up. And life resumes.
The Snake as Yetzer Hara
So let’s return to the snake...and to our spines.
Why is the snake a symbol of the yetzer hara, the destabilizer?
Simple. A snake moves forward only by moving side to side. It cannot walk straight. It weaves and slithers. It can’t take a stand.
That’s what it became.
When Eliyahu rebuked the prophets of Ba’al, he asked: “How long will you straddle two fences?”
We humans straddle, too. Our desires conflict. We diet, then binge. We plan, then sabotage. We drift from one extreme to the other. It’s snake-like.
The Spine and Willpower
Our willpower...our capacity to stand upright...is the line that connects head to heel.
Ramban, on “Let us make man in Our image,” explains that God included all of creation in Adam. Adam was not man or woman, beast or bird. Adam was all of them...and more. A child of the Earth, and also of God.
That’s the masculine/feminine dynamic in its deepest sense.
God is the masculine force, Earth the feminine. Adam is their child: balanced between receiving and giving, planting and nurturing. Between woman and man.
This duality lives in all of us. The powers of Chochma and Bina...inspiration and reflection...are not gendered. They are human. The flash of insight, and what we do with it.
Receiving the Aha Moment
And that insight? That “aha” moment? It isn’t from us. It’s given. A message. A whisper from the Almighty.
Rarely does God speak directly. But through His messengers...angels, if you like...He gives us moments of clarity. And He does it fairly, so we can choose. So the heavenly court can say: “You had the information. You had the chance.”
The first block to acting on that insight is the belief that we created it ourselves.
That belief blinds us.
If we think the thought is ours, we won’t listen to what it really means.
If we’re humble enough to see it as a message, we can begin a dialogue...with the angel, with God.
You’ll hear that voice in the world around you. A video. A WhatsApp. A book title that catches your eye. An overheard sentence.
Letting Go and Shedding Skin
And if we reflect on that insight, it can change us. But only if we shed what no longer fits. Just like the snake.
The spine is how thought becomes action. The more conscious we are of our posture, the more grounded we are in the world.
Strengthening posture strengthens not just the core...but our chi. Our chai. Our life-force.
To be awake is to fight gravity. The Earth that made us pulls at us. Every night we surrender. We lie down, and she reclaims us. But if we’ve lived fully, we go down gladly.
The Heel and the Sage
The Sages say that any Talmud scholar who cannot strike and bite like a snake is no Sage. Wow!
Why must the Sage bite like a snake?
Because the heel is the site of completion. It’s the mitzvah fulfilled. The step taken. The word spoken.
We only see a person’s heel...what they actually do. And sometimes, a Sage must strike at that. Not the soul. Not the person. The action. The behavior.
Strike the sin, not the sinner.
Even the snake only bites the heel. That’s all he has access to. He can’t destroy your head. He just tries to knock you off balance.
But when challenges come...when things don’t go to plan...we stomp his head. That’s the message. Stomp. His. Head.
That’s what God told Cain: “Sin crouches at the door. Its desire is for you. But you can rule over it.”
So rule. Stand up straight. And make a choice...for goodness’ sake.
What is it about a snake’s movement that’s so hypnotic? It’s the back-and-forth motion of the spine, I think.
There is something snake-like in us. It’s our spine.
When we stand upright, we do the opposite of the snake. We engage gravity from our heels, not from our bellies.
I am blessed with a difficult back. It forces me to be aware of my posture at all times. I say blessed, because without the pain, I’d remain unaware of gravity’s constant pull. Now, I believe that being conscious of this struggle speaks to the very essence of upright living...in every sense.
Allow me to explain.
Sleep and the Struggle to Live
The Sages say that sleep is 1/60 of death. Why 1/60? Because that’s the point at which something just begins to be perceptible.
Sleep is a taste of death because it’s the blissful removal from the struggle to live. In sleep, there’s nothing to do but surrender. If we’ve lived a full day...acted, worked, struggled...we can sleep well. And that gives us a glimpse of the next world. Peaceful rest, earned by exertion.
But then we wake up. And life resumes.
The Snake as Yetzer Hara
So let’s return to the snake...and to our spines.
Why is the snake a symbol of the yetzer hara, the destabilizer?
Simple. A snake moves forward only by moving side to side. It cannot walk straight. It weaves and slithers. It can’t take a stand.
That’s what it became.
When Eliyahu rebuked the prophets of Ba’al, he asked: “How long will you straddle two fences?”
We humans straddle, too. Our desires conflict. We diet, then binge. We plan, then sabotage. We drift from one extreme to the other. It’s snake-like.
The Spine and Willpower
Our willpower...our capacity to stand upright...is the line that connects head to heel.
Ramban, on “Let us make man in Our image,” explains that God included all of creation in Adam. Adam was not man or woman, beast or bird. Adam was all of them...and more. A child of the Earth, and also of God.
That’s the masculine/feminine dynamic in its deepest sense.
God is the masculine force, Earth the feminine. Adam is their child: balanced between receiving and giving, planting and nurturing. Between woman and man.
This duality lives in all of us. The powers of Chochma and Bina...inspiration and reflection...are not gendered. They are human. The flash of insight, and what we do with it.
Receiving the Aha Moment
And that insight? That “aha” moment? It isn’t from us. It’s given. A message. A whisper from the Almighty.
Rarely does God speak directly. But through His messengers...angels, if you like...He gives us moments of clarity. And He does it fairly, so we can choose. So the heavenly court can say: “You had the information. You had the chance.”
The first block to acting on that insight is the belief that we created it ourselves.
That belief blinds us.
If we think the thought is ours, we won’t listen to what it really means.
If we’re humble enough to see it as a message, we can begin a dialogue...with the angel, with God.
You’ll hear that voice in the world around you. A video. A WhatsApp. A book title that catches your eye. An overheard sentence.
Letting Go and Shedding Skin
And if we reflect on that insight, it can change us. But only if we shed what no longer fits. Just like the snake.
The spine is how thought becomes action. The more conscious we are of our posture, the more grounded we are in the world.
Strengthening posture strengthens not just the core...but our chi. Our chai. Our life-force.
To be awake is to fight gravity. The Earth that made us pulls at us. Every night we surrender. We lie down, and she reclaims us. But if we’ve lived fully, we go down gladly.
The Heel and the Sage
The Sages say that any Talmud scholar who cannot strike and bite like a snake is no Sage. Wow!
Why must the Sage bite like a snake?
Because the heel is the site of completion. It’s the mitzvah fulfilled. The step taken. The word spoken.
We only see a person’s heel...what they actually do. And sometimes, a Sage must strike at that. Not the soul. Not the person. The action. The behavior.
Strike the sin, not the sinner.
Even the snake only bites the heel. That’s all he has access to. He can’t destroy your head. He just tries to knock you off balance.
But when challenges come...when things don’t go to plan...we stomp his head. That’s the message. Stomp. His. Head.
That’s what God told Cain: “Sin crouches at the door. Its desire is for you. But you can rule over it.”
So rule. Stand up straight. And make a choice...for goodness’ sake.