Copper Snakes

“And the LORD said unto him: 'What is that in thy hand?' And he said: 'A rod And He said: 'Cast it on the ground.' And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Put forth thy hand, and take it by the tail--and he put forth his hand, and laid hold of it, and it became a rod in his hand.”

Exodus 4:5

Copper snakes

That serpentine debaucher

That forms our erect posture

That vertebral structure

That makes us erect

Homo Sapiens-

Knowing man (wink wink)

Ironic how

despite our conscience

We must own one to be the other

It took the Gaon of Vilan

To "see" (hibit) as in gaze or stare

A voyeur of the vertebral anatomy

“Seeing” the primordial snake

Within each of us

And realizing it is he

Who motivates for good as well as bad

So what to do?

Embrace that which is within?

accept this serpentine skeletal rod

that keeps me erect

(though beginning to stoop with age)

whose head-he tells usis

buried in the kundalini

and (how demeaning) its tail

in my upper cervical!

Ready to be grabbed by a snake charmer

the addictions of life

who will make me rigid!

in compliance.

Yet this inverted cunningness

holds it all together

and mediates the space between the skull

and the loins.

It alone transmits the commands from wherever

in the brain, with its tail

to the wisdom below

its head facing down

in shame

knowing after all

the loins will win out

they usually do.

In this battle

who would have guessed

he remains present

despite banishment form the Garden

his curse is now to undulate within man

and continue to advise and scheme.

And the Sh’lah hakadosh

insists his presence has become more manifest

since Sinai

in his effort to explain the need for

chumros [1]

this primordial serpent

this mythological ever present

power

whose tum’ah

will one day become

transformed to the Holy Serpent.

So rest a while

we are but actors on this cosmic mythic stage

stop feeling responsible for the set up!

just be present to its power

and beware!!!!

[1] see Nesivos Sholom Avodas Hashem Maamar 13, p 280