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Healing

Practical Parshah - Chukat

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Healing: Practical Parshah - Chukat

This portion describes Moses' unusual way of healing those who suffered from poisonous snake bites. A Jewish look at how healing really works.
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Topics: Health, Illness and Healing, Medicine, Chukat-Balak, Parshah, Brass Serpent, Incident of, Chukat
By Mendel Kaplan
Rabbi Mendel Kaplan is the Spiritual Leader and Executive Director of Chabad Flamingo in Thornhill, Ontario, serving one of Canada’s most dynamic Jewish communities. He also serves as Chaplain of the York Regional Police Service. He is an active member of Toronto’s Vaad HaRabbanim (Council of Orthodox Rabbis), and a voting member of the COR Kashruth Council of Canada’s executive rabbinical board. Rabbi Kaplan is featured regularly on many local television and radio shows. He is a sought after speaker, with hundreds of lectures on Chabad.org. He and his wife, Faygie, are blessed with eight children. Artistically endowed, the rabbi enjoys drawing, sketching and creating charcoal portraits.
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9 Comments
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Mendel zajac June 28, 2017

That was an incredible shiur!
Thank you!! Reply

Chanah Europe July 14, 2016

yesher koyach Rav, Thank you for your lessons , they are one of my favorites.
You are very good speaker, your knowledge is wide and even quality of audio records are very good (easy to listen)
For few years already are many of your lessons sources of many of my own lessons for women in place where there is not too much of Torah knowledge and as few of ladies are studying with me for few years i need every time new insides and your lessons are great for it.
thank you !
blessings! Reply

hadassah texas June 25, 2016

Shalom! One the very best teachings I have ever heard! Torah within Torah within Torah for me!
B'H
Hadassah Reply

Daniel September 10, 2014

In other words, if the "good as dead" person is not released from the mitzvos, he doesn't qualify as "dead"; yet, if killing the same person would not qualify as "murder", he is not "alive": this, then, would qualify as a distinct "state" (neither "dead" nor "alive").

This question actually opens up a whole new vista: the judgments, in general, then, can be highly subjective. This is highly interesting, and a little unsettling! Reply

Daniel September 10, 2014

Clarification By the way, I was not in any way implying that the death of a Jew in the Shoah was "spilling blood" (a concept Rabbi Mendel Kaplan discusses in the lecture). G-d forbid.
I was just using an example of "imminency of death equalling death", and then asking whether those who were counted "as good as dead" would be released from obligation to observe the Mitzvos--whether the "imminency of death equalling death" would qualify the person for being released from obligation to observe Mitzvos by that "death" (and "resurrection"--as Rabbi Kaplan says the episode of the men bitten by the serpents, but who lived after beholding the copper serpent, was viewed as a type of "resurrection").
I guess I didn't really think it through well enough--never intended to say the death of a Jew in the Shoah was something less than murder. No. G-d forbid. Reply

Daniel September 9, 2014

When "Murder" Becomes "Spilling Blood"... 1. What qualifies as "as good as dead"?
Would conditions in the Shoah?
Isn't "as good as dead" relative and subjective?
Ex: If someone has a disease in a first-world that normally kills someone in the third-world is the man in the first-world "as good as dead"?

2. If killing such a man who was destined to perish whether you killed him or not has the power to transform "murder" into "spilling blood", would those "as good as dead" men have been released from obligation to observe Mitzvos ("the Law applies only to the living person")? Reply

Daniel Flagstaff, AZ July 4, 2012

Copper? Is the snake made of copper or bronze? Reply

Anonymous Pepperell, MA June 30, 2011

The manna k'lokal = ki LO CAL
because low calorie!! Reply

Daisey Fish Houston, TX USA June 29, 2011

chabad I have thoroughly enjoyed your website. It has been a G-d send. Reply

The Practical Parshah
Each week, Rabbi Mendel Kaplan will delve into that week's Torah reading to bring out a practical lesson for life and explain the Biblical sources for the customs, laws, practices and ethics of our people.
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