PARSHA-PIX - Chukat

Parsha Pix
We have in the upper-left, of course, the Red Cow, an archaic play on words with the symbol of (RED) Communism.

Following Miriam's death, the Well dried up and there was no water for the people (the faucet with the spider's web at the spout).

Although Moshe was commanded to speak to the Rock, he struck it with the MATEH twice and water gushed forth from the rock(s). The ear indicates the original command to speak to the rock.

The Kohen Gadol is pictured, with the garments that were transferred from Aharon to Elazar.

Following Aharon's death, the people panicked and a plague of serpents attacked the people. G-d told Moshe to put the form of a snake on a rod (which he did, making the snake from copper) and anyone bitten by a poisonous snake who looks at the snake-on-the-stick would live.

The sedra mentions SEFER MILCHAMOT HASHEM, some kind of written record of the battles. It is represented by the open book with a tank on one page and the HEI-shmichik on the other page.

DO NOT ENTER sign has a double-double meaning. Edom and Emori both responded to Israel's request for safe passage through their territory with DO NOT ENTER. Moshe and Aharon, as a result of the Hitting the rock rather than talking to it episode, were given DO NOT ENTER orders for Eretz Yisrael. The bottle of water with the dollars signs represents the offer Bnei Yisrael made to pay for the water they would use while passing through Edom's land.

The well with the musical notes stands for the Song of the Well. Think about the prominent role played by water (and its lack) from the moment Bnei Yisrael left Mitzrayim (you can even go back to the first plague in Egypt - BLOOD) until they arrived at the threshold of Eretz Yisrael.

Which brings us to an old (one of the first) PPP component, 3+2=fire is for the phrase, "For a fire has come out of CHESHBON..."

TTRIDDLES...
are Torah Tidbits-style riddles on Parshat HaShavua (sometimes on the calendar). They are found in the hard-copy of TT scattered throughout, usually at the bottom of different columns. In the electronic versions of TT, they are found all together at the end of the ParshaPix-TTriddles section. Some TTriddles are also presentedfor call-in solution on Torah Tidbits Audio (Arutz-7, Thursday night). The best solution set submitted each week (there isnt always a best) wins a double prize a CD from Noam Productions and/or a gift (game, puzzle, book, etc.) from Big Deal

Last week’s (KORACH) TTriddles:
[1] Confuse a cow and she gets weak. What animal remains unchanged if confused?
[2] Parshat Korach for $800: You must; you may not; you should
[3] The Hebrew father of a religious tiger are his confused antagonists

And the envelope please...
[1] Several TTriddles solvers got this one. Confuse a cow means to mix up the letters of the word for cow, PARA. PEI-REISH-HEI is an anagram of RAFA, meaning weak. But is you mix up the letters of KEVES, KAF-VET-SIN, you can get KESEV, which also means lamb. (Yes, it is true, as some solvers pointed out, that if you mix up KEVES in other ways, it doesn’t stay the same. But let’s not try to ruin TTriddles, shall we?)
[2] Correct Jeopardy question: What is PIDYON B’CHOR? (Actually, it is something more like, What is with redemption of the first borns of the different types? But Jeopardy questions are not really supposed to sound like that.) For a human first born, YOU MUST redeem him. YOU MAY NOT redeem the first borns of the domesticated kosher animals - cow, goat, sheep. YOU SHOULD redeem the first born donkey (but it can be destroyed instead of being redeemed). There is no significance in the $800. It was a random choice of values from the show. This TTriddle too was solved several times.
[3] As was this one, but not accurately. The correct answer is Moshe Rabeinu. His antagonists were DATAN VaAVIRAM. If you rearrange the letters you can spell, AV NAMEIR DATI, the father of a religious tiger.
That’s it for last week’s TTriddles. YYW, RHM, and MM/Bklyn were among the correct solvers of the three. A CD from Noam Productions -or- a gift from Big Deal awaits each of them.

On another item from last week’s TT. Several people called and emailed to ask about the Pidyon HaBen chart, specifically about the Bat-Kohen who has a b’chor from a non-Jew. A Bat-Kohen’s b’chor usually does not need a Pidyon. But by having relations with a non-Jew, she forfeits the sanctity of the K’huna that she possessed since birth, and her b’chor requires a Pidyon. Not so the Bat Levi, since her status is not a matter of that kind of Kedusha.

This week's TTriddles:
[1] The other use of yoke-free cows
[2] Prophetic mention is a preview
[3] They match the Mizmors...sort of
[4] The water song trilogy
[5] Never inside, but in this sedra - above
[6] Para Aduma's appropriately looks like Baama's is called

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