Nugget

I could tell I'd been reading too much Jungian style psychology when I was reading this story in Numbers the other day.
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.’ Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’ So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
Numbers 21: 4-9 
It's a weird story, really, and if you research it, you will find references to the Rod of Asclepius, feminine imagery, and psychological references to archetypes and so on. But I do feel (as I have said before) that our own meanings are as valid as the historically-situated or doctrinally-pure ones. I read this and simply thought it interesting that, to get well, the people had to look squarely at the thing they feared, their 'shadow', if you will. That seems true to me.