Of Spiders, Chimps and a Desolate Temple

שְׂמָמִית בְּיָדַיִם תְּתַפֵּשׂ, וְהִיא בְּהֵיכְלֵי מֶלֶךְ Reading the Haftorah for פרשת חזון today, reminded me of this verse in Mishle (Proverbs) (30:28) , "Grab the spider (שממה) with your hands when it is in the hall of the king." The understanding of the significance of a spider in the hall of the king long eluded me. There is a Midrashic comment which connects the spider to the Kingdom of Edom, but that still begs the question: How are they connected?

Rabbi Moshe Dovid Valle in his commentary on today's Haftorah mentions that the word שממה (referring in context to the desolation of the Land of Israel) shares the same Gematria as the word שכינה (Shechinah). The spider, he says, symbolizes the anit-Shechinah. It symbolizes the evil which enters the Temple when the holiness of the Shechinah is supplanted. It is the power of Edom which has tried to supplant the holiness of Judaism with its own brand of holiness.

We can take this idea one step deeper. The Talmud teaches us that the idolatrous King Menashe brought a four-faced idol into the Temple in order to anger the Shechinah. It would seem that since the Chariot of Hashem has four faces Menashe made a similar idol to anger Hashem with its similarity. The Talmud goes on to say that the result of Menashe's behavior was that the שממה was in the hall of King. 

This all comes together with a glance at the Ibn Ezra's commentary on Mishle. He explains that a שממה is a chimpanzee which looks like a person, but is not one. It would make sense then that Menashe, attempting to bring a crude facsimile of the Chariot of Hashem into the temple, was acting in a chimp-like manner. He was trying to mimic the Shechinah, but could not quite do so.

This also connects well to Edom. Our Sages teach us in several contexts that Edom will always try to claim to be the rightful successor and replacement of the Jewish Nation. They will claim to be Kosher and righteous following the dictates of Hashem. But they too are chimps. In some ways they may look to be the real thing, but they are also missing the keys to make them real.