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.

Anger - Part I

 "King Menashe placed a four faced idol in the Temple Sanctuary. In order that the שכינה (Divine Presence) should see it and be jealous." (Talmud, Sanhedrin 103b)

I read this and looked at my Chavrusa (study partner) and shook my head. My initial reaction was that we have seen many times in our studies that the urge to worship idols that existed in Biblical times no longer exists today; there is no way that I am capable of understanding or relating to the behavior described here. But I could not live with that approach. If the words of the Talmud  were words to which I could not relate, then what was the point of my studying them? The messages must be universal, applicable for all ages, or they wouldn't be here.
"He sounds like a petulant child," I pointed out to my chavrusa, "doing this in an attempt to get attention. Negative attention. Actually, it seems to me that he is a very angry person, like he is very hurt and trying to get back at God for the hurt he is feeling. Why is he so angry?" Truthfully, I don't know, but I will try to seek understanding so that I can see if there is something I can learn about myself from the behavior he displayed.
Menashe was the son of King Chizkiyahu. Chizkiyahu had a prophecy informing him that his children would be wicked. In order to forestall that outcome, he refused to marry. In consequence he became ill and was visited by the prophet Yeshayahu. Yeshaya informed Chizkiyahu that his illness was due to his refusal to marry. When Chizkiyahu protested that his decision was valid as he did not wish to have wicked children, Yeshaya told him that it was not his place to worry about God's plans. Chizkiyahu then challenged Yeshyahu and said that if Yeshaya felt he should marry then Yeshaya should give Chizkiyahu his own daughter as a wife. Yeshaya immediately assented. Menashe was the child of this union.
Sure enough, for the first 22 years of his reign, Menashe was an evil idol-worshiper. Why the anger? Imagine how he must have felt knowing from childhood that he was destined for wickedness. I can imagine that he felt completely rejected by God. He never stood a chance. He desperately wanted God's love and attention, and he had been told he would never get it. Is there any wonder why he was so angry? Is it surprising that he sought what we would call negative attention to compensate for what he felt was lacking in his life? He wasn't trying to "hurt" God, absurd as that notion sounds, but crying out with great thirst to figure out how to get God to relate to him.
I think back about myself, and relationships (including my relationship with God) in which at times I have felt rejected. Yes, there were times I responded angrily. But what was the anger born from? Was it because I wanted to hurt the other party in the relationship, or was it because I was so frustrated at desperately seeking their loving attention? No, that does not at all justify anger; there is almost nothing that ever does. On the contrary, what it offers me is an insight into understanding what drives me, so that if I find myself in that situation again, I can recognize the feeling for what it is and respond to it in a positive, rather than angry, manner.