Crushed By an Idol: Part One: Questions
Feb 14th, 2011 by Rabbi Simcha Weinberg in Portion of the Week
Crushed: Oooh! That Hurts!
What do you do with a Golden Calf in middle of the desert? You can only party for so long. Eventually, you have to travel and find a place to settle. How do you travel with a Golden Calf?
“Menashe made an image as heavy as a thousand men, and every day it slew all of them.” He insisted that the Sages carry it around Jerusalem all day and its enormous weight crushed such a number every day. (Rashi)
Who was going to carry the Golden Calf? How would they move it around in the hot desert?
Even if they would have figured out a system with which to transport their idol, would they have stopped with the Golden Calf? Menashe didn’t:
R. Yochanan said: At first he made it with one face, but subsequently he made it with four faces, that the Shechinah might see it, and be angry.
Menashe wanted God to respond, even if in anger. Would the Children of Israel have done the same? Was that part of what they desired”
Menashe placed it in the Temple, as it is written, “And he set up a graven image of the grove that he had made in the house, of which the Lord said to David, and to Solomon his son, ‘In this house, and in Jerusalem which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel will I put my name forever.’” (Sanhedrin 103b)
Menashe, when imprisoned, first called upon many deities, and only eventually called upon the God of his fathers. (Sanhedrin 101b) “And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God,” implying that he had prayed to other deities before. ‘If You will not hearken to my prayer,’ he pleaded, ‘of what profit was my turning to You?’ (Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 10:9)
Even Menashe eventually returned to God. Would the Children of Israel have done the same upon realizing that their new deity could not protect them in the desert?
Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.
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A thought about one of the many ways G-d is running the world.
The Tablets Moshe brought down at first,which he subsequently broke, were of volume equal to a kosher mikvah – 40 Sei’ah.
ChaZL also indicate they were carved of the special stone-like material that comprises the Throne of Glory.
There is absolutely no way a human being could even budge them; it was a miracle that Moshe carried them down.
[One explanation is the Heavenly writing buoyed the tablets. Upon approaching the encampment with the Golden Calf, the letters ascended off the stone tablets up to the heavens and Moshe was left holding tons of rock which ,of course he could not bear.]
On a different level, but in a similar fashion,the Holy Ark of the Covenant was borne by a select few. This was also a physical impossibility due to the great weight of all the gold accouterments etc. ChaZL describe that situation as “Ha’Aron nosei et no’s’ahv” -The Ark miraculously enabled its bearers to carry it – as if it carried them.
Perhaps Menashe was trying in a perverse way to see whether the Sages deserved for such a miracle to occur to them. However, the mistake in that notion was they were charged with carrying something antithetical to G-d’s commandments.
Things do seem to come full circle.The Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 10;3 says when Menashe was repenting, the angels tried to block his repentance and G-d resorted to creating a special channel to the Throne of Glory to accept and store Menashe’s repentance.
So the Lukhot HaB’rit were quarried from the Throne of Glory and Menashe, who’d took the Golden Calf to new lows-when he repented he returned to the Throne of Glory.