In Part One we quoted the Talmud: “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)

I’m trying to picture the scene of Menashe’s weighted idol that crushed a thousand people each day: It must have been huge if it took a thousand people to carry it. Let’s say that people were forced to carry the massive burden under the threat of death. What exactly happened? Did it crush those carrying it all at once? Perhaps people collapsed from the heavy burden. Even if so, that means that people were falling away as the idol was being carried through Jerusalem’s streets. Did it fall every time that a few people collapsed? If all the people carrying it died, how did it make it back to its base?

Was this the same idol that Menashe erected in the Temple? It would have had to fit into the Temple, so it could not have been too large for the Temple gates. That would mean that it was not huge, just very heavy. So, how did a thousand people get under it to lift it? If there were massive bars to carry it; the people would not have been crushed.

Even if we accept that the Talmud is, as is often the case, using hyperbole, what point is the Talmud making?

We then quoted another Talmudic teaching: “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.” If Menashe was attempting to provoke the Shechina we can assume that he believed in the Shechina. Why would someone who believes in the Divine Presence believe that a four-faced idol was necessary to be seen? Could not the Shechina see a single-faced image?

Someone so set on provoking the Shechina’s ire, may be very angry with and resentful of the Shechina, but an angry and resentful person usually believes in the Shechina enough to be angry and resentful. Is the Talmud hinting that Menashe believed?

Our final quote from the Talmud certainly indicates Menashe as a believer: 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)

We have Menashe, an angry and resentful believer, attempting to provoke God with an image that he also used to murder his enemies.

I suggest that Menashe was addressing issues outstanding since the sin of the Golden Calf: He was convinced that the sin of the Golden Calf continued to crush Israel almost a thousand years later. The participants in the sin were punished. Israel was given an outlet for the drives that led to the Golden Calf in the Mitzvah to construct the Mishkan. There was punishment. There was redirection. Menashe was convinced that the core issue remain unresolved. He saw that issue, whatever it was, as the cause of all the fluctuations in Israel’s relationship with God, and the suffering that ensued. (The Sages do teach that he was correct; at least to a degree: All of Israel’s suffering over the ages is increased because of the Golden Calf.) The issue that led to the Golden Calf continued to “crush” Israel, as did an issue that followed: How did Israel understand God’s contained anger? Hence, Menashe’s drive to provoke the Shechina’s anger.

Is there a part of God that looks away? (Four faces to the image – all directions) If God indicates that He will look away, how can Israel know when the Shechina will react to their sins?

If Israel’s response to Moshe’s “delay” on Sinai was to make the Golden Calf, how would they react to feeling that God was distancing Himself, His Shechina, from the nation and the land? If the people were so unstable because of their fear of distance, how could they survive when they lived so distant from the Beit Hamikdash?

If the House of God was a redirection of the drives that led to the Golden Calf; did their shame at the sin affect their perception of the Temple? Did it represent failure?

Menashe wanted absolute clarity for the people: “If You will not hearken to my prayer,’ he pleaded, ‘of what profit was my turning to You?” Menashe was explaining, or justifying his drive for idol worship, as the Talmud (Sanhedrin 102b) teaches:

In the college of R. Ashi the lecture [one day] terminated at ‘Three Kings, who do not have a portion in the World To Come.

‘To-morrow, said the Rabbi, ‘we will commence with our colleagues.’

[That night] Menashe came and appeared to Rav Ashi in a dream. ‘You called us your colleagues and the colleagues of your father; now, from what part [of the bread] is [the piece for reciting] the ‘ha-mozi’ to be taken?’

‘I do not know,’ he answered.

‘You have not learned this,’ Menashe jibed, ‘yet you call us your colleagues!’

‘Teach it me,’ he begged, ‘and tomorrow I will teach it in your name at the session.’

He answered, ‘From the part that is baked into a crust.‘

The Rabbi then questioned Menashe, ‘Since you are so wise, why did you worship idols?’

He replied, ‘Were you there, you would have caught up the skirt of your garment and sped after me.’

The next day the Rabbi observed to the students: We will commence with our “teachers” [so referring to the Three Kings].

To Be Continued…

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