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Manasseh Sets Four Faces Against the Presence

Manasseh dragged a four-faced idol into the innermost room. Wherever the Presence turned, stone stared back. God asked what He was doing there.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. A Home Offered from the First Day
  2. The Guest Chose the Door
  3. The Prince and the Ruined City
  4. After the Room Emptied

Manasseh dragged the carved thing across the last threshold. Priests flattened themselves against the stone. The Holy of Holies had been a room for one Guest. He set the idol down where the ark had stood in better years, and he did not set it with one face.

Manasseh Sets Four Faces Against the Presence Click for full size

He carved four. East, west, north, south. Wherever the Shekhinah (שכינה), God's Presence dwelling among people, turned, stone stared back. No corner of the room was left unwatched.

God spoke through Jeremiah. Even a jackal uncovers her breast so her young will nurse. "My children, seeing Me dwell among them, brought in an image to drive Me out."

"What am I doing here?" God said. "I will go. I will return to My place."

A Home Offered from the First Day

The insult landed on a long search. Adam had stood in a world still wet with first light when the Holy One offered him a home shared below. "If you prove worthy, as I reign over the heavens I will make you king over the earth, and I will dwell beside you." Adam sinned. The Shekhinah withdrew.

God tried again. He brought Israel out of Egypt on a condition written in wood and gold. "Make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among you" (Exodus 25:8). He warned Solomon as the Temple rose. Walk in My statutes and I will never forsake you. Turn away, and I will cast this house from My presence.

Solomon multiplied wives and horses. His heart turned. The kingdom tore. The house still stood, but the terms of dwelling had already been spoken. From garden to palace the search for a room downstairs never stopped. Only the human answer kept changing shape, until Manasseh answered with four patient faces.

The Guest Chose the Door

The Presence does not lose a fight of arms. The Presence leaves a room that has been made insulting on purpose. Four faces mean no angle of mercy remains unwatched by stone. The Holy of Holies became a chamber of forced confrontation until the Guest chose the door.

He did not smash the idol. He walked out. The innermost room kept its polish and lost its Guest. Manasseh had not conquered heaven. He had redecorated until heaven would not sit down.

Later the people cried, "We will come no more to You. The Temple stands given, and You have withdrawn. What more do You want of us?"

The Holy One did not thunder. He sighed the words of Jeremiah. "Would that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for wayfarers" (Jeremiah 9:1). In the bare and broken places He had been praised when cities fled.

The Prince and the Ruined City

A prince entered a great province. The people saw him coming and fled. He entered a second city. Again they scattered. At last he came upon a city in ruins, and there the people lifted their faces and praised him.

"This city," said the prince, "is better than all the rest. Here I will build my lodging. Here I will dwell."

So it was with the Holy One. He came to the sea, and the sea saw and fled (Psalms 114:3). He came to the wilderness, the place in ruins, and the wilderness lifted up its voice in praise. "This place is good," He said. "Here I will make My dwelling."

He went down into its midst. The desert began to rejoice. The dry land learned it could blossom when God chose the broken over the proud. Manasseh's polished Holy of Holies failed the test the wilderness passed without walls.

After the Room Emptied

In a courtyard of a later generation, after the house had been emptied more than once, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua argued over how a people so insulting could ever be gathered back. Rabbi Eliezer said only repentance redeems. Rabbi Yehoshua said when the end comes, redemption comes whether they have turned or not. Rabbi Elazar said God raises a tyrant like Haman to crush them until they turn back, and then a redeemer shall come to Zion.

They did not settle it. The jackal still nurses. The four faces still stare in the memory of that room. The desert still knows how to lift its face.

Adam lost the garden dwelling. Solomon lost the heart that kept the house terms. Manasseh installed the stare. Each step was a smaller room with a louder insult. The Shekhinah's path was not a straight exile. It was a series of doors closed from the inside by the people who had begged for a Guest.

In the wilderness the ruined city still knew how to lift its face. That is why God could sigh for a lodging among wayfarers instead of only raging at the Temple's emptied room. Praise from rubble outweighed polish from a Holy of Holies that had learned to host an idol with four patient faces.

ShekhinahManassehTempleAdamExile
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From the tradition

Sources

2 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bechukotai 5:1Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bechukotai

Translation of the source text.Midrash Tanchuma (Buber), Public Domain, on Sefaria · CC-BY-SA

Another interpretation of "If you walk in My statutes" (Leviticus 26:3): What is written there? "And I will set My dwelling place in your midst" (Leviticus 26:11). If you keep My commandments, I will leave the upper beings and descend and dwell among you, as it is said, "And I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel" (Exodus 29:45). For on this condition they went out of Egypt, that they should make the Tabernacle and that the Shekhinah should rest among them, as it is said, "And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them" (Exodus 29:46). And if they do My will, My Shekhinah does not move from their midst.

Why? Rabbi Shmuel bar Abba said: The Holy One, blessed be He, desired that just as He has a dwelling above, so He should have a dwelling below; for thus He said to Adam the first man: If you are worthy, just as I am king over the upper beings, so I will make you king over the lower beings, as it is said, "And the Lord God took the man" (Genesis 2:15). And the expression "took" is only an expression of exaltation, just as you say, "And the woman was taken to Pharaoh's house" (Genesis 12:15), and likewise it says, "And Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus, to his royal house" (Esther 2:16). But he did not do so; rather, once Adam sinned, He removed His Shekhinah from him.

And once Israel arose, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: You went out of Egypt only on condition that you make Me a Tabernacle, and I will cause My Shekhinah to rest among you, as it is said, "And let them make Me a sanctuary" (Exodus 25:8). And likewise He said to Solomon: "This house which you are building, if you walk in My statutes and execute My judgments and keep all My commandments to walk in them, then I will fulfill My word with you which I spoke to David your father; and I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel, and I will not forsake" (1 Kings 6:12–13). "If you shall at all turn away, you and your children, from following Me" (1 Kings 9:6), what do I do? "Then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them, and the house which I have hallowed for My name I will cast out" (1 Kings 9:7). Why? They are conditions, as it is said, "If you walk in My statutes... and I will set My dwelling place in your midst...." "And if you will not hearken to Me" (Leviticus 26:14), what is written there? "And I will lay your sanctuaries waste" (Leviticus 26:31).

What did Solomon do? He multiplied for himself wives and horses, and it is written, "And it came to pass when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart" (1 Kings 11:4). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: I gave you the Torah to perform its commandments, and you saw the conditions that I stipulated to you in it, as it is said of Solomon, "O God, give the king Your judgments, and Your righteousness to the king's son" (Psalms 72:1). And it is written, "Because this has been with you, and you have not kept My covenant and My statutes which I commanded you, I will surely rend the kingdom from you and give it to your servant" (1 Kings 11:11). And what do I do? "So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty" (Isaiah 55:11).

Manasseh arose and made the image and brought it into the Holy of Holies, as it is said, "And he set the carved image of the idol which he had made in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son: In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I set My name forever" (2 Chronicles 33:7). And the Holy One, blessed be He, called to Jeremiah and said to him, "Even the jackals draw out the breast, they nurse their young" (Lamentations 4:3). This jackal, when it comes to nurse from its mother, she sees it from afar and draws out her breasts so that it may nurse, so that her breasts not be seen covered, lest it not nurse. But My children did not do so; rather, when they saw Me enter the house, Manasseh came and brought the image in there in order to drive Me out of it. [At first they made it a single face and set it up to the west; as it were, the Shekhinah would go to another corner, a place where the idol was not seen. When Manasseh saw this, he made it four faces, so that the Shekhinah would see it and depart, as it is said, "For the bed is too short to stretch oneself, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself" (Isaiah 28:20).] Indeed, not even like the jackals that draw out the breast and nurse their young.

The Holy One, blessed be He, said: What am I doing here? "I will go and return to My place" (Hosea 5:15). "I will go and I will return" is not written here, but "I will go, I will return"; for had it been written "I will go and I will return," there would be no hope; rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, said: Even though I go, let him repent, and I will return. Therefore it is written, "I will go, I will return to My place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; in their distress they will seek Me earnestly" (Hosea 5:15). Out of the midst of the distress that comes upon them, they do repentance, and I restore My Shekhinah.

Rabbi Eliezer says: If Israel does repentance, they are redeemed; and if Israel does not do repentance, they are not redeemed, as it is said, "In returning and rest you shall be saved" (Isaiah 30:15). Rabbi Yehoshua says: Whether they do repentance or do not do repentance, once the appointed end arrives they are immediately redeemed, as it is said, "I am the Lord; in its time I will hasten it" (Isaiah 60:22). Rabbi Elazar said: The Holy One, blessed be He, raises up over them a wicked man like Haman, and he enslaves them, and thereby they do repentance, as it is said, "When the adversary comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord drives him on" (Isaiah 59:19). At that hour, "And a redeemer shall come to Zion, and to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the Lord" (Isaiah 59:20). Thus did Rabbi Tanchuma son of Rabbi expound.

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Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bamidbar 2:3Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bamidbar

Translation of the source text.Midrash Tanchuma (Buber), Public Domain, on Sefaria · CC-BY-SA

[Another interpretation: Why did My people say "radnu" (Jeremiah 2:31)? What is "radnu"?] It is in accordance with what is said, "for he had dominion (rodeh) over all the region beyond the River" (I Kings 5:4). They said to Him: You gave us the Temple, and You removed Your Divine Presence from it; so what do You still seek from us? "We will come no more to You" (Jeremiah 2:31). He said to them: Would that it were so! As it is said, "Would that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for wayfarers" (Jeremiah 9:1), there where I was praised, as it is said, "Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice [... let them give glory to the Lord, and declare His praise in the islands]" (Isaiah 42:11-12).

A parable: It is like a prince who entered a province. The people of the province saw him and fled. He entered a second one, and they fled from before him. He entered another city that was in ruins, and the people of the city saw him and praised him. That prince said: This city is better than all the provinces; here I will build myself a lodging-place, and here I will dwell. So too the Holy One, blessed be He, came to the sea, and it fled from before Him, as it is said, "The sea saw and fled" (Psalms 114:3). He came to the wilderness in ruins, and they praised Him, as it is said, "Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice" (Isaiah 42:11). He said: This city is good; here I will build Myself a lodging-place. He descended into its midst, and they began to rejoice, because the Holy One, blessed be He, dwelt within it, as it is said, "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, [and the desert shall rejoice and blossom like a crocus]" (Isaiah 35:1).

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