Introduction: Menashe and Amon - the Depth of the Descent and the Opening for Repentance
Chapter 21 tells of Menashe son of Chizkiyahu and of his son Amon. After a righteous king like Chizkiyahu, who abolished the high places and purified the land, his son came and turned the wheel back: he built high places, set up altars to the Baal, made an asherah, and brought idolatry into the Beit HaMikdash itself. The chapter before us describes the sins and the verdict, but the continuation of the story - the exile and the repentance - is filled in for us by Divrei HaYamim and by the words of Chazal, and that is the main focus of this lesson.
בֶּן־שְׁתֵּים עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה מְנַשֶּׁה בְמָלְכוֹ וַחֲמִשִּׁים וְחָמֵשׁ שָׁנָה מָלַךְ בִּירוּשָׁלִָם וְשֵׁם אִמּוֹ חֶפְצִי־בָהּ. - Menashe was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty five years in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Cheftzi-vah.
וַיָּשָׁב וַיִּבֶן אֶת־הַבָּמוֹת אֲשֶׁר אִבַּד חִזְקִיָּהוּ אָבִיו וַיָּקֶם מִזְבְּחֹת לַבַּעַל וַיַּעַשׂ אֲשֵׁרָה כַּאֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה אַחְאָב מֶלֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ לְכָל־צְבָא הַשָּׁמַיִם וַיַּעֲבֹד אֹתָם. - And he rebuilt the high places that Chizkiyahu his father had destroyed, and he set up altars for the Baal, and made an asherah, as Achav king of Israel had done, and he bowed down to all the host of heaven and served them.
The Addition in Divrei HaYamim: the Exile That Brought About Repentance
In Divrei HaYamim II chapter 33, verse 11, an episode that does not appear here is added for us: "And Hashem brought upon them the officers of the army of the king of Assyria, and they captured Menashe with hooks, and bound him with fetters, and led him off to Bavel." The officers of the king of Assyria's army capture Menashe with hooks and bring him down to Bavel - and if you remember, we saw that Assyria and Bavel were at peace with one another for long periods and went hand in hand. This is the trouble that brought Menashe to repent.
And the text continues: "And when he was in distress, he entreated Hashem his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers." "He entreated" - he prayed to Hashem to remove His wrath from him. "And he prayed to Him, and He was entreated by him, and heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom, and Menashe knew that Hashem is God." What exactly he prayed - we will see shortly in the Gemara.
After he returned, he takes care to ensure that the officers of the king of Assyria's army will not come again: "And after this he built an outer wall for the city of David, west of Gichon in the valley, up to the entrance of the Fish Gate, and it encircled the Ofel, and he raised it up very high, and he placed army officers in all the fortified cities in Yehudah." The text describes all the places the wall surrounded, and the army officers he stationed so that they would not come to attack him again.
Removing the Idolatry - and Its Consequence for the Coming Generations
"And he removed the foreign gods and the image from the house of Hashem, and all the altars that he had built on the mount of the house of Hashem and in Jerusalem, and cast them outside the city." Why outside the city? Because idolatry defiles like a niddah, and therefore the impurity had to be taken outside the city. But note: he did not shatter it, he left it as it was, only outside the city - and because of this his son stumbled over them. The text says of Amon "to all the images that Menashe his father had made" - where did he get the images from? Amon his son went and brought back in the images that his father had cast outside Jerusalem.
"And he rebuilt the altar of Hashem, and offered upon it peace offerings and thanksgiving offerings, and commanded Yehudah to serve Hashem, the God of Israel. But the people still sacrificed at the high places, only to Hashem their God" - meaning that he succeeded in abolishing the idolatry itself, but the high places on which they worshiped Hashem outside the Beit HaMikdash he did not succeed in abolishing.
And at the end of the chapter there: "And the rest of the acts of Menashe, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of Hashem, the God of Israel" - this refers to the prophets who rebuked him. "And his prayer, and how He was entreated by him, and all his sin and his treachery, and the places where he built high places and set up the asherim and the images before he humbled himself, behold they are written in the words of the seers" - in the words of the seers, in the words of the prophets. And the Malbim brings that this prayer is also cited in chapter 66 of Tehillim, which we will read further on.
"Menasheh Shed Innocent Blood" - Two Approaches in the Gemara
וְגַם דָּם נָקִי שָׁפַךְ מְנַשֶּׁה הַרְבֵּה מְאֹד עַד אֲשֶׁר־מִלֵּא אֶת־יְרוּשָׁלִַם פֶּה לָפֶה לְבַד מֵחַטָּאתוֹ אֲשֶׁר הֶחֱטִיא אֶת־יְהוּדָה לַעֲשׂוֹת הָרַע בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָה. - And Menasheh also shed very much innocent blood, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides his sin with which he caused Judah to sin, to do that which was evil in the eyes of Hashem.
The Gemara in Sanhedrin 103b explains the pasuk in two ways. "Here they translated" - in Bavel they explained that he killed Yeshayahu. "In the West they said" - in Eretz Yisrael they explained that he made an idol so heavy it required a thousand men to carry, and every single day he would kill all of them: he wanted to move the idol from place to place, and because of its great weight those thousand men who carried it would die on that very day. Some explain that he would slaughter them on that day to the idol. This is the meaning of "he filled Jerusalem with blood from one end to another," for every day he would kill a thousand men.
The Gemara asks: according to whom does this go, in whose view do the words of Rabbah bar bar Chanah follow when he said that the soul of a single tzaddik is weighed against the entire world? This fits the opinion that Menasheh killed Yeshayahu. For if the pasuk says that he filled Jerusalem with blood from one end to another, and we are speaking of a single man, Yeshayahu, how is that considered filling Jerusalem with blood? Rather, the soul of a tzaddik is weighed against the entire world.
A Statue or Statues, and from Where to Where the Generations Descended
וַיָּשֶׂם אֶת־פֶּסֶל הָאֲשֵׁרָה אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה בַּבַּיִת אֲשֶׁר אָמַר יְהוָה אֶל־דָּוִד וְאֶל־שְׁלֹמֹה בְנוֹ בַּבַּיִת הַזֶּה וּבִירוּשָׁלִַם אֲשֶׁר בָּחַרְתִּי מִכֹּל שִׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אָשִׂים אֶת־שְׁמִי לְעוֹלָם. - And he set the graven image of the Asherah that he had made in the House, of which Hashem had said to David and to Shlomo his son, In this House and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever.
The Gemara raises a difficulty: it is written "statue" and it is written "statues," and this is a contradiction. Rabbi Yochanan said: at first he made it with one face, and in the end he made it with four faces, resembling the four, in contrast to the four chayot, so that the Shechinah would see and be angered.
And from level to level: Achaz placed it in the upper chamber, as it says "and the altars that were on the roof, the upper chamber of Achaz" - in the upper chamber he placed altars. Menasheh placed it in the Heichal, as it says "and he set the graven image of the Asherah that he had made in the House." Amon brought it into the Holy of Holies. If Menasheh was content to place it in the House, Amon already "upgraded" this idolatry and brought it into the Holy of Holies. Of this it says "for the bed is too short for a man to stretch himself, and the covering too narrow when he gathers himself up."
What does the pasuk mean? Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: "for the bed is too short" for two companions to reign over it as one. As it were, there is a mattress and two want to lie on it, and there is not enough room for both of them. So too in the parable: the Holy of Holies is the place of which it says "our couch is fresh and green," the place of the Shechinah's couch, as it were, and he goes and brings someone else in there, and as it were the place becomes cramped for the Holy One, blessed be He.
And what is "the covering too narrow when he gathers himself up"? Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan that when he would reach this pasuk he would weep: He of whom it is written "He gathers the waters of the sea like a heap," what strength and what power - shall a "narrow" covering be made for Him? "Tzarah" is an aspect of a woman who has a tzarah, meaning a rival wife, an equal. And who is the "rival" of the Holy One, blessed be He? Idolatry, the emptiness that has no substance. Were it not written in Scripture it would be impossible to say it: as it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, is jealous - of whom? Of idolatry. Why do they serve idols and not serve Hashem, when idolatry is utter vanity?
Menasheh Kills Yeshayahu - His Questions and Their Answers
In the Gemara in Yevamot 49b: Shimon ben Azzai taught, I found a scroll of genealogies in Jerusalem and it was written in it "Menasheh killed Yeshayahu." Note, this is not written explicitly anywhere in Scripture. Rava said: he judged him and killed him. That is, he brought him in to pose difficult questions to him. And what is Menasheh's connection to Yeshayahu? He is his grandson: Yeshayahu gave his daughter to Chizkiyahu, and Chizkiyahu fathered Menasheh, so it turns out he killed his own grandfather. But first he needs an "alibi": why would one simply kill a prophet? I will ask him questions, he will have nothing to answer, and then I will kill him.
And what were the questions? He said to him: You contradict the words of the Torah with your own words. Moshe your teacher said "For no man shall see Me and live," yet you said "And I saw Hashem sitting upon a high and lofty throne." Moshe your teacher said "For what nation has a god so close to it as Hashem our God whenever we call upon Him" - that one can always return in teshuvah, yet you said "Seek Hashem while He may be found" - as though there is a time when Hashem is found and a time when, so to speak, He is not found. Moshe your teacher said "The number of your days I will fill," yet you said to your grandfather Chizkiyahu "And I will add to your days fifteen years" - implying that one can add beyond the number of days.
And what did Yeshayahu answer? He said: I know of him that he will not accept what I say to him, and if I answer him I will make him a deliberate sinner - in any case he wants to kill me, so why should I make him deliberate? Better that he remain unwitting rather than deliberate, thinking that I have no answer and that he has cause to kill me. But in any event he sought a way to be saved: he uttered a Name and was swallowed within a cedar. They saw that he was swallowed in that cedar, so they brought the cedar and sawed it. And when the saw reached the mouth of Yeshayahu - his soul departed. And why did Menashe have the power to rule over him, seeing that "the rod of wickedness shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous"? Because he had said "and in the midst of a people of unclean lips I dwell," and therefore precisely when the saw reached his mouth his soul departed - to teach you that he spoke improper words about the people of Israel.
Nevertheless the Gemara asks: we want to know the answer to the questions that Menashe asked. "And I saw Hashem" versus "no man shall see Me and live" - there is no difficulty, for we learned: all the prophets gazed through a dim glass, but Moshe our teacher gazed through a clear glass. An aspaklaria is a mirror; through a clear mirror one cannot see, "no man shall see Me and live," but through a mirror that is not clear - a dirty mirror, blurred with dust - this is indeed possible, and there is no contradiction.
"Seek Hashem while He may be found" versus "whenever we call upon Him" - the one refers to the individual and the other to the community. And when is the individual heard? Rav Nachman said in the name of Rabbah bar Avuha: these are the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The teshuvah of the community is accepted all year, while the teshuvah of the individual is accepted mainly during the Ten Days of Repentance.
"The number of your days I will fill" - how did He add fifteen years to Chizkiyahu? On this there is a dispute we have already learned, between Rabbi Akiva and the Sages: Rabbi Akiva says these are decreed years, if one merits they complete them for him, if one does not merit they reduce them for him - one can only subtract, and there is no addition. And the Sages say: if one merits they add for him, if one does not merit they reduce for him. The Gemara there brings another approach in which the Sages raised a difficulty against Rabbi Akiva. In any case we see that there were answers to all the questions that Menashe asked.
Menashe's name, and his share in the World to Come
The Gemara in Sanhedrin 102b expounds why he was called Menashe: "Menashe - because he made Yah forget," from the language of forgetting. Another explanation: "Menashe - because he made Israel forget their Father in Heaven," he caused the people of Israel to forget their Father in Heaven.
And from where do we know that he has no share in the World to Come? For it is written "Menashe was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty five years in Jerusalem... and he made an asheirah as Achav king of Israel had done" - just as Achav has no share in the World to Come, so too Menashe has no share in the World to Come, a gezeirah shavah, for he is compared to Achav.
Rabbi Yehudah disagrees and says: Menashe does have a share in the World to Come, as it is stated "And Menashe prayed to Hashem, and He accepted his entreaty." Since he returned in teshuvah and Hashem accepted his entreaty - it is a sign that He received him. And Rabbi Yochanan said: both of them expounded one verse, as it is stated "And I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Menashe son of Chizkiyahu." One master holds: because of Menashe who did teshuvah and they did not, and therefore their punishment is severe - your king returned in teshuvah and you did not. And the other master holds the opposite: because of Menashe who did not do teshuvah, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, visits upon them their own sin and the sin of their king.
And Rabbi Yochanan said: anyone who says that Menashe has no share in the World to Come weakens the hands of penitents, causing them discouragement. For a Tanna taught before Rabbi Yochanan: Menashe did teshuvah for thirty three years. How so? "Menashe was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty five years in Jerusalem, and he made an asheirah as Achav had done" - and how long did Achav reign? Twenty two years. So for twenty two years out of the fifty five he acted wickedly like Achav, and there remained thirty three years in which he did not act wickedly - from here we learn that he was in teshuvah for thirty three years.
The uncle, the audacity, and the tunneling beneath the Throne of Glory
Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai: what is the meaning of what is written "And He heard him and He made a tunnel for him"? It should have said "and He accepted his entreaty." This teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, made for him a kind of tunnel in the firmament, in order to receive him in teshuvah despite the attribute of judgment.
And how did it happen? The officers of the king of Assyria placed him inside a copper cauldron and lit a fire beneath it. When a person is inside a pot with a fire burning under him, he starts dancing even without music: he understands that his situation is dire and that the story is about to end. So he turns to all the deities: god of Dagon answer me, god of Kemosh answer me, god of the clouds, god of Sepharvaim, and each time he hears, as it were, that "the god you have reached is currently unavailable, please try again later." He goes through his contact list, goes through them all, this one is in session and that one is far away, and he finds no one.
Then he remembered that once, when he used to go to cheder and his father carried him on his shoulder, his father read him the verse "When you are in distress and all these troubles find you, you shall return to Hashem your God." And see how brazen Menashe was: he said, Master of the Universe, I called all the deities and they are unavailable, now I turn to You: if there really is a God in heaven, answer me; and if You do not answer me, it is a sign, as it were, God forbid, that You have no advantage over the rest of the deities.
What does such a person deserve? He deserves a grill from above too, doesn't he? After talking like that, you still set conditions? Instead of going down on all fours, pleading and weeping, he stands and says: know this, I am not counting on you absolutely, it depends on your response, we will measure it and then decide. Who needs him? A person in such a lowly state, and still he acts with insolence. From here we see first of all how much stubbornness there is in a person, and how many blows a stiff necked person needs before he changes. On the other hand we see how great are the mercies of Hashem to accept a person until the very last shovelful: even when he stands with both feet in the grave, the Holy One, blessed be He, still accepts him, as long as he repents.
And so it is understood why the ministering angels asked to close the gates of prayer. And the Holy One, blessed be He, dug him a tunnel beneath the Throne of Glory. And why? Did he have some merit? No. The Sages say: so that they would not say that the door is locked before those who repent, so that they would not say, behold, Menashe repented and it did not help him. Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, dug a tunnel beneath the Throne of Glory to accept Menashe's prayer, and brought a strong wind that carried him back from the pot to the Land of Israel. An enormous miracle, a wondrous miracle. And for thirty three years Menashe remained in repentance.
Menashe and Rav Ashi: "Let Us Begin With Our Colleagues"
The Gemara in Sanhedrin 102b describes an encounter between Menashe and Rav Ashi. And if you ask, they lived in two completely different generations? Listen and hear. Rav Ashi was expounding on the three kings, that is, he established a lesson and studied the topic of the three kings who have no share in the World to Come. He gave his students the references and told them: tomorrow we will begin with our colleagues, meaning tomorrow we will speak about our friends, about our companions, that is, about people who were like us except that they multiplied their wickedness.
Menashe came and appeared to him in a dream. He said to him: your colleagues and your father's colleagues you called us? From where must one slice the piece of bread for hamotzi? Rav Ashi said to him: I do not know. Menashe said to him: from where one slices the bread you have not learned, and you call me your colleague? Rav Ashi said to him: teach me, and tomorrow I will expound it in your name in the lesson. Menashe said to him: from where the crust is baked first, from the spot that was baked earlier, the place where the bread is better baked. Rav Ashi said to him: since you were so wise, why did you worship idolatry? Menashe said to him: had you been there, you would have grabbed the hem of your cloak and run after me, run after the idolatry. The next day Rav Ashi said in the lesson: let us begin with the great ones, not with our colleagues. Achav: a brother to Heaven, a father to idolatry; a brother to Heaven as it is written "a brother is born for adversity," a father to idolatry as it is written "as a father has compassion on his children." That is, he began to find merit in them.
First Point: Idolatry Was Desire, Not Intellect
In this Gemara there is an answer to a question that many people ask. That is why it is said that Tanach must be studied with a teacher, for a person who studies Tanach on his own may come to heresy. People read and wonder: what are they telling us about a generation of knowledge, about great people, about the generation of the prophets, if most of the people there needed to be institutionalized? You take an idol, yesterday you carved it with your own hands, and today you stand and say to it "you are my god, you created me"? This is not wickedness, it looks like a person with something limited in his mind. And these were wise people? And the generation of knowledge made a calf? How can this be understood?
Rav Ashi comes and teaches: idolatry is not as it appears on the surface. Do not mistakenly think that idolatry was an intellectual matter: it was an emotional matter, that is, a matter of desire. Just as today there exists a concept of desire, for example forbidden sexual desire: try to have a person explain this desire logically, there is no logic in it and no intellect in it at all. A person cannot explain why he is drawn to a human being and not to an animal, and cannot explain why he is drawn to one gender and not another. There is no explanation. The Holy One, blessed be He, planted desire in a person, something that is not logical and not intellectual, an inclination meant so that a person would overcome it. In the same measure He planted in them an inclination to worship idolatry: an uncontrollable desire, that was their reality.
And do not think they had no learned explanations for it. The intellect always seeks to be a lawyer and to justify what we do. And indeed, through idolatry, spiritual forces would descend, forces of angels and forces of impurity that would clothe themselves in the idolatry and tell them future things. Lavan knew through the terafim where Yaakov was fleeing, and that is why Rachel stole the terafim from him, so that he would not know where they were fleeing. The terafim would speak, forces of impurity were placed in them, and by the power of impurity they would reveal things to them, though very general and inaccurate information, yet there was something "real" in double quotation marks, and they saw benefit from them. And the Gemara brings that sometimes the Holy One, blessed be He, would mislead them: the idolatry would tell them to offer a sacrifice before it, and they would offer and were seemingly answered, He "smoothed the way for them," gave them a slippery slope to err upon. But the essence of idolatry was desire, not intellect.
And so, when the Men of the Great Assembly came and abolished the evil inclination for idolatry, everything stopped in a single moment. At the same time that they abolished it, they also abolished the evil inclination for forbidden relations, and then not a single hen laid an egg, because these two things are not intellectual matters but emotional and desire driven ones. Only this remained for us, and when we understand the desire that exists for forbidden relations, we can understand what that desire was. And so Menashe said: had you been in my generation, you would have lifted the hem of your cloak; you are wise to speak in a generation in which the inclination for idolatry has already been abolished, and so you criticize us, but had you been in our generation, you would have run after the idolatry.
And it is important to emphasize another point: the moment idolatry ceased, prophecy ceased as well. "God made one corresponding to the other" - when the Holy One, blessed be He, gives an evil inclination, He gives against it a spiritual power to overcome it, for there cannot be a state of imbalance in the scales, which would negate free choice. And free choice is a cornerstone of Judaism, "and you shall choose life." When there was idolatry, corresponding to it there was a prophet who would tell you: if you do such and such, this will happen - and if it is not done, you see that the opposite occurs, one to one. People would come and ask him where the lost donkeys were, and the prophet would see and tell them where they were. And prophecy is not "approximate"; prophecy is one hundred percent success. Even with the great tzaddikim there is not one hundred percent success. Many received blessings from the great ones of Israel; for some it took effect and for some it did not - they lacked merits, there was not enough of a favorable moment in Heaven. Rashbi and others were among the greatest of the generations, and yet you will always hear of people who were with great ones and received blessings and say "I was not granted it." With the Baba Sali there were stories of people who returned, and he would discern why they had not been answered and why they had not merited it. There is no such thing as one hundred percent - but a prophet is one hundred percent, not a single fraction of his words falls to the ground; this is a revelation of Godliness, corresponding to idolatry. And when there is no evil inclination of idolatry, why should there be such an advantage for holiness? The Holy One, blessed be He, removes the advantage, and there is no prophecy - but on the other hand there is also no evil inclination of idolatry.
A second point: what so amazed Rav Ashi
The main point I wanted to address is a teaching I read from Rav Aryeh Leib Shteinman. We all know this Gemara, but whoever examines it will see that it is very difficult. Menashe knows from where one cuts the bread, and Rav Ashi does not know - and on the strength of this Rav Ashi asks: if you were so great, how did you worship idols? A wonder of wonders.
On the plain level the matter is not understood. It is as if an ignorant person would come and ask: Honored Rabbi, who was the mother of Avraham Avinu? You know all these clever ones? The rabbi did not remember, and the questioner knows - Amtelai bat Karnevo. Shall we now appoint the questioner as rabbi? It sounds ridiculous, does it not? Because he knows the name of Avraham Avinu's mother, and the rabbi momentarily forgot it, shall we make him the rabbi and send the rabbi to sell at a stall in the market in his place? You know one law, one halacha - well, so what? And what so impressed Rav Ashi? Menashe knew from where one cuts the bread - big deal.
And a second question: from where did Menashe know something that Rav Ashi did not know? Is there a source? Is there a pasuk? Is there a proof? Does he have a new Torah? And Rav Ashi does not even ask him "who told you that you must cut from there? Why specifically from there?" On the contrary, Rav Ashi is impressed and says: tomorrow I will expound this in your name, I will teach the students. And who was Rav Ashi? The sealer of the Talmud, Ravina and Rav Ashi. Is there a halacha that Ravina and Rav Ashi do not know? There is no such thing. So how does Menashe suddenly teach him something new, and what so amazes him, and why does he seize specifically upon this?
Rav Shteinman says: in truth there is no such halacha. There is no halacha that one must cut specifically from the place where the baking of the bread began or crusted first, and therefore Rav Ashi does not know this law - because there is no such law. Rather, what did Menashe come to tell Rav Ashi? You measure us by your parameters; know that you are very superficial people compared to what we were, people who do not delve deeply compared to the state that existed in our generation. In our generation people would delve deeply into Torah, delve deeply into the service of God, delve deeply into ways to sanctify the Name of Heaven in all their deeds.
And I will show you an example, says Menashe: from where does one cut the bread? When you take bread to cut, from where do you cut it? "From wherever I happen to." Among us there was no such thing. Among us there was no such thing as a person performing an act without thought. When I would take the bread, I would look from where it would bring more honor to the Holy One, blessed be He, that I cut, where His blessed Name would be praised, exalted, and lauded through my cutting. And I would think: surely it is more fitting that the blessing take effect upon the choicest thing, this is the honor of my Maker. Just as in a sacrifice one brings the choicest, "all the fat to the Lord" - so too when you bless, bless upon the choicest thing. And then I would search in the bread: what is the part that was baked first, in the manner of first fruits? What is the place that is more beautifully baked? There are less beautiful places and there are more beautiful ones, and upon the beautiful one I will bless - and through this I praise the blessed Name. There is no such halacha, but we were deep thinkers, we did not do things superficially, we contemplated every single act.
This is what impressed Rav Ashi. He said to him: since you were so wise - you were such wise ones, such contemplators, not doing things off the cuff, examining every matter as to how to do it for the honor of God. And even though this is their own innovation, it is an innovation worthy of being inscribed for the generations, an innovation worthy of contemplation, to learn from it not to do any act superficially, but in every act to see how I can do it in such a way that there will be more honor in it for my Maker. This is what impressed Rav Ashi, and he expounded it in his name in the lecture, and from then it was inscribed as halacha. For in the Torah given to Moshe at Sinai it is not written to cut specifically from the place whose baking preceded - for had it been written, Rav Ashi would have transmitted it to us. Rather, from the fact that Menashe and his generation saw in this so important a matter, Rav Ashi learned and concluded that this is the fitting thing to do.
And therefore there is no local piece of knowledge here that Menashe knew more than Rav Ashi, from which there is really nothing to be impressed by - but rather contemplation, depth, and thought, which indicate the essence of a great man. And for this reason he said to him: since you were such people, you surely knew the lowliness of idolatry, and this only increases the difficulty - how did you worship idols? And to this he answered him that in idolatry there was a lustful inclination that is not connected at all to the intellect and to thought. One can be a deep contemplator, far from superficiality in thought, and in matters of lust - lust is above the intellect and is not connected to it. And therefore the next day Rav Ashi opened "before the great ones": such people, who know how to delve and contemplate in every act what the will of God is and how His Name will be lauded and exalted through the act that I do - they are great men.
Psalm 66 in Tehillim - the song of Menashe
The Malbim says that Psalm 66 in Tehillim is the psalm that Menashe sang when he returned from the Chaldeans: "לַמְנַצֵּחַ שִׁיר מִזְמוֹר, הָרִיעוּ לֵאלֹהִים כָּל הָאָרֶץ. זַמְּרוּ כְבוֹד שְׁמוֹ, שִׂימוּ כָבוֹד תְּהִלָּתוֹ. אִמְרוּ לֵאלֹהִים מַה נּוֹרָא מַעֲשֶׂיךָ, בְּרֹב עֻזְּךָ יְכַחֲשׁוּ לְךָ אֹיְבֶיךָ" - "For the conductor, a song, a psalm. Shout to God, all the earth. Sing the glory of His Name, give glorious praise to Him. Say to God, how awesome are Your deeds, through the greatness of Your might Your enemies dissemble before You."
And further on: "בָּרְכוּ עַמִּים אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְהַשְׁמִיעוּ קוֹל תְּהִלָּתוֹ. הַשָּׂם נַפְשֵׁנוּ בַּחַיִּים וְלֹא נָתַן לַמּוֹט רַגְלֵנוּ. כִּי בְחַנְתָּנוּ אֱלֹהִים, צְרַפְתָּנוּ כִּצְרָף כָּסֶף" - "Bless our God, O peoples, and let the sound of His praise be heard. Who set our soul in life and did not allow our foot to falter. For You tested us, O God, You refined us as silver is refined" - and how is silver refined? In a smelting furnace, in fire. "הֲבֵאתָנוּ בַמְּצוּדָה, שַׂמְתָּ מוּעָקָה בְמָתְנֵינוּ. הִרְכַּבְתָּ אֱנוֹשׁ לְרֹאשֵׁנוּ, בָּאנוּ בָאֵשׁ וּבַמַּיִם וַתּוֹצִיאֵנוּ לָרְוָיָה" - "You brought us into the net, You placed a burden upon our loins. You caused men to ride over our heads, we came through fire and through water, and You brought us out to abundance."
"I will come into Your house with burnt offerings, I will pay You my vows" - this is what we saw, that Menashe returned to the Temple and offered sacrifices. "That my lips uttered and my mouth spoke when I was in distress. Burnt offerings of fatlings I will offer to You with the incense of rams, I will prepare cattle with goats, selah." "That my lips uttered and my mouth spoke when I was in distress" can be understood in two ways: either that I vowed to give when I was in distress, or that he wishes to bring an offering as atonement for what his lips uttered and his mouth spoke, things that were improper, as we explained, words of insolence toward the Holy One, blessed be He.
"Come, hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what He did for my soul. To Him I called with my mouth, and exaltation was under my tongue. Had I seen iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have heard. But God did hear, He listened to the voice of my prayer. Blessed is God who did not turn away my prayer, nor His kindness from me" - the meaning is that God saved him, heard the voice of his prayer, and restored him to his kingship.
Amon His Son - A Further Decline
וַיֵּלֶךְ בְּכָל־הַדֶּרֶךְ אֲשֶׁר־הָלַךְ אָבִיו וַיַּעֲבֹד אֶת־הַגִּלֻּלִים אֲשֶׁר עָבַד אָבִיו וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ לָהֶם. - And he walked in all the way that his father had walked, and served the idols that his father had served, and bowed down to them.
And as we saw, here the flaw in what Menashe did in his repentance came to light: because he cast the idols outside the city and did not shatter them, his son Amon came and brought them back in, and even placed the idol in the Holy of Holies, a further degree of provocation. He grasped an ascent: Menashe in the Sanctuary, and Amon in the Holy of Holies.
In summary: Chapter 21 sets before us the depth of the descent: a king who returned idolatry into the House of the Lord, led Yehuda astray, and shed much innocent blood. And from the other side, precisely from him we learn the greatest lesson in the power of repentance. Menashe, who was insolent within the copper vessel, was answered, because the Holy One, blessed be He, dug a tunnel for him beneath His Throne of Glory so that it should not be said that the door is locked before those who repent, and for thirty three years he was in repentance. And from the encounter with Rav Ashi we learned two principles: that the idolatry was not a failure of intellect but a drive of desire unconnected to the intellect, and that theirs was a generation of profound thinkers, who did nothing superficially but examined in every matter how the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He, might be exalted through it. And on the other hand, Menashe's failure in not shattering the idols but only removing them taught us how vital it is to uproot evil from its source, for if not, the son comes and returns it into the Holy of Holies itself.