We are officially done learning about Yeshayahu's prophecies. Pressed for time and hoping to cover all aspects of what led to the Beit Hamikdash's destruction, we are beginning to learn Yirmiyahu!
We went over a few things before we started the actual sefer though. We went through the kings from after Chezkiyahu, after having had learned quite a bit about whether he was good or bad. Decide for yourself from these facts: During his reign the people brought korbanot but there was no tzedek+mishpat (social justice). We didnt focus for to long on the next king, but I have some interesting questions about him that I would like to post. After Chizkiyahu, dis son Minasheh then ruled. He was not a good king. He did molech!
He was so bad, that it was because of him that it was decreed that the beit hamikdash would be destroyed! In Divrei Hayamim we hear he was imprisoned and there did teshuva, so Hashem didnt destroy the Beit Hamikdash right away.
For those of you who will want to respond to this post, here are QUESTIONS TO RESPOND TO:
1. If he did teshuva, do you think Hashem should have removed the decree? why or why not?
2. do you think his teshuva was real? meaning, if he had not been imprisoned would he have done teshuva?
3. do you think that because of one mans actions the beit hamikdash should be destroyed?
Moving on: We think that if Menashe can repent, who had been an evil person, maybe the whole nation can.
ANOTHER QUESTION: 1. What does it mean when the kings are described to be evil? Evil like those crazy evil characters in movies and books, or evil just religiously. did he kill people for fun? what is evil...?
I hope that you find this stimulating! I have left the other kings open in case someone else would like to post about the rest of the kings...
hint hint, it is during the time of the next king that yirmiyahu starts to prophecize!
We went over a few things before we started the actual sefer though. We went through the kings from after Chezkiyahu, after having had learned quite a bit about whether he was good or bad. Decide for yourself from these facts: During his reign the people brought korbanot but there was no tzedek+mishpat (social justice). We didnt focus for to long on the next king, but I have some interesting questions about him that I would like to post. After Chizkiyahu, dis son Minasheh then ruled. He was not a good king. He did molech!
He was so bad, that it was because of him that it was decreed that the beit hamikdash would be destroyed! In Divrei Hayamim we hear he was imprisoned and there did teshuva, so Hashem didnt destroy the Beit Hamikdash right away.
For those of you who will want to respond to this post, here are QUESTIONS TO RESPOND TO:
1. If he did teshuva, do you think Hashem should have removed the decree? why or why not?
2. do you think his teshuva was real? meaning, if he had not been imprisoned would he have done teshuva?
3. do you think that because of one mans actions the beit hamikdash should be destroyed?
Moving on: We think that if Menashe can repent, who had been an evil person, maybe the whole nation can.
ANOTHER QUESTION: 1. What does it mean when the kings are described to be evil? Evil like those crazy evil characters in movies and books, or evil just religiously. did he kill people for fun? what is evil...?
I hope that you find this stimulating! I have left the other kings open in case someone else would like to post about the rest of the kings...
hint hint, it is during the time of the next king that yirmiyahu starts to prophecize!
because i really need credit for blog posts im going to answer as many questions as i can.
ReplyDelete1. If he did teshuva, do you think Hashem should have removed the decree? why or why not?
i think it really depends on the teshuva. if he did it because he really felt that it was right and important, then his teshuva would probably be accepted with no problem. if he didnt put his all into it, and did it for some other reason, then he didnt really do teshuva right, then it is reasonable that it wouldnt be accepted.
question 2: do you think his teshuva was real? meaning, if he had not been imprisoned would he have done teshuva?
ReplyDeletethere isn't really any way to know if or if not anyone would have done teshuva in their life. however, im going to take a guess here. do to the fact that menashe was a very bad king, im guessing that without prompting he probably wouldn't have changed course. imprisonment is a pretty good prompt, i believe. it took some prodding, but once he was "enlightened", teshuva was really the only choice he had, so of course he took it.
number 3-do you think that because of one mans actions the beit hamikdash should be destroyed?
ReplyDeletei don't think so, unless they were a very holy person, or one who was very close to G-d. these sorts of people are normally judged on a higher level, and so it is a normal occurrence for things like this to happen to them. but for a normal person? that seems a little odd. especially odd for someone particularly evil. i think that G-d wasn't really judging menashe at his level-i think he was judging him by his capability, and to teach a lesson/punish to him and the rest of the people.
extra question. 1. What does it mean when the kings are described to be evil? Evil like those crazy evil characters in movies and books, or evil just religiously. did he kill people for fun? what is evil...?
ReplyDeleteEvil. wow zahava. thats deep. anyways, i think that when it describes kings as evil ,it is different for every king. evil characters in movies and books are normally crazy evil and thank G-d we dont get too many of that type of evilness normally in everyday life. i think that in general, when they are described as being evil in the tanach, they are religiously evil, but they also do evil things, therefore being all around evil . the two tend to go hand in hand. i dont really know whether or not menashe killed people for fun, but its a possibility. as to what evil is, im finding it kind of hard to give a good answer other than really really bad/mean/ etc. it kind of also depends on the circumstances-there are different varieties of evil.
1. I don't think that Hashem would completely remove the decree, not because Hashem doesn't appreaciate the Tshuva, but because even though if he repented, what he has done, is done. The people of Israel are already influenced and not doing good in the eyes of Hashem so I think for the decree to be removed completely not only the King had to do Tshuva but the whole nation too.
ReplyDelete2.I think the imprisonment was one of the factor that made him think about things and repent, but it was not completely that. I think there were other reasons that made him think of repenting, but the imprisonment was definately one of the major things that guided him to do that.
3.No i do not think that, because if that would be the case, the Beit Hamikdash would be destroyed within minutes after building. There are always some people who are "bad", it's just a matter of how much influence that person has over a group of people. If he gets the majority onto the "bad" side, then it will be indirectly his fault, that the Beit would be destroyed.
I have kind of a question regarding my answer to question number 1: I think I once learned that G-d does not remove decrees only makes new decrees which would counter act or if it was a bad decree He would make a decree after it which would benefit the people. Does anyone know if this is true or am I getting what I think I learned wrong?
ReplyDeleteAnd depending on the answer I get I have an answer to Zahava's question
orly. we learned something similar with mrs wittlin. we learned that G-d/ a navi can predict something true, and it has to happen. but something bad that doesnt happen means that the people did teshuva and the decree was therefore removed. in response to my own post, i'd just like to put out my own thoughts.
ReplyDelete1. i think that even though we know so many chances were given to the Jews and they never took the oppurtunity, G-d still should have given them another chance. Why? Because for one thing, we talked about cognitive dissenence or something at the beginning of the year. So after a while the people didnt realize what they were doing was wrong. it was just the way things are, you cant blame them for that can you. It's a new generation and maybe menashe could have gotten them to repent.
2. I don't know about menashe. it seems really shallow for him to repent because he realized he was going to die
3. i actually remember what i was going to say. i was going to say that... something about the beit hamikdash being destroyed. right, the decree. it would have been better for it to be destroyed right away. evil people cant just repent and then not be punished. he needed to be punished.... still not what i was going to say but i blanked.
If he did teshuva, do you think Hashem should have removed the decree? why or why not?
ReplyDeleteI think that would depend on more than one factor. Was his teshuva sincere? What were the reasons that he decided to do teshuva? If his teshuva was insincere, HaShem was right not to remove the decree. If HaShem had removed the decree just because Menashe was acting like he was sorry for what he had done,Menashe would soon have just reverted back to his evil ways. The same for his motives to repent. If he did not repent for the right reasons, he would again have reverted back to his sinning ways.
do you think his teshuva was real? meaning, if he had not been imprisoned would he have done teshuva?
ReplyDeleteI think that his teshuva had to have been at least partially sincere. Otherwise HaShem would not have even delayed the decree. That is not to say, though, that Menashe would or would not have converted if he had not been thrown in prison. I think that if he had not been captured, he probably would not have felt the inclination to repent. We don't know what things would have been like if everything had happened differently though. Everything happens for a reason so maybe even if he had not been captured and had not felt the inclination to repent, there would have been other circumstances that would have made him decide to do teshuva.
do you think that because of one mans actions the beit hamikdash should be destroyed?
ReplyDeleteI think that if had really been the actions of only one man, then the Beis HaMikdash should not and probably would not have been destroyed. We have to remember though, that for the most part, the people followed the kings whether they wanted to or not. Therefore, it was not just one man. Instead, it was the entire nation, and if the entire nation was doing things it should not have done and not doing the things that it should have done, then as hard as it might be to admit it, maybe the Beis HaMikdash really should have been destroyed.
Orly- I also heard that somewhere but i did not even think about it until you just mentioned it. Maybe that's why HaShem pushed off the decree of destroying the Beis Hamikdash instead of just cancelling it. But then I have a question. Doesn't HaShem always know what will happen in the future even if he lets us choose? If that's the case, wojuldn't He know that Menashe was going to do teshuva and He would then push off the decree? so why would He decree it in the first place, if He knew that he would just end up pushing it off? Answering that question, If HaShem didn't decree that he would destroy the Beis HaMikdash, Menashe might not have repented, leading to HaShem having no reason to push the decree off.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone followed that, good for you!
I agree with you Zahava that G-d should not have given up because the people did not know any better after a while. The things they were doing just became a way of life for them. Although I know how frustrating it is to give chances after chances time and time again, I still think G-d, our father and the "person" we are supposed to take after should have given the people more chances. If we are supposed to take after Him the wouldn't you think He would want to be overly patient and forgiving? I certainly do! It just doesn't make sense to me how we are supposed to be patient with everyone, but then G-d gives up.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I was thinking about was clearly from history destroying the Beit Hamikdash wasn't enough of an eye opener for the people. I am not talking about now a days where there are people who are suffering because of it. To me I don't think the people really took the destruction as seriously in the way that there were still so many times G-d rebuked the people and did some terrible things to them.
1.I don't think that Hashem should have removed the decree just because he did teshuvah because before that he was a really horrible person who did really terrible things. Just because you go back after all of that and pray doesn't by any means take away all of the evil that you already did. Although it is nice and all that he did Teshuvah, it was a little too late. Things shouldn't be that easy. People shouldn't be able to do whatever evils they want with the knowledge that as long as they do teshuvah it will be okay. That is not to say that things shouldn't be forgiven, it's just that especially when it's something as horrible as this, teshuvah isn't gonna do it.
ReplyDelete2. No. If he even did Teshuvah,I do not think that it was very sincere. If he hadn't been imporisoned he would not have done teshuvah. That is another reason why he shouldn't have gotten the decree removed. If he did teshuvah it was only because he was in a horrible position which made him realize that he was, indeed, powerless.
3. Not because of one man's actions but because of a whole nation's actions should the beit hamigdash have been destroyed. But it wasn't only because of his actions that the beit hamigdash was destroyed- it couldn't have been. During that time the nation was also sinning and doing bad things. If people aren't appreciating the goodness of the beit hamigdash and are doing evil things, it is only right that the beit hamigdash be removed as a punishment.
I agree with both Orly and Racheli. Orly because being a human who shall do things that I may one day regret (Isearch!) I want to believe that I have an endless amount of 'second chances.' I agree with racheli though because she is logically correct and in hindsight correct. Therefore, as sad as it is, it is all well deserved.
ReplyDeleteOrly-
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that HaShem should not have given up on the peole just because they did not know any better, but honestly, how many chances should a person have? HaShem has already been giving them more chances than any human being would ever give them. At some point, He has to be firm and make them listen. If Her just keeps giving them more chances, they will even begin to ignore his warnings and decrees in the first place. He has to take action before He has to destroy all of them. Of course HaShem wants us to follow in His ways and imitate His good attributes, but sometimes it gets beyond the point of being a role model and to the point of having to take more drastic action.
"Another thing I was thinking about was clearly from history destroying the Beit Hamikdash wasn't enough of an eye opener for the people."
I sort of agree with you on this. I think that for this particular group of people with this kind of attitude, that would be true. However, that was just because they were already to the point of worshiping idols. If we had a zBeis HaMikdash today, if chas v'shalom we were told that it was going to be destroyed, and was, we would be devastated. We are (hopefully) very much connected to HaShem, Maybe not as much as we should be, but definitely more than idol worshippers and all that
let me just say that
ReplyDelete1) it wasnt just the beit hamikdash being destroyed that was part of the punishment. they were exiled and their whole kingdom, everything they worked for, their sense of security, was suddenly torn away.
2) it was an eye opener and continues to be. they eventually repent and rebuild. and sure, eventually the second one was destroyed, but the jews go through a cycle of repenting and somewhat falling back. but these kind of things are eye openers for us. and even if the first exiled generation didnt see, we do, and that is still an eye opener.
Zahava- that's a good point! We've spoken before about how the Jews go through a cycle of sinning, punishment, and repentance. The only thing though, is that if it's such an eye opener, why do we keep making the exact same mistakes? I could maybe understand if were making different mistakes, but we are doing the same things our ancestors did, just in a different setting.
ReplyDeleteWe do make different mistakes, when you think about how the mistake is being made. As i said before, sinning was a way of life for them. their parents raised them in that environment. However, we are taught not to do certain things when we are young, and yet, people still do bad things. The difference is we know better. And we still do break other laws and do things that they didnt do before. For example, back then even the men wore dresses so clothing wasnt a 'problem.' And kosher- they all lived together and it was just easy to keep. However we live in america and for some kosher just isnt an important thing...
ReplyDeletezahava- i don't think think those were the best examples to give because those are things that they had no problem with only because that was how everyone acted. now, it's not how everyone acts, even if it is what is the right thing to do. Maybe if not everyone did it then, they would have done something different as well
ReplyDelete