One of the great principles of life is change. Change can come in a variety of ways, and we usually prefer that it be gradual. But from time to time, we experience change that is far swifter and more punctuated. These types of changes are harder to navigate, but life is not possible without them. One can think of the moment of birth as such a moment of discontinuity. From the safe and carefree environment of the womb, we emerge into the difficulties of living separately from our mother.
Just as there are physical transformations, like birth, there are spiritual transformations, like conversion. Conversion is not just a translation for the Hebrew word used to designate becoming a member of the tribe, arguably the greatest intra-life transformation a person can experience. Still, conversion is also used to describe life-altering realizations or discoveries that change a person spiritually and mentally.
Comparing physical transformations to mental and psychological ones can be a rich source for understanding both. Perhaps most striking in this area is the example of the metamorphosis displayed by two species, one an amphibian, the other an insect: the frog and the butterfly. Both are relatively common and therefore were the object of study and writing of the sages. From their descriptions and from our knowledge of nature, we can gain a great deal of insight into parallel processes in people. In this article we will do that and demonstrate the value of unifying science with Torah, especially when the science originates from direct observations of nature in our backyard.
The Frog Prince
Once upon a time there was a princess... Well, you know how that story goes. Why is it a frog that appears in almost all versions of this fairy tale? Because frogs symbolize change and transformation. Actually, in the story’s original title was The Frog King and this is very fitting as we will soon see.
In Torah, the frog is famous as the second plague in Egypt. It is almost impossible to find a pictorial depiction of Egypt that will not include them in some way. But it seems relatively uncommon for a famous Jewish figure to be compared to a frog. However, at the beginning of Perek Shirah, we find just that. There is a midrash that serves as a preface to Perek Shirah and another one that serves as an epilogue. The preface involves a frog and reads:
The sages said concerning King David that when he completed the book of Psalms, he became proud. He said before the Holy Blessed One, “Is there any creature you have created in your world that says more songs and praises than I?” At that moment a frog happened across his path, and it said to him: “David! Do not become proud, for I recite more songs and praises than you. Furthermore, every song I say contains three thousand parables, as it says, ‘He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered were one thousand and five.’”
A few words about this midrash. Though not all the verses quoted in Perek Shirah are from Psalms—they come from the entire Bible—a great number are from Psalms, and this is probably the reason that Perek Shirah is attributed to King David. This midrash explains why David would have composed Perek Shirah.
After completing Psalms, the midrash describes that David felt some pride at his accomplishment. This is known as feeling one’s self. It led him to ask, “Do you God have someone like me who exalts you in this way?” God wanted to nullify his pride and immediately sent him a frog. Before we get to the frog, let us stress that from this part of the midrash, we learn that God reacts to how you feel about yourself. As the Ba’al Shem Tov says, everything you see or hear can be a message from God regarding your present state of mind or actions.
The big question about the midrash is, who exactly is this frog? It’s not so hard to answer when you consider that the frog quotes a verse describing King Solomon. Many of the commentaries on Perek Shirah also note this. David was seeing his son and his future accomplishments. The question then is, why does the midrash picture King Solomon as a frog? What do they have in common?
Before we answer this question, let us note that the frog appears in Perek Shirah. Its verse does not appear in the Bible, but we say it at least twice a day as the unwritten second verse of the Shema: ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד. Alongside the frog there are 84 other songs that appear in Perek Shirah. The Hebrew word for “frog” (צְפַרְדֵּעַ) is sometimes broken down into two words: צִפַּר דֵּעַ, which means “a bird of knowledge.” There are a number of different birds that appear in Perek Shirah, but one of them is not a bird at all. It is the animal known as צִפְּרֵי כְּרָמִים, which is actually a butterfly. What frogs and butterflies have in common is that they both go through a metamorphosis as they mature. The reason that King Solomon is depicted as a frog is because he too went through a journey that included the human equivalent of metamorphosis.
Four Stages of Metamorphosis
Scientists describe four stages of development for both the frog and the butterfly. Both start as an egg. The butterfly egg hatches and becomes a caterpillar (זַחַל). The frog egg hatches, and a tadpole (אֲשׁוּר) emerges. The caterpillar enters a second womb as it were, which in Kabbalah is described as a second gestation or ibbur (עִבּוּר שֵׁנִי), and it becomes a pupa or chrysalis. When it emerges, it is “born again” in a completely different form that cannot be linked back to the caterpillar that entered the chrysalis; it goes through a complete metamorphosis.
Metamorphosis is usually translated as “reincarnation” (גִּלְגּוּל) in Hebrew, probably for lack of a better word. Life forms that go through metamorphosis are in a sense reincarnated. They return to non-being, as it were, and then reemerge as a new being. In Kabbalah this is described as “removing a form and donning a form” (פְּשִׁיטַת צוּרָה וְלִבִּישַׁת צוּרָה), a power of the sefirah of wisdom. To have a constant form is related with the sefirah of understanding. While understanding is considered the root of steady being, wisdom is the source of non-being, a state of nothingness that separates any two states of being. Thus, it is the sefirah of wisdom that we associate with the transformations that occur during metamorphosis.
Now, to continue with the frog, unlike the caterpillar, it does not completely shed its first body, rather it goes through a more continuous and metamorphosis. After the tadpole stage, the frog becomes a froglet. It is still longer than it is wide, but it begins to develop hind legs. Some species remain in this state for a year or longer, others race through it in a matter of weeks or days. This is its third stage of development after which the metamorphosis into an adult frog happens, its fourth and final steady state. In summary, both the frog and the butterfly go through four stages in their metamorphosis from egg to adult.
Stage 1Stage 2Stage 3Stage 4FrogEggTadpoleFrogletAdult frogButterflyEggLarva/caterpillarChrysalisButterflyThe Four Stages of Development in Kabbalah
In Kabbalah, we find a parallel description of four stages of development (even metamorphosis) innovated by the Arizal. He names the four stages: first immaturity, first maturity, second immaturity, and second maturity (קַטְנוּת א, גַּדְלוּת א, קַטְנוּת ב, גַּדְלוּת ב). The second immaturity is considered like a second gestation period (עִבּוּר שֵׁנִי), as noted earlier regarding the butterfly. This is one of the great innovations of the Arizal's teachings of Kabbalah.
Obviously, the Arizal’s intent was not to describe just the animal kingdom. This is a process that human beings are supposed to go through as our soul matures and thus these become very useful for describing and understanding our lives. When we translate the Kabbalistic language, which is somewhat technical, into the more experiential language used by Chasidut, these four stages are called: faith, knowing reality, confidence, and seeing the essence (אֱמוּנָה, יְדִיעַת הַמְּצִיאוּת, בִּטָּחוֹן, רְאִיָּה הַמַּהוּת). Let us explain these briefly.
The first stage is faith. When all the potential for future development is hidden, we require faith. The second stage arrives when we already have some familiarity with reality. It is impossible to completely know and understand the essence of reality when we first reach maturity. But it is possible to have knowledge of reality the way it presents itself externally. It would then seem that we have matured and achieved our goal in life. However, when further growth and development becomes possible when we can enter a second gestation, a second state of immaturity. When this happens, it does not indicate a return to faith, but a more solid state of confidence; confidence in God that when we emerge from this second womb, we will have matured even more.
In our second immaturity, we remember our knowledge of reality, and that residual knowledge translated into psychological confidence in life and in God. The final stage is in a sense a reincarnation (like the adult butterfly or the adult frog), which manifests as an ability to grasp or see the essence underlying reality.
The Watchman
Let us see how the frog’s name in Hebrew can help us build a parable for the four stages of human development. The first two letters of “frog” (צְפַרְדֵּעַ), צפ, can be interpreted as the word “anticipate” (צִפִּיתָ), as in “have you anticipated [or waited for] the redemption (צִפִּיתָ לִישׁוּעָה). The next two letters, רד, are shorthand for “descent” (יְרִידָה). The final letter, ע, is then shorthand for “ascent” (עֲלִיָּה). The frog is telling us a story, a story of anticipation, then descent and then ascent. If we think of the “anticipation” as a watchman looking out for some sign on the horizon, we can imagine that this is us, standing on top of a watchtower, looking out for the coming of Mashiach. We have a lot of faith that the Mashiach will come and that we will be redeemed. But this faith is passive.
Now, what happens if one day we look out and see the Mashiach. We are filled with elation. We now can see the reality of the imminent redemption. The Mashiach is standing on a high place on the other side of a valley. If we want to reach the Mashiach, we need to act. What can we do? We have to climb down from our high watchtower and approach the Mashiach. We cannot simply jump directly across the valley. We have to make the actual trip across the valley and climb up to where he is standing. To be able to do that, we need a great deal of confidence that even if we leave our tower, we will find our way to the Mashiach. This is known as descent for the sake of ascent. It is easy to see the correspondence to the four stages of development.
The Four Stages of King Solomon’s Life
As it turns out, King Solomon’s life was divided into four distinct stages, and they themselves were modeled around the four stages of development according to the Arizal. His early life was in his father David’s palace. It lasted only until the age of 12, when David passed, and he ascended the throne. Then the sages say that he went through three stages, which they describe as being a king, becoming a commoner, and returning to being a king. Elsewhere, we described these three later stages as motivated by the psychological challenges King Solomon endured.
His first 12 years of life represent his first stage of immaturity. He reached the first stage of maturity when he completed the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem. But even though he was at what seemed like the pinnacle of his life, he faced a challenge—either it was his foreign wives who caused this, or it was his own hubris—that made him lose his throne and forced him to live like a commoner for a number of years. Eventually, he was able to return to being a king and according to one opinion (in Seder Olam) it was in the final years of his 52-year long life that he wrote his three great works: Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.
The man who was Solomon’s rival, the man who ended up destroying the Temple Solomon built, was Nebuchadnezzar. Interestingly, he too went through four similar phases: child, then mature man, but then God turned him into an animal and finally restored him to the throne. Indeed, the sages say that Nebuchadnezzar was the son of Solomon through the Queen of Sheba.
Four Stages in Human History
There are many more examples of this four-stage developmental process but let us end with history. Human history begins with Adam, whose immaturity leads him to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Adam represents the soul of the world, and this soul had to wait for 20 generations until it could reach its first state of maturity in Abraham. Abraham is known as the “greatest of the giants,” alluding to first maturity. But even though Abraham seems to have finished history by discovering and serving God, at the very pinnacle, when God promises him the Land of Canaan, he is told of the impending descent into exile.
His grandson, Jacob is the one who takes his family with him to Egypt, where the Israelites are forged in a state of second immaturity. Egypt is like a womb that sustains the people of God before they are ready to embark on their journey to receive the Torah. Finally, it is Moses who leads the people out of Egypt and to Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah that represents the state of second maturity—the ability to see the essence of reality, of the Almighty—through the Giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai.
Stage 1Stage 2Stage 3Stage 4ArizalFirst immaturityFirst MaturitySecond ImmaturitySecond MaturityFrogEggTadpoleFrogletAdult frogButterflyEggLarva/caterpillarChrysalisButterflySolomonUntil age 12KingCommonerKingBuilt Temple
Usurped
Wrote 3 booksHuman historyAdam (Tree of Knowledge)Abraham (discovers God)Jacob (Egyptian exile)Moses (Giving of Torah)
(based on a shiur given on the 28th of Shevat, 5785)
