i learned very many years ago that every time you kill a spider you get 6 mitzvot (one for each incident in which a spider worked against the people of Israel, like bringing coals to the burning of the beit hamikdash) and 1 aveira, for the time that a spider saved Dovid hamelech's life (king david, to you non-hebrew ones).
i also learned very many years ago that i'm a descendent of dovid (i was going to say direct descendent, but in thinking about it, what's a non-direct descendent? either you're from someone's offspring or you're not).
so whenever i have to kill a spider, the aveira bit weighs even more heavily on me beause i feel like i'm repaying an entire species who technically saved my life by killing them.
we have had a spider infestation in our bathroom. avraham killed them. but there was this one mega spider in our living room taht avs saw and couldn't reach. i saw it the other day and was not okay with killing it. but today, the spider was on the couch, next to some very important things, and some instinct took over me - i grabbed a shoe, and beat that spider down.
i'm sorry, i'm so so sorry. it's not that i don't appreciate what you did for me, it's that you don't belong in my house. and seeing as i can't converse with you and ask you to leave and not come back, i had to dispose of you. please come back as something non-threatening - a puppy! and i'll adopt you.
1. 'A visitor' posted on the Tue 11 Jul 2006, 3:59 pm
ReplyDeletethink of it as encouraging - should the need ever arise, you know that you can do whatever you have to in order to save what's important. it's good mommy skills.