In the haftorah on
Parshas Chayay Sarah King David is very old. Because his body cannot generate
enough heat for him to be warm in his clothes, his servants suggest that a
young girl should be found to sleep with him so he will not become cold at
night. The suggestion is accepted and a beautiful maiden, Avishag, is found.
When the king does not
have relations with the girl, his son, Adoniya, attempts to seize the throne.
He is supported by a number of important people among them Yoav, David’s
general. The support of Solomon, the crown prince, is not solicited. Bat-sheva
gives David a detailed account of what is happening, which is repeated by
Nathan the prophet. With that King David publicly reaffirms that the proper
heir to the throne of Israel is Shlomo, which ends the rebellion.
In the parsha Abraham
appoints his servant to search for a wife for his son, Isaac. In finding
Rebecca, Isaac’s soul mate, an emotional adventure ensues. The servant in
detail recounts this adventure to Rivka’s family. The family says that all of
this is from heaven and agree to the marriage. However, after they have had a
little bit of time to think about it, they attempt to delay or renege. When the
attempts fail, they give Rivka a blessing and even send a nursemaid with her on
the way.
The detailed repetitions
form a literary connection between the parsha its haftorah. The essential
connection, though, is the idea of a tsadik of the generation handing over the
torch to the tsadik of the coming generation which will result in the setting
up a dynasty of tsaddikim that will remain for all generations. A much more concealed
idea is the elevation of the spark of holiness that is buried in a very hard
thick shell of evil. This is the story of Bat-sheva.
The story of Bat-sheva
is told in the second book of Shmuel chapter eleven. In it King David
unwittingly sees Bat-sheva bathing. He asks who she is and is told that she is
the wife of Uriya the Hittite. He then
sends for her, she comes, and they have relations. When Bat-sheva becomes
pregnant, she tells David, who then sends for Uriya, her husband.
When Uriya arrives,
David gives him a nice meal, even gets him a bit drunk, and tells him to return
home to his wife. When Uriya spends the night in the palace, David asks him why
he did that. He explains that his “lord” Yoav is at war therefore it would be
inappropriate for him to spend the night with his wife. David then returns
Uriya to the battlefront and orders Yoav to manipulate the situation so that he
will be killed. Yoav complies.
When Bat-sheva hears
the news she mourns for her husband. When the mourning period has passed, David
marries her, and she gives birth to a son. What King David did though was bad
in the eyes of Hashem. When confronted by Nathan the prophet, David immediately
confesses that he has sinned to Hashem. He is then cursed saying evil will
arise in his house, he will be publicly sexually humiliated, and the new born
infant will die. David accepts the verdict, but never the less prays profusely
for the child.
After the baby dies,
David and Bat-sheva have a second son that they name Shlomo. Hashem loves
Shlomo and even has the prophet affectionately call him Yedidya meaning that he
is a true friend of the Creator.
The story is riddled
with difficulties. Perhaps the most difficult is that the child of this affair
should become the companion of G-d and the king of Israel. King David wrote
Psalm 51 specifically about this episode. The psalm is very intense and in it David
acknowledges his violations and mistakes. He asks G-d to give him a pure heart
and the proper spirit should renewed with him. He also asks that he should not
be sent away from G-d and that the spirit of holiness should not be taken from
him. The difficulty is that he also says that it was to G-d alone that he
sinned, meaning that he did not sin, not against Uriya and not against
Bat-sheva.
The Gemara (Shabbos
56a) brings a justification of David’s actions saying that Uriah was a rebel
against the king. It quotes Uriah saying that his master was Yoav (2 Samuel
11:11). Concerning Bat-sheva it says the soldiers in David’s army divorced
their wives in anticipation of battle so in the event they were missing in
action their wives could remarry. Therefore David technically did not commit
adultery.
It comes out that one
must look at this as being in the realm of the secrets of Torah. Therefore one
must rely on conjecture and a sparse number of hints. In addition it helps to
consider the conscious and subconscious mind. The key to the puzzle seems to be
two Zohars (section 1 page 8b). The first says that after the action King David
was stricken with dread that he had violated the verse, “You will not lie
carnally with your neighbor’s wife to defile yourself along with her,
(Leviticus 18:20) and, perhaps he had polluted the covenant through obscenity.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu responded that he had not because Bat-sheva had been set
aside for him from the day the world was created. In addition the Zohar reveals
that Uriah had never touched Bat-sheva and, she was in fact a virgin when David
HaMelech had her.
There are difficulties
with Yoav. He was King David’s general and he came to his aid during the
rebellion of Avshalom. However, he too rebelled in supporting Adoniya over
Shlomo. On his deathbed David tells Shlomo to execute Yoav because he used the
cover of war to murder two rivals.
When Shlomo comes
after him, Yoav flees to the Temple, grasps the corners of the altar, and tells
him that this is where he wishes to die. The reason was because he did not wish
to be executed as a criminal rather he wished to die with dignity. The
underlying idea is that much of his devotion to religion and to David was real.
However one tsadik for him was enough. He did not want another righteous king
or a righteous dynasty.
The hint is that Uriah
more than shared his master’s point of view. One can speculate on some level he
recognized that Bat-Sheva was meant for David. Therefore he married her so as
to prevent David from marrying her and producing a proper heir to the throne.
However, the good in him prevented him from touching her.
The reason that David
wound up in this peculiar situation was because Bat-sheva really was his soul
mate. However the small amount of evil in him blinded him and allowed him to
behave in a ruthless and unprincipled way. This evil was an aspect of the
shattered vessels that were in his soul. This was his sin but it was not the
result of his free will. The torment that followed was the rectification. This
is an aspect of “Indeed
with iniquity I was formed, and with sin my
mother conceived me”, as well as, “in order that You be shown to be justified in
Your conduct, and correct in Your judgment”.
The Psalm also contains
hints of a prayer for purification, as it says, “Behold,
You desired that truth be in the subconscious, and in the concealed part You
teach me wisdom. Purify me . . . and I will become pure; wash me, and I
will become whiter than snow”. To a certain
extent this sin was the shell for the book of Psalms in which he declares, “I
will teach violators Your ways, and sinners to You will return”, (Psalm 51:15).
לע"נ, הדוד ,שמואל בן נח ז"ל נלב"ע
ט"ו אב תשס"ט,
Acknowledgements to websites:
תורת אמת, וויקיטקסט, http://dictionary.reference.com/,
http://hebrewbooks.org/,
וגם בדואר אלקטרוני
ניתן באתר http://dyschreiber.blogspot.co.il
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