With today’s daf TB
Shabbat 56 we finish the fifth chapter of our massechet. One of the biggest
differences between our Bible heroes and heroes in Ancient Near Eastern myths
is how they are portrayed. Heroes in Ancient Near Eastern myths are perfect
human beings without any faults. The Bible presents are heroes as real flesh
and blood human beings warts and all.
Between yesterday and today dappim Rabbi
Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that Rabbi Yonatan exonerated six biblical
figures, Reuvan, Jacob’s eldest son, Hofni and Pinchas, Eli’s two sons, King
David, King Solomon, and King Josiah. Let’s examine David’s episode with Bat
Sheva and see how Rabbi Yonaton exonerates him. King David spies Bat Sheva, the
wife of one of his soldiers Uriah, bathing on a rooftop. She is brought to him,
he sleeps with her, and impregnates her while her husband is on the
battlefield. David calls Uriah home and encourages him to be with his wife
thinking that everybody will believe that the baby will be Uriah’s and not his.
Uriah refuses to go home and sleeps in the barracks. David sends him back to
the battlefield with secret orders to his general Yoav to put Uriah on the
frontline so he will be killed. Yoav does so, Uriah dies in battle, and King
David marries Bat Sheva. Pretty straightforward that King David committed
adultery and murdered the cuckold husband to get away with it. I encourage you
to read the complete story in II Samuel 11-12.
“Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that Rabbi Yonatan
said: Anyone who says that David sinned with Bathsheba is nothing other
than mistaken, as it is stated: “And David succeeded in all his ways; and the
Lord was with him” (I
Samuel 18:14). Is it possible that sin came to his hand and
nevertheless the Divine Presence was with him?
“However, how then do I establish the meaning of the rebuke of the prophet
Nathan: “Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do that which is
evil in My sight? Uriah the Hittite you have smitten with the sword, and
his wife you have taken to be your wife, and him you have slain with the sword
of the children of Ammon” (II
Samuel 12:9), indicating that David sinned? The Gemara answers: David sought
to do evil and have relations with Bathsheba while she was still married to
Uriah but did not do so.
“As Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that Rabbi Yonatan
said: Anyone who goes to a war waged by the royal house of David writes
a conditional bill of divorce to his wife. That was done to prevent
a situation in which the soldier’s wife would be unable to remarry because the
soldier did not return from battle and there were no witnesses to his fate. The
conditional bill of divorce accorded her the status of a divorcee and freed her
to remarry. As it is stated: “And carry these ten cheeses to the captain of
their thousand, and to your brothers bring greetings and take their pledge [arubatam]”
(I Samuel 17:18).
“What is the meaning of arubatam? Rav Yosef taught: It refers to matters
that are shared [hame’oravim] between him, the husband, and her,
the wife, i.e., marriage. The verse should be read: Take the bill of divorce
that determines the status of the relationship between husband and wife. As,
apparently, it was customary for men at war to send their wives a conditional
divorce, since Uriah later died, Bathsheba retroactively assumed divorced
status from the time that he set out to war. She was not forbidden to David.”
(Sefaria.org translation)
Two
explanations are given why David is innocent of those sins. Either at the last
moment he did not consummate his plans with Bat Sheva or at the time she was a
divorcee. But a close critical reading of the text itself makes these explanations
untenable. I highly recommend Robert Alter’s translation and commentary of I
and II Samuel. The story of King David and Bat Sheva is the tipping point in
David’s life. He notes that up to the Bat Sheva episode David’s trajectory was only
upward bound. He succeeded in everything he did. After he sinned with Bat Sheva
David’s trajectory was tragically downward. “As the Talmud (Yoma 22b) notes,
the fourfold retribution for Uriah’s death will be worked out in the death or
violent fate of four of David’s children: the unnamed infant son of Bathsheba,
Tamar, Amnon, and Absalom.” (The David Story: A Translation with Commentary
of 1 and 2 Samuel, page 258, n.b. I purchased Alter’s translation and
commentary as he published them book by book. Since then a three volume set of
his translation of the entire Bible is now available for purchase.) Two sons
Absalom and Adonijah try to usurp the crown while the father was still alive.
In the latter case David had to flee Jerusalem before the revolt was put down.
Back in 1993
a comment about David’s character on another issue created bedlam in Israel’s
Kenneset. At that time MP Yael Dayan claimed that David had homosexual
relations with Jonathan based upon her understanding of his lament over the Jonathan’s
death. “But she immediately
encountered fierce opposition from members of the Knesset who regard
homosexuality as gravely sinful. Almost unable to speak because of his anger,
Arzan accused Dayan of blasphemy in suggesting that the love between David and
Jonathan, idealized for centuries as pure and selfless, was actually
homosexual. ‘A man who lies with a man as if a woman will be cursed and cut off
from the people of Israel,’ Maiya intoned, quoting what religious Jews take as
a biblical injunction against homosexuality. ‘How can she say this? Our
salvation as Jews is to come through the House of David.’ Dayan was defended by Eli Goldschmidt, 40, who told
her shouting critics: ‘The Bible wrote the truth. You people are not capable of
coping with human reality. The Bible knew how to do this. It is too bad you
don’t.’” (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-02-11-mn-1493-story.html)
I choose to read the biblical heroes as real human beings and not perfect
saints. Because I can relate to them in their struggles and challenges, I can
learn from the foibles and hopefully not make those same mistakes and be
inspired by their acts of greatness.
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