Dear Friends,
Old age can be a time of glory. (Don’t ask how I know.)
Or not.
On one hand, physical decline awakens the potential to redefine and rediscover who you are and what you have integrated in the course of your life. Virtually all of the recent gedolei Torah attained their highest levels after seventy. The savage nature of decline, however, is sometimes painfully real. For Dovid, old age was a time of profound physical deterioration. He was weakened by illness to the point that his body was no longer able to retain its natural heat. The only way he could escape from his bone-chilling cold was through being aroused by physical contact. A woman named Avishag was brought in to attend to him. Their relationship was therapeutic rather than sensual, which tells you of how deeply he had physically declined, and how completely he had conquered physical lust. The trigger for his symptoms, Rashi says, was the fear he felt when he saw a prophetic vision in which an angel holding an outstretched sword over hovered over Yerushalaim. The underlying cause was a subtle one. In the course of his two-year struggle with Shaul, Dovid never attempted to kill him. He could have easily justified making this move, since he was in constant mortal danger. Dovid would not make what he considered to be a moral compromise. He chose not to strike down an anointed king, but rather he decided that he would do whatever he had to do to escape, and leave it to Hashem to determine how the monarchy that Hashem had promised him would eventually be his. At one point, when he had the opportunity to enter Shaul’s encampment and finally end the struggle by killing him, he resisted the temptation to do so but cut off a piece of Shaul’s garment. Dovid hoped that when Shaul would see that Dovid was close enough to kill him, but chose not to that Shaul would finally be able to release himself from the paranoia that drove him to relentlessly pursue Dovid. It didn’t work. There were consequences for Dovid for a subtle failure. For a moment, Dovid no longer saw the garment’s inherent value as one of Hashem’s creations. For you or me this would have absolutely no significance. For him, it was a lapse. The resulting tikkun was that no garment could keep him warm. Dovid could no longer be active in public life. His son Adoniyahu took advantage of the situation to try to claim the throne.
Who was Adoniyiahu? He was Dovid’s fourth son, and (at least in his own mind) the most obvious successor. Dovid’s first two sons, Amnon and Avshalom were no longer alive. Amnon had abused his stepsister Tamar, and was killed by her brother Avshalom. Avshalom was by any account a complex person. A tzadik and a nazir on one hand, and ruthlessly ambitious on the other hand. He rebelled against his father, and in an act of treason against Dovid’s explicit instructions, Yoav, Dovid’s greatest fighter, killed Avshalom. Dovid’s third son, Kilav, had no desire to rule. He was one of four people who died only because of Adam’s sin and apparently had dedicated his life exclusively to serving Hashem.
There was another son, Shlomo, Adoniyhu’s younger brother. Shlomo was the son that Dovid had with Batsheva, and had promised Batsheva that he would be heir to the throne. Why him?
The Talmud tells us that Dovid should never have fallen into the compromised relationship he had with Batsheva. Although it was legal, (when he married her, she was legally divorced from her husband Uriah since, as a soldier in Dovid’s army, he gave his wife a conditional divorce before heading out to war as all of the other soldiers did at that time) it was not what a person on his level should have done. The Talmud explains that the desire that drove him to this act was part of a bigger plan. Similarly, there was a bigger plan when Hashem unleashed the angel of desire to force Yehuda into having a relation with Tamar when he encountered her and was intimate with her without having been married to her. Again, technically their union was legal. She had a claim on the family in accordance with the laws of yibum (she was waiting for a family member to marry her after her husband, Yehuda’s son, had died childless) it was still unseemly that their union take place in this manner. The child of Dovid’s relation with Batsheva was Shlomo, and the child born to Yehuda and Tamar was Peretz, the ancestor of Israel’s kings. In both cases, Hashem chose to teach us what I shall call “step two”.
Every one of us makes bad choices. One response is to drown in either guilt or blame. Another possible response is to move on to step two. That means asking yourself what you should do now that things are not the way you planned them.
Dovid’s role when he realized the gravity of his error was to provide the Jewish people with a living example of what Tshuvah looks like. When you look at Tehillim 51, you will see the process that he taught by example. Yehuda’s role was to teach all future generations what honesty means when you are confronted with having done something wrong. There were no denials. No blame. He said, “She is right” without any further justification.
Adonyahu had no desire to see that Dovid’s child with Batsheva was the child of Tshuvah. He saw only himself and was blinded by his ambition. The text attributes his emotional myopia to the fact that Dovid never said no to Adonyahu when he was a child. Adoniyhu’s every wish was granted. In earlier times, we used the word 'spoiled.' Today this word is Very Out. So are the words ‘punishment’ and ‘discipline’. The closest you can come is using the words ‘structure’ and ‘limitations’. Even then, there is often the underlying assumption that in the democracy of contemporary family life the child must be included in determining borders, and must agree to structure. Arguably, the most tragic aspect of this episode is that Adoniyahu didn’t think that his father would deny him the throne. Why would he? He had never been denied anything he really wanted. He involved Yoav, who in any case had reason to fear that he was no longer in Dovid’s favor, and Evyassar, the Kohen who had lost his position as the result of his supporting Avshalaom. The one thing that Adoniyahu failed to consider was Hashem’s will that Shlomo be Dovid’s heir.
Nosson the prophet knew the truth. It was his responsibility to see that the “new king” not rule and that Shlomo be acknowledged as the future king publically so that no further mistakes erode the future of Shlomo’s kingdom. At this point, Nosson decided to involve Batsheva. He told her that she has to be the one to inform Dovid of what had taken place and to remind him of the oath he had made that Shlomo would reign. Nosson also put himself on the line by telling her that he would join her and explain to the king the details of the nascent rebellion against him.
She entered Dovid’s chamber, told him what he needed to hear, and added, “All of Yisrael is waiting for you.” Nassan then entered and told him of the coronation. Dovid’s next words brought the reality of Hashem’s presence into what could have been an ordinary defensive power play. “I swear by Hashem, who has saved me from all struggles that Shlomo shall rule after me.”
The Haftorah ends with the words “May my master, King Dovid live forever.” And he does. Something of him remains in the Torah leaders of all generations and will be finally seen for what it is when Dovid’s descendant, Moshiach comes.
May it be soon.
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