Who should have been the first king of Israel?--Introduction to Shmuel I

I'm so sorry for the long delay in posting.   So I'll get right to it.

First, the book of I Samuel and II Samuel (Shmuel Alef and Bet) are really one, big book.  If I recall correctly, the division into two books was done by Christian scholars, and it is a division we retain for convenience purposes.

Second, the overall timeline of the book of Shmuel is not so large-- it spans the lives of Shmuel, Saul, and David.  Compare that to Judges, which covered a period of several hundred years, and to Kings, which also spans hundreds of years.

Third is the main point I want to discuss in this post.   Shmuel's birth is preceded by the famous story of Chanah's prayer in Chapter 1.   He is dedicated to God from before birth, and lo and behold, he becomes a successful servant of God.  God speaks to him when prophecy had otherwise ceased.  He serves God in a devoted fashion.  He leads the people.  

On the one hand, compare him to the only other Judge who was dedicated to God before birth--Shimshon.  While Shimshon was the low point (see this post here), Shmuel is the high point, at least as regards leadership.  He lives up to his potential as a religious personality and as a Shofet, a Judge.   Shmuel is the culmination of the period of Judges, and he is the most successful, righteous Judge.
Take home message:  Shmuel was one of the Shoftim, the Judges.

On the other hand, when the people ask for a king in chapter 8, Shmuel sees this as a rejection of his leadership.  God says to him, "They're not rejecting you, they're rejecting Me."    The question is, why would Shmuel see this as a personal rejection?   After all, the reason they get upset is because Shmuel makes his sons into Shoftim when he gets old, and they become corrupted, taking bribes, running after gain.   Aren't they just fed up with the system of Shoftim, some better and some worse?

Now this is my theory, and I take responsibility for it and the likelihood that it is incorrect.   But I think that what is happening here is that Shmuel sees himself as being able to pass the "Judgehood" on to his sons.   But this is the very thing that characterizes a king!  After all, recall in the book of Judges that the Judge Gidon did not want the honor of kingship, and his son, Avimelech, tried to become king. 
My suggestion is that Kingship is centralized rule by dynastic succession, and Shmuel tried to set that up in his own life.  Not for personal glory-- we see that he is indeed, a holy person.   But rather, in order to create the continuous, centralized authority that was absent during the period of the Shoftim.

Thus, there is reason to think that the people are rejecting Shmuel when they ask for a king, and therefore, God tells him "No, they're not rejecting you, they're rejecting Me."   Because the people's choice of a king is motivated not only by their dissatisfaction with the corruption of Shmuel's sons, but by a more negative reason as well.  (Which we will probably discuss later).

To sum up:  Shmuel is a bridge between the period of the Judges and the Kings.   He rules as a Shofet, a Judge.   But he has a centralized power and tries to pass it on, in the manner of a king  (We will see also how he finishes the king's job of killing Amalek when King Saul does not do it.  This is another example of how Shmuel is not just a judge and prophet, but also a type of king).   And, of course, he is the last of the Judges, who acts in God's name when he anoints the first king of Israel.  He is thus a bridge in the sense that he himself is both a judge and a king, and in the sense that he ushers in the transition between the judges and the kings.

The end of Sefer Shoftim-- What's Right in Their Own Eyes

Chapters 17-21 of Sefer Shoftim don't follow the same pattern as the first 16 chapters of the book.   Here there are no outside enemies, no general statements of the sins of Israel, no Judges to save them.

Instead, we have two incidents that are disturbing, even nauseating.    (This and the next paragraph are summaries of the chapters;  additional ideas are below these paragraphs).  The first, about "pesel Michah", the story of Michah, (not to be confused with the prophet of the same name) a man from the tribe of Efrayim, who builds an idol and hires his own Levi to serve as his personal priest.   Some armed members of the tribe of Dan come, forcibly remove the Levi and make him their priest, and seek out some land.   They then set up the idol for themselves, and set up "Gershon son of Menashe" as their priests.

The second is the story of Pilegesh b'Givah, of the man and his concubine who, traveling as night comes, decide not to stay in the "dangerous" Jebusite city of Jerusalem, but instead go on to the city of Givah in the area of Benjamin, where they are taken in by the only hospitable man there.  With deliberate echoes of the story of Sodom, the townspeople surround the home, demand that they "know" the man, and instead, the man throws out his concubine to the people, who rape and abuse her until morning.   The next morning, the husband finds his wife dead, cuts her up into twelve pieces, and sends the pieces of her body to all the tribes of Israel.   The tribes of Israel assemble an army together and demand of the tribe of Benjamin that they hand over the men of Givah to be killed.  The tribe of Benjamin refuses, there is a civil war where all the men of Benjamin except for 600 are killed, and the other tribes swear they will not give their daughters to the men of Benjamin for wives.  They then regret this oath, and come up with two brutal ways to "marry off" the men of Benjamin so the entire tribe of Benjamin is not wiped out.

A few things to note:  

1)  The priest who was established by the tribe of Dan to serve the idol they stole is "Yehonatan ben Gershom ben Menashe."    The "nun" of Menashe is written in a large letter in the Hebrew text.      The Talmud (Bava Batra 109b) says that this "nun" really hides the true identity of the grandfather of this Yehonatan.   His grandfather is not Menashe, but Moshe--Moshe Rabeinu.   In other words, the grandson of Moshe Rabeinu was set up as the priest for this idol established by the tribe of Dan.

This raises a number of issues and questions for thought.   Was there anything that Moshe Rabeinu did or didn't do that led to this degraded fate of his grandson?    Is there any guarantee for the results of human action?  (and does God ever hold us accountable for results?)

2)  On a broader note, these horrible stories that end the book of Shoftim appear to have taken place earlier, not at the end of this period.   For example, reference is made to Pinchas the son of Elazar the son of Aharon haKohen.   For Pinchas to have been alive even at the beginning of the period of Shoftim, he presumably must have been extremely old.   But certainly, the story did not take place later than that.    

So why are these stories placed at the end of the book, disregarding chronology?   I think it is because they paint a detailed picture of the degradation to which the Jewish people had sunk at various times during this period, and thus highlights the need for a centralized leader to keep them in line with God's will.   Thus, the book ends "In those days, there was no king in Israel, each man did what was right in his own eyes."

Presumably, having a "king in Israel", while not a guarantee of spiritual success, will at least give the possibility of raising the spiritual and moral level of the people.    On this note we transition to the book of Shmuel I, where the last (and indeed spiritually the greatest) of the Judges, Shmuel, anoints the first of the kings of Israel, king Saul.

Yiftach and Shimshon

I had discussed in a previous post that the purpose of Sefer Shoftim (or one of its purposes) is to show that the Jewish people needed a centralized leadership, as opposed to the pattern laid out in Chapter 3 of Shoftim, of the people serving God, straying, getting punished, crying out, and getting saved by a Shofet, a "Judge" whom God would save to rescue them, and then starting the cycle again. 

We see, in the overall sweep of Sefer Shoftim, a decrease in quality of the leadership of the Shoftim themselves.   The Shofet reflects the people.    Thus, early on we have Yehoshua himself, we have Ehud ben Gera (who isn't presented negatively at all, although not much stands out), Devorah, who is presented in a very good light, judging the people and leading them, as well as instilling the confidence in her military (i.e. the general Barak) and inspiring the people in the praise of God (the Song of Devorah).
Gidon we already discussed, and while I presented his doubts as something that can give the modern Jew some comfort, at the same time, he asked for miraculous proof after proof from God Himself.   And the 300 men who followed him didn't have that luxury.   So while Gidon is still a strong leader, and of fine character (he turns down the kingship), he is arguably a step down.


Certainly, Avimelech, Gidon's son, is a big step down, murdering his brothers and seizing power.

Then we get to Yiftach and Shimshon.   Yiftach is turned away from the people because of his lowly parentage, and leads a bunch of "empty men", presumably some band of outlaws.  The people only want him to lead because they feel he is their only hope as a military leader.   He agrees to save them only if he can then lead them.   And he then impetuously offers to God the first thing that comes out of his gate, which, ironically, is his daughter.   The Sefer leads us to understand that Yiftach actually killed his daughter in fulfillment of his vow.   Certainly, this horrific act is a huge demonstration of the deterioration of the leadership of Israel.  (Even if he didn't actually kill his daughter, the language of the text is such that we see it is a grave, serious mistake in judgment and values).

Shimshon lacks even what Yiftach had.  Yiftach led the people, but Shimshon never seems to have had the Jewish people's interests in mind at all, even as he went about saving them.    Chosen by God before his birth to be a Nazir, it seems God would have high hopes for Shimshon.    Yet Shimshon has an eye for Philistine women (and is the first recorded example of a son to whom his parents say "Aren't there any nice Jewish girls you can marry instead?")   and kills Philistines not because they are oppressing the Jews, but to get revenge for 1) figuring out his riddle, and 2) marrying off his first wife to another man after he had rejected her, and 3) for gouging out his eyes.

He turns to God, but it is always to avenge his own honor.    Shimshon, though the favorite of elementary school boys because of his physical strength and military might, is the nadir of the Shoftim.  We would never really be aware that he served as a leader except for a summary pasuk stating that he did (I don't have a Tanach in front of me, but I recall such a pasuk).

I'm not trying to "bash" our ancestors, to "diminish" our holy Tzadikim and point out their flaws.   We have many holy ancestors (though only God is perfect), many of them in Tanach.  But it seems that Yiftach and Shimshon are counter-examples, and part of a particular downward spiral.

Chazal certainly saw them on a lower level.  In affirming that we must always be bound to the leadership of our time, even if our leaders are inferior to leaders of previous generations,  the Talmud states:  "Yiftach b'doro k'Shmuel b'doro", "Yiftach in his generation is like Shmuel in his generation".  Yiftach was clearly an example of an inferior leader.

Of course, the monarchy, as we shall see in subsequent books of the Nevi'im, was not always successful either.   But it at least offers the possibility of strong, righteous leadership, which the structure of the people in the period of Judges did not provide.

Thoughts on Parashat Vayechi, (almost) a decade later

I was just using an old flash drive to transfer a file from one computer to another when I stumbled across a series of outlines of old derashot and other such interesting documents.   I found this one from nine (9!) years ago.  I present it to you here cut and pasted, with no corrections.  It's in pseudo-outline form, with some parts written out, and little attention to grammar.   If you don't like it, more Navi thoughts are coming soon (hopefully tomorrow, covering Yiftach and Shimshon, and then another one covering the strange package which constitutes the last several chapters of Shoftim):

Parashat Vayechi 5763

I. Parashat Vayechi is paginated in an unusual way.  No new paragraph between Vayigash and Vayechi as there are between almost every other two parshiot in the Torah.  Rather Parashat Vayechi is written beginning on the very same line as the last words of Parashat Vayigash.

We call this type of parasha, where the space between parshiot is filled, a parasha setuma, a closed parasha.

II. Rashi, following Chazal, asks why this parasha is closed, written beginning on the same line as the previous parasha.  One of the explanations he gives is that with the death of Ya’akov, related at the beginning of this parasha, the hardship of slavery began, and the eyes of Israel were closed (nistemu) because of the hardship of slavery.

a. The question that arises, of course, is that it isn’t until years later, after Yosef dies, after all the brothers die, that a new king arises over Egypt who enslaves the Jewish people.  How, then, can our Rabbis say that slavery began with Ya’akov’s death?

III.  I’d like to suggest one answer, which we discussed in our Wednesday night parasha class:  That while the physical slavery didn’t begin until later, the spiritual slavery of the Jewish people began after Ya’akov’s death.

a. How can this be?  What did our Rabbis mean when they referred to this spiritual slavery?

III.    In answer, let me share with you a teshuva, a halachic opinion, of Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, the former Sefardic Chief Rabbi of Israel.  Question asked of Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef—Can Jewish newspaper reporters go to Egypt to report on business and news there?

A. Problem: “V’lo yashiv et ha’am Mitzrayima.”  Rav Ovadiah notes that Maimonedes codifies this prohibition, indicating that the Torah prohibits a Jew from living in the land of Egypt.

B. But, notes Rav Ovadiah, there’s a difficulty:  Maimonedes lived in Egypt!  

C. He cites a number of solutions:  1) That the prohibition of living in Egypt is only when the Jewish people lives in Israel, not in the diaspora. 2) That the parts of Egypt that Jews lived in were not within the boundaries of Egypt that are defined by the Torah.  3) That the prohibition exists to prevent the Jewish people from intermingling with and learning from the Egyptians, and the people living in Egypt today, due to historical conquests and the transfer of peoples by the Babylonians, are not the Egyptians who are the reason that Jews are prohibited from living in Egypt.

All of these answers have problems with them.   The answer that Rav Ovadiah seems to accept, however, is that the prohibition of living in Egypt is a prohibition against settling down there with the intention to stay, to become attached to, and entrenched in, Egypt.  Visits for business purposes, for example, are totally permissible.  The Rambam’s visit was also for refuge, and it was a visit made long for various reasons.  But it is prohibited to go to the land of Egypt to settle down, to become permanently entrenched in and attached to Egypt.

IV.   So let’s go back to our original question:  Our Rabbis explain that our Parasha begins on the same line as last week’s parasha, it is a “closed” parasha, because the eyes of the Jewish people were closed by the spiritual slavery that began immediately after Ya’akov’s death.  We asked, what is the nature of this spiritual slavery?

The prohibition against living in Egypt obviously did not apply to Joseph and his brothers, who lived long before the Torah’s prohibition to their descendants.  But Rav Ovadiah’s explanation—that whether going to Egypt is allowed or prohibited depends on our intentions in going there--may be shed light on the spiritual slavery of our forebears.

Yosef was forced into Egypt through circumstance.  Ya’akov and his other sons came down to flee the ravages of famine, and to be with Yosef while he had to be there.  They went to visit, compelled by some temporary purpose. Who can blame them for that?  No problem.

But by the time Ya’akov died, the famine was over.

When Yosef and his brothers brought their father back to Israel for burial, they did not have to go back to Egypt.    There may have been no prohibition to live in Egypt, but surely they should have stayed in the land which God had promised to their forefathers!

Yet, even in the absence of an urgent need to do so, they did go back to Egypt.  They turned their backs on the land of Israel and went back to Egypt where it was comfortable.  They turned their backs on Israel and went to a place where they had power and prestige.  They traded in God’s gifts for the seductive allure of material power and comfort.

They traded in God’s gifts for the seductive allure of material power and comfort.  And while it is clear that the Torah teaches that there is nothing wrong with enjoying comfort or with wielding power, it is abundantly clear that spiritual slavery is achieved when one makes the wrong moral and religious choices because of the attraction of the material world.  

So when Ya’akov died, his children took him back to Israel.  And when the last shovelful of earth fell onto his grave, they were drawn back to the accomodations of Egypt like a moth to the flame, already shackled in spiritual slavery.

Let us discipline ourselves to learn from their mistake and choose instead to embrace spiritual freedom, that is, the strength of character and spirit to choose morals over comfort, values over desire, holiness over ambition, and God over the attractions world.

Central Goal of Sefer Shoftim

I have heard various shiurim, and would tend to agree with the following idea:  That one of the central prophetic goals of Sefer Shoftim is to demonstrate the importance of having a strong, centralized leadership of the people--- i.e. a monarchy.

For example, take Chapter 3---which is like a summary chapter of the dynamic of "sin, get subjugated by the surrounding nations, call out to God, get saved by a Judge, follow God for the rest of the Judge's life, and then sin again after he/she dies."    From Chapter 3 we see that there was no consistent leadership that bound all of the tribes of Israel together.  In between Shoftim, there was no centralized leadership, and the people would turn away from God, and the cycle would begin again.

The end of the book-- the horrible example of Pilegesh b'Givah comes to mind--- emphasizes this tendency "ish kol hayashar b'einav"---there was no King in Israel, each person did what was right in his own eyes.

So on one important level, Sefer Shoftim is a record of the failure of the Jewish people to serve God properly without a monarchy to serve as a centralized political and religious leadership.