Prince of Egypt | Imamother

imasoftov

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 6:49 am

PinkFridge wrote:

No, none of these stories are simple. I'll just take Dovid Hamelech. You can't learn it without mefarshim. If Batsheva would have been eishes ish, he would have been drummed out of the corp. Yet the pasuk does talk about sin and Dovid himself got sick over it and did teshuva for it the rest of his life. The sin was the appearance of impropriety. At least that's how I learned it.

What I learned how to reconcile the Gemara that says David Hamelech did not sin with Natan's rebuke (and David's own admission that he had sinned, using the same verb (חטא) is that the Gemara explains David committed no sins for which the punishment was death. Here is a post by R Shmuel Eliyahu saying the same thing, translation mine because it's only in Hebrew

במקרה של דוד ובת שבע אין הכוונה שאין פה חטא כלל אלא שאין כאן חטא של אשת איש. כיון שהיוצא למלחמת בית דוד היה כותב גט כריתות לפני היציאה לקרב, לפטור בעית עגונות.
ולכן רש"י מסביר על הכתוב "כל האומר דוד חטא אינו אלא טועה" "כל האומר דוד חטא - באשת איש - אינו אלא טועה". ומכאן יובן למה דוד מבקש מחילה בכל ספר תהילים. ולמה הנביא מוכיח אותו על חטאו בסיפור "כבשת הרש" כי יש פה חטא - אבל לא של אשת איש.

In the case of David and Batsheva the intent is not that there was no sin at all but there was no sin of adultery, because David's soldiers would write a get before going to battle to eliminate the problem of agunot and that is why Rashi says on the Gemara that says "whoever says that David sins is nothing but wrong" (Shabbat 56a that this means he did not commit adultery with her. And from this it can be understood why David asks for forgiveness throughout Sefer Tehillim. And why the prophet (Natan) rebuked him with the parable of the poor man's sheep, because there was a sin, just not adultery.

That's the end of the translation, the rest of the post is me talking.

The Gemara there also says that David wanted to do evil but did not, and Rashi explains that this is because he did not know that she had received the divorce (why he wouldn't have known that she had, as this was the practice in his own army, Rashi doesn't explain, he does later say that sometimes the soldier would send the get to his wife after leaving for war, so maybe the meaning here is that David didn't check. Although it seems to me that since Uriah was still alive at the time and Rashi later says the divorces were conditional the divorce doesn't help unless Uriah dies which hadn't happened yet). But that's more than appearance of impropriety, that's actual intent to be improper.

And the Gemara also discusses the death of Uriah which David brought about. While it doesn't mention this, to be executed for murder according to the Torah one has to personally kill the victim. But it does say that David could have had Uriah executed by the Sanhedrin (the Gemara doesn't explain why, Rashi says it's because he called Yoav his lord, making him a rebel against David, Tosafot disagrees, saying that this would only be the case had the intent of that been that Yoav should replace David as king, but rather the rebellion is that David ordered Uriah to go home, but Uriah did not listen to him.

ETA: but the Gemara says that even so it was wrong for David to have had Uriah killed in battle, if he thought Uriah's rebellion merited death he should have let the Sanhedrin rule on that. My own thought is that perhaps had he done so Uriah might have by then figured out what was happening, or that might even be the actual reason for his not returning home.

It also seems to me that if we understand the divorces that the soldiers wrote to be conditional upon them not returning from war, had Uriah listened to David and gone home, that would have retroactively turned David into an adulterer. The Gemara only says that the soldier would send a get to his wife, but Rashi explains it as conditional and should he did it would take place from the time it was written.

Last edited by imasoftov on Sun, Jun 23 2019, 7:55 am; edited 1 time in total

PinkFridge

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 7:44 am

imasoftov wrote:

What I learned how to reconcile the Gemara that says David Hamelech did not sin with Natan's rebuke (and David's own admission that he had sinned, using the same verb (חטא) is that the Gemara explains David committed no sins for which the punishment was death. Here is a post by R Shmuel Eliyahu saying the same thing, translation mine because it's only in Hebrew

במקרה של דוד ובת שבע אין הכוונה שאין פה חטא כלל אלא שאין כאן חטא של אשת איש. כיון שהיוצא למלחמת בית דוד היה כותב גט כריתות לפני היציאה לקרב, לפטור בעית עגונות.
ולכן רש"י מסביר על הכתוב "כל האומר דוד חטא אינו אלא טועה" "כל האומר דוד חטא - באשת איש - אינו אלא טועה". ומכאן יובן למה דוד מבקש מחילה בכל ספר תהילים. ולמה הנביא מוכיח אותו על חטאו בסיפור "כבשת הרש" כי יש פה חטא - אבל לא של אשת איש.

In the case of David and Batsheva the intent is not that there was no sin at all but there was no sin of adultery, because David's soldiers would write a get before going to battle to eliminate the problem of agunot and that is why Rashi says on the Gemara that says "whoever says that David sins is nothing but wrong" (Shabbat 56a that this means he did not commit adultery with her. And from this it can be understood why David asks for forgiveness throughout Sefer Tehillim. And why the prophet (Natan) rebuked him with the parable of the poor man's sheep, because there was a sin, just not adultery.

That's the end of the translation, the rest of the post is me talking.

The Gemara there also says that David wanted to do evil but did not, and Rashi explains that this is because he did not know that she had received the divorce (why he wouldn't have known that she had, as this was the practice in his own army, Rashi doesn't explain, he does later say that sometimes the soldier would send the get to his wife after leaving for war, so maybe the meaning here is that David didn't check. Although it seems to me that since Uriah was still alive at the time and Rashi later says the divorces were conditional the divorce doesn't help unless Uriah dies which hadn't happened yet). But that's more than appearance of impropriety, that's actual intent to be improper.

And the Gemara also discusses the death of Uriah which David brought about. While it doesn't mention this, to be executed for murder according to the Torah one has to personally kill the victim. But it does say that David could have had Uriah executed by the Sanhedrin (the Gemara doesn't explain why, Rashi says it's because he called Yoav his lord, making him a rebel against David, Tosafot disagrees, saying that this would only be the case had the intent of that been that Yoav should replace David as king, but rather the rebellion is that David ordered Uriah to go home, but Uriah did not listen to him.

It also seems to me that if we understand the divorces that the soldiers wrote to be conditional upon them not returning from war, had Uriah listened to David and gone home, that would have retroactively turned David into an adulterer. The Gemara only says that the soldier would send a get to his wife, but Rashi explains it as conditional and should he did it would take place from the time it was written.

Yes. I probably should have said that it specifically referred to adultery and the technical aspects, and Dovid Hamelech did not do that because had he actually done so we wouldn't talk about his as we do. I learned about the get crisus, morid b'malchus etc.