David and Batsheva

trixx

Mon, Feb 15 2016, 9:34 pm

sequoia wrote:

Everybody makes mistakes.

Even great heroes.

No human is perfect.

Only Hashem.

Why are we deifying people?

A tzaddik is not someone who never makes mistakes or falls into sin.

Really, I don't understand this.

Not deifying at all. Dovid was punished in his lifetime many times over (baby died, 2 sons rebelled) for the things he did. But it's also a mistake to say that he "saw a gorgeous woman, lost control and slept with her." It's just not an accurate representation that also doesn't jive with his overall personality.

It's like saying Shimshon's downfall was women (it was) - Shimshon was a nazir from birth, can you imagine what kind of level he was on? You can't just take these stories at face value. That's why we have midrashim, and explanation and interpretation. It's a problem to judge our Tanach figures with contemporary eyes especially when distorted by prevailing Christian views.

Pirkei Avos says "don't judge someone if you haven't stood in their place" it means you can't judge prior generations. There is a story in Gemara of someone (rav ashi? can't remember) who lectured for 60 days about how King Menashe was a terrible rasha (he was) and served so much avoda zara (he did). Menashe came to in a dream and said, if you had lived in my times you would have been picking up the hem of your robe to run faster to the pagan temples. Then that person lectured for the next 60 days about what a big talmid chacham Menashe was.

amother

Wine

Mon, Feb 15 2016, 9:41 pm

trixx wrote:

The stories I mentioned involve our tzadikim.

(Besides, we don't expect anything from Lot's daughters. I mean, he offered them up to the townspeople to rape instead of his guests (talk about twisted morals) so it's not completely shocking if they turn around and engage in incest with him. Also it was self-preservation - they thought they were the last of the human race.)

These 4 stories are all questionable stories all part of Shalsheles Ha'Moshiach.

tichellady

Mon, Feb 15 2016, 10:25 pm

amother wrote:

Actually the gemorah says that to say Dovid sinned is "eino elah Toeh" nothing but mistaken.
.

The Gemara didn't mean that literally otherwise it is saying that Natan hanavi and David himself are mistaken- since they talk about this sin in great lengths.
I would tell a teenager that the pshat level of the story shows us that even great people can sin and that what makes them great is that they do teshuva, they recognize their mistakes instead of blaming others. You can say that chazal struggles with the problem of how someone like dovid could sin so terribly and rationalizes certain things- and then you can discuss that and let her draw own conclusions.

yogabird

Mon, Feb 15 2016, 10:28 pm

trixx wrote:

Moav came from this union, and Moshiach from Moav.

amother

Amber

Mon, Feb 15 2016, 10:39 pm

amother wrote:

uh....the pshat in that perek is not the whole story....I hope you didn't teach it that way to your students.

According to what you said, simply stated, Batsheva was an Eishes Ish which would leave Malchus Bais Dovid as severely compromised lineage-wise which in turn would mean that anyone claiming to be a descendant of Dovid Hamelech.....(okay he had many sons but still, Mashiach is coming from that union.)

This is just not the case. So you are definitely not right saying the story went as the passukim are written. Obviously there is more there.

As for the discussion of sins, this is not what it means.

I never said the pshat was the whole story. I just wrote what the pshat is.
I clearly said there is a lot more to the story. The article I posted talks about it in depth. The OP didn't seem to know the story at all so that is why I wrote where to find the story and what the pshat is.
There is a lot more to the story than pshat obviously as there usually is with most stories in Tanach.

busymom

Mon, Feb 15 2016, 10:56 pm

yogabird wrote:

Moav came from this union, and Moshiach from Moav.

I remember learning in the Hirsch Chumash that Lot's daughter merited to have Moshiach descend from her because though her actions were wrong, she had good intentions, and Hashem doesn't judge us only for our actions but also for our intentions.

trixx

Mon, Feb 15 2016, 11:58 pm

busymom wrote:

edit wrong info. thanks to later poster who corrected it.

Last edited by trixx on Wed, Feb 17 2016, 12:03 am; edited 1 time in total

etky

Tue, Feb 16 2016, 12:44 am

trixx wrote:

Pshat (but look inside for the details, this is just off-hand and may be out of order): Dovid saw Batsheva. He slept with her. (Dovid required all his men to give their wives gittin in case they wouldn't return from war, so technically she was NOT an aishes ish. which is a moot point bc...) She became pregnant. Dovid sent for Batsheva's husband Uriah, who insulted Dovid and thus was mored b'malchus and liable to the death penalty. Dovid then sent him to the front lines (letting his general Yoav know that he deserved death) where he was killed, and he then married Batsheva.

This is also parshanut and not pshat.
According to the pshat, David tried to get Uriah to go down to his home while he was on leave from the war to have relations with Batsheva so that she could claim that the child she was carrying was his. When David finds out that Uriah camped out in front of the palace instead, David asks him why he didn't go home to sleep and Uriah replies "how can I eat and drink and make merry with my wife while my comrades and the aron are camped out on the battlefield". The next night David tries to get him drunk so that he would go home but that didn't work either. David then contrived to have him killed on the battlefield instead.

etky

Tue, Feb 16 2016, 12:54 am

There is a middle way of understanding what chazal were trying to do.
They were not trying to whitewash David from a moral failure.
It's pretty much indisputable that this episode was a moral lapse and hence Natan's tochecha and David's ready admission of guilt and responsibility (a beautiful example of true tshuva in contrast with Shaul's initial denial of guilt in his own sin) and the subsequent punishment of his son's death.
Chazal , for the most part, were trying to lessen the technical severity of David's sin (murder, adultery) from a formal point of view. They were not absolving him of all wrongdoing.

Chayalle

Tue, Feb 16 2016, 9:44 am

etky wrote:

Part of the issue was also that Uriah seemingly had no intention of consummating the marriage with Batsheva. David commanded him to go home to his wife but he didn't go, and his answers can be interpreted as excuses. He had had previous opportunities to be with Batsheva that he did not use, and he did not use the opportunity given him by the King either. This shows the validity of the get, too.

Also we learned that when the Jewish armies went to war, no one was killed arbitrarily. If someone died, it was understood that he had sinned. The fact that Uriah was killed on the front lines indicates that Hashem found him deserving of death.

David HaMelech says in Tehillim concerning this incident "L'cha L'vadcha Chatasi V'Harah B'Einacha Asisi" - he says he sinned only against Hashem by doing bad in Hashem's eyes. He does not say he sinned against Uriah - because Uriah died because of his own sin. But David's actions did not appear 100% Kosher - he caused a Chillul Hashem - and therefor his sin was against Hashem.

Chayalle

Tue, Feb 16 2016, 9:47 am

trixx wrote:

OTOH it's forbidden to marry both women and men from Moav, but just the men (?) from Amon, because the daughter who had Moav was very brazen and named him literally after her sin, but the mother of Amon was more tznius and gave him a name that only hinted to it.

Just sharing bc it's interesting.

This is not correct.

It was forbidden to fight both Amon and Moav - "Al Tatzar Es Moav" and it says something similar by Amon, but with Amon there is an added warning "V'al Tisgar Bam" - the Jews were not even allowed to frighten them into thinking there might be a war. This was the reward of Amon for the tznius of the daughter of Lot who gave him a name that only hinted at his parentage.

However it is permitted to marry daughters of both Amon and Moav, as it says in the Gemarah "Amoni V'lo Amonis, Moavi V'lo Moavis" I.e. it is forbidden to marry a male Amoni or Moabi, but it is not forbidden to marry the female.

Chayalle

Tue, Feb 16 2016, 9:52 am

busymom wrote:

Yup.

There's a fascinating story I once heard from R' Tendler, son-in-law of R' Moshe Feinstein. He related that he heard from his FIL, that when R' Moshe was a young man he was Rav of a city in White Russia. He was called to the deathbed of a certain man, who was dying from a painful illness in which his tongue swelled and was slowly choking him.

The man related that he used to always disparage the daughters of Lot for their act of incest. He had a dream in which the daughters of Lot came to him and told him that their actions were done L'shem Shomayim, as they truly believed they were the last people left on this earth and without their act the human race would perish.

They told this man that he would ultimately be punished for the Lashon Horah he spoke against them, by dying from a disease of the tongue.

Ihatepotatoes

Tue, Feb 16 2016, 9:54 am

chavs wrote:

I just read the ou article and it says she is only between 6-8 years old, what on earth? Can someone explain how this is not the bigger issue please!

Women had children a lot earlier in those days. I asked my husband, he said the gemara in sanhedrin I thinktalks about her great-grandfather achitofel, and how he killed himself at 34 years old. it then goes into detail how they all had children at 7 or 8 years of age

Ema of 5

Tue, Feb 16 2016, 9:59 am

tigerwife wrote:

I believe she was married, and then her husband was sent to the frontlines of the army which basically sealed his death. I believe that was the sin.

Dovid saw with ruach Hakodesh that he was meant to marry Batsheva. That's what makes the story hard to understand- was this a sin or not? Should he have taken matters into his own hands?

Please consult a Sefer, though, it's been years since I learned this. Actually, if anyone can recommend a good place to learn navi comprehensively, I would really appreciate it!

I believe that, according to the pendulum, uriya was off fighting (not in the front line) when David saw Bathsheba and subsequently slept with her. AFTER it was discovered that she was pregnant, uriya was called back (presumably to sleep with her so that no one would question the parentage of batshevas child) He was then sent to the front line, where he was killed.
In those days, I believe ANYONE who went to fight gave their wife a special get, which basically stated that if they don't come back after xx time, they are to be considered killed in action, and the wife will NOT be an aguna.

etky

Tue, Feb 16 2016, 10:00 am

Chayalle wrote:

Yes, but again, everything you've written is parshanut, not pshat, including the part about Tehillim.
We know nothing about Uriah and Batsheva's marriage from the pshat. And the part about the get is also chazalic commentary.
I think it's important to distinguish between pshat and parshanut.
The text is the text and parshanut is parshanut.

Ihatepotatoes

Tue, Feb 16 2016, 10:05 am

etky wrote:

chazal don't make stuff up, they are explaining the text (and the pshat) according to a mesorah.

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Feb 16 2016, 10:06 am

For good analyses of the David-Batsheva story, I recommend reading Abarbanel and Malbim on the topic.
Abarbanel believes that there is no question that David sinned, and refutes the discussion in the Gemara point by point.
Malbim argues against Abarbanel.

For the most part, I find Abarbanel most convincing, though Malbim makes some good points. I am traveling now, so don't have either Abarbanel or Malbim in front of me, but hopefully I'll remember to get back to this thread in a few days when I'm home.