In this episode, Rabbi Reinman describes how the women Shlomo married to seal alliances with his neighbors corrupted the royal palaces.
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Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Thousand Pagan Princesses
In Dovid Hamelech’s later years, the line of succession became an issue. Earlier, his son Avshalom had tried to usurp the throne, and when the end drew near, his son Adoniahu declared himself the king and was hailed by the crowds. Batsheva, Dovid’s wife, was alarmed. Dovid had promised that Shlomo, their son, would succeed him, and now, it seemed that Adoniahu would become king instead. Shlomo was only twelve years old. He would not be able to contend with Adoniahu.
Because of his military exploits, Dovid was denied his greatest dream. The Bais Hamikdash was a house of peace, and Dovid, despite his holiness and his profound devotion to Hashem, was a man of war.[1] The most Hashem allowed Dovid to do was purchase a tract of land in Yerushalayim for the site of the Bais Hamikdash that he himself would never see. In 837 b.c.e., after reigning over a united Israel for thirty-three stormy years, Dovid passed away. He was succeeded by his son Shlomo.
In his own way, Shlomo was also one of the greatest people who ever lived, but he was not a duplicate of Dovid. His father had been a warrior, a passionate and exuberant man who would dance with abandon among the throngs of his people.[2] Shlomo, however, was more reserved and restrained, a cerebral man more at ease in the worlds of wisdom than on the heated plains of battle. Pure wisdom was his dominant characteristic and the guiding force of his life.
From the first, Shlomo beseeched Hashem for the gift of wisdom, which was granted in such measure that he became “the wisest of all men,”[3] his very name becoming synonymous with wisdom. He studied Torah under the greatest sages of his time and surpassed them in knowledge and understanding. He then explored the frontiers of philosophy and the natural sciences in the light of his vast Torah knowledge, gaining a deeper understanding of the total integration of the physical and spiritual worlds than any man before or after. His almost limitless wisdom, knowledge and poetic vision are impressively displayed in Mishlei, Koheles and Shir Hashirim, the divinely inspired supplementary books of the Torah that he authored.
Shlomo’s route to popularity with his subjects was also through his phenomenal wisdom, which he used to great advantage in the conduct of his royal duties.[4] Over time, his fame spread far and wide, and nobles came from distant lands to pay homage to him and see for themselves the wonders of his legendary wisdom. He would eventually use his great wisdom to become the master of a far-flung empire without waging war or even fighting a single battle, but first he had to build a House for God in the Jewish capital of Yerushalayim.
Shlomo’s father Dovid, for all his glorious achievements as a warrior and a pacifier, had not been granted the honor and privilege of building a permanent Abode for God in the sacred city of Yerushalayim.[5] But Shlomo was a man of peace ruling over the pacified land he had inherited from his father. The nation was spiritually purified, secure, prosperous and united behind its wise and illustrious king. After five centuries of temporary residence in the Mishkan in the Midbar, Gilgal, Shiloh, Nov and Givon, the time had come to build a permanent residence for the Shechinah to crown this hopeful new society.
In 833 b.c.e., the mammoth construction project began. Covering an entire hilltop at the highest point of the city of Yerushalayim, the magnificent complex of structures, courtyards and walls rose over a period of seven years before the dazzled eyes of the people.
On the economic front, he formed a mercantile alliance with Chiram, the king of the Phoenician city of Tyre, who had befriended Dovid and had subsequently sent gifts to Shlomo for the Bais Hamikdash.
The Phoenicians were accomplished sailors, but they had no access to the Red Sea trading routes; the Suez Canal would not be built for another two and a half thousand years. In cooperation with Shlomo, they now built a large trading fleet at the port of Etzion Gever near Eilat on the northern arm of the Red Sea. From there, the Phoenician-Jewish fleets sailed to East Africa and brought back immense treasures of gold, silver, coral and ivory, as well as apes and peacocks.[6]
On the diplomatic front, Shlomo exploited the growing prestige of his young kingdom to conclude treaties with numerous major and minor powers in the Imperial Quadrant. In the custom of the times, as indeed the custom remained until the last centuries, diplomatic treaties between two kingdoms were sealed by matrimonial alliances between the respective royal families. And thus, each of the treaties Shlomo signed came along with the hand of a royal princess, who was, of course, duly converted to Judaism. By the time all the treaties were signed, Shlomo had three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines, a sure invitation to catastrophe.
These foreign princesses had all been raised in pagan societies, but now that they had been given in marriage to Shlomo, they were indoctrinated in the truths of Torah and converted.[7] Even in the best case, however, it would be difficult for such converts to develop a deep and abiding Jewish identity, and the situation of these princesses was far from a best-case scenario. Quite probably, some had never given more than lip service to their new faith, and even the sincere ones were not long removed from the pagan temples. Once in Yerushalayim, these women were ensconced in opulent palaces and left to their own devices by the generous but preoccupied king. In the absence of a guiding hand and a vigilant eye, the seeds of paganism began to germinate in the royal palace.
Idols appeared in the royal palace. The sounds of pagan rites and the smells of idolatrous incense floated through the royal gardens. One after the other, the princesses cast off their outer garments of Judaism and resumed their former identities. Eventually, even some of the more sincere converts began to slide into their old ways. The royal palace of Yerushalayim, home of God’s anointed king, had now become home as well to hordes of strange gods from numerous lands.
All this happened while Shlomo was distracted by his incessant quest for truth and wisdom. He should have seen it coming and stopped it before it was too late, but he paid no attention to the warning signs. The Gemara relates that when Shlomo married the Egyptian princess she showed him musical instruments and told him how they were used in the pagan rites. Shlomo, however, did not reprimand her for speaking of her pagan past. He just let the remarks pass without comment.[8]
At best, we can only speculate about the reasons for Shlomo’s silence and tender indulgence. Perhaps he thought she was teasing him and decided not to respond. Perhaps he thought she was making small talk and that these things were really no longer important to her. Perhaps he sensed the strains of her cultural adjustment and decided not to make an issue of it, hoping that with time such nostalgic thoughts would fade from her mind. Whatever his reason, he surely did not suspect that she was an insincere convert …
Read full chapter and earlier chapters at www.rabbireinman.com.
[1] I Divrei Hayamim 22:8
[2] II Shmuel 6:16
[3] I Melachim 3:12
[4] Rashi, I Melachim 4:1
[5] II Shmuel 7:12-13
[6] Apparently, they also reached Southeast Asia, to which peacocks are indigenous.
[7] Rambam, Issurei Biah 13:16.
[8] Shabbos 56b.The post Watch: Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Reinman: Episode #29 – A Thousand Pagan Princesses first appeared on Matzav.com.