In this episode, Rabbi Reinman describes the secret anointment of David and his relentless persecution by Shaul until his ultimate triumph.
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Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Sweet Singer of Yisroel
The first of the kings of Judah, and the greatest, did indeed find that perfect balance between king of his people and servant of God. David was the ideal Jewish king, a righteous soul bonded with steel chains of love to God and His Torah, drawing his wisdom, his emotions, his courage and his aspirations from the eternal fountainhead of the holy Torah.
In the synagogue, he prayed and studied with heart-dissolving fervor. In his audience chamber, he was gentle and compassionate. On the battlefield, he was God’s fearless instrument plunging into battle with weapons of the soul even as his hands wielded a sword. He was in love with God and His people, and his love was returned in equal measure.
David was one of the greatest men who ever lived. He appeared at a time when his people had fallen to their lowest point since becoming a nation, when the experiments of the Judges and the interim monarchy had failed, when the future looked bleaker than it ever had. In those dark days, David burst upon the scene like a flash of lightning that illuminates Jewish life to this very day. The passionate verses of the Psalms, most of which he composed,[1] reverberate with such intense spiritual yearning and sheer poetic beauty that they have become an inexhaustible source of solace and inspiration throughout the ages. From the pages of the Psalms springs the vivid image of David, the Sweet Singer of Israel,[2] greeting the dawn with the sweet strains of his harp and the sweeter sounds of his words of love for the Creator.
He was also among the greatest Sages of his time, the head of the Sanhedrin, the supreme court of the Jewish people. The Rambam, in the Introduction to his magisterial Mishneh Torah, enumerates the august custodians of the Oral Tradition as it was passed down from Moses to generation after generation. The great prophet Samuel received the position from Eli Hakohein and passed it on to David, who passed it on to Achiah Hashiloni. And so forth down through the ages. He is also listed among the forty-eight prophets of Jewish history;[3] some of his Psalms are clearly prophetic in nature.
This was the man God chose to sit on the throne of Israel. This was the man whose reign would inaugurate the eternal dynasty of the House of David from which the future Messiah will be descended. This was a man so utterly bonded with God that his kingship would be an extension of the Kingship of God. David was the perfect choice for King of Israel. Had the Jewish people successfully established during the Period of the Judges a unified and stable national community, loyal to God and governed by the Torah alone, David could have become their king and spiritual guide immediately. He could have brought them to the highest levels of spiritual achievement, perhaps even to the messianic fulfillment of the destiny of the world. He could have been the Messiah.
But the Jewish people were not unified in their loyalty to God and His Torah. They were a fragmented, fractious people that needed a conventional king to govern them. God had chosen Saul for that role, and he had failed. Now, David would have to fulfill that role as well.
At first, David had been anointed secretly by Samuel in Bethlehem, but the time for his actual accession to the throne was yet to come. The doomed reign of Saul would first have to play itself out to its tragic end …
Read full chapter and earlier chapters at www.rabbireinman.com.
[1] For the exact divisions of the authorship of Psalms, see Baba Bathra 14b.
[2] II Samuel 23:1.
[3] Rashi, Megillah 14a.The post Watch: Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Reinman: The Sweet Singer of Yisroel first appeared on Matzav.com.