Nach Summary; Shmuel Aleph chapters 22-26
Highlights of the perek…
Chapter 22 – David flees again and gains a group of about 400 people. Shaul orders Nov city of Kohanim to be killed after they helped David.
Chapitre 23 – David saves city of keilah from the Philistines. David continues to flee from Shaul who is seeking to kill David. Yonatan finds David and they make a covenant. Shaul comes near to David but is then told that the Philistines are attacking and he thus has to return to fight the Philistines.
Numero 24 – David runs to Ein Gedi (no he did not need mineral water). David creeps up to Shaul and takes off the corner of his garment when he could have killed Shaul. Shaul weeps and regrets having pursued David.
Perek 25 – Shmuel dies and is buried in his house at Ramah. David requests (via servants) some sheep sheerings from Naval as payment for service, and Naval is rude to David. Avigayil, Naval’s wife, saves Naval’s life in preventing David from killing him by bringing David presents. Naval is killed by plague and David marries Avigayil. Shaul gives Michal, his daughter, to Palti ben Layish to marry, despite the fact that she is already married to David.
Section 26 – Shaul restarts his chase after David. David again has the chance to kill Shaul when him and his camp are sleeping, but instead takes Shaul’s spear and water bottle. Shaul again tells David that he regrets chasing after him, and gives David a blessing.
A (few) word(s) o’ Torah…
There seems to be a glaring question which must be asked. Shaul was no fool; he was handpicked by HaShem to be King of Israel. Why does he seem to be behaving like a yo-yo; one minute he is chasing after David and the next he is apologising/regretting, and then he is chasing again?
Now, whilst the following might not be a correct answer to the question, it holds true by itself, so is worth remembering anyway.
Everyone is made up of two parts; jewishly these are known as guf (body) and neshama (soul), but they can also be called ’real character’ and ’exterior.’ This ‘real character’ is what one truly is like – the rest is all layers of make-up which blocks people being what they really are, if you see what I mean. The goal is to get the exterior to serve and indeed be a true partner/reflection of one’s true character (easier said than done). The major implication of this (and it is major) is that all the good middos, emunah, bitachon, etc are already inside of each of us – it is not a question of acquiring them from the outside, but removing the layers of exterior (guf) will produce the results of our middos, emunah etc coming through naturally. (that was a real ground-shatterer for me when I first heard it).
Rav Dessler puts it like this – the real me is called the ’ani’ as in what Hillel says in Pirkei Avos (1;14) ’im ein ani li mi li’ (if I – ani – am not for myself who is for me). Hillel is saying ’if I do not represent my true ani (my real character), then what can others do for me’ – because they are relating to someone that is not who I really am; it’s a cover-up.
But we do have moments of realisation of who we really are; especially via emotion (crying on Yom Kippur, for example). Perhaps this it what Shaul was experiencing; when his ‘ani’ was covered up by the ruach raah he wanted to chase David, but at moments of emotion he saw his true self and did not want to harm David whatsoever.
Let’s end with a well-known parable…
A man is walking through a forest to get to a city. The problem is that it is getting dark quite quickly and he cannot see the path which lead out of the forest anymore. What does he do? Suddenly there is a flash of lightning and the path is lit up for a split second; the man sees the path and gets back onto it, thus making his way safely to the destination.
This is us – we only experience flashes in our lives of what our true characters are; the aim is to utilise these flashes to find the correct path.
The bracha he is that HaShem should help us to use make-up removal!
Have a great shabbat
