2 Nisan 5785 | ב' ניסן ה'תשפ"ה
For my mother, Adele bat Nazira עדאל בת נזירה, on her 93rd Hebrew birthday.
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| This picture of a painting seems to represent King David. Found on the blog of my friend DS from Israel Truth Times. Otherwise, I can't read the signature on the lower right corner. |
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Some amazing insights concerning Mashiah came from none other than R' Avigdor Miller, ztz"l, last Shabbat. The title of his booklet for Parashath Pikudei was "Clothed in Dignity."
The example the Rav gave was included in the booklet linked above on pages 8-11, the section called Part 2: Man's Clothing. What struck me was where David (before he became King) snipped off a corner of King Saul's garment in the cave (Tehillim 142; 1 Shmuel/Samuel 24: 1-8), even though he had a perfectly good reason to do it, to save his life and convince Saul that he had the chance to kill him and didn't...and the Rav referred to Melech Sha'ul as "mashiach Hashem."
The main reason King David experienced cold in his last year of life, so profound that blankets (and women too, but that wasn't mentioned there) couldn't warm him, was because, according to R' Miller's words,
"...the fact is that Dovid felt regret right away. It states after Dovid had done this that his heart smote him because he had demonstrated disrespect to the mashiach Hashem, to the one anointed by Hashem. And so his heart smote him that he had treated the one chosen by Hashem with disrespect."
The phrase "mashiah Hashem" is right there in the Hebrew text of 1 Samuel 24:7 — twice in the same sentence! — but obviously, I wouldn't have noticed this prior to performing research for this post; therefore, its meaning would have been lost, not only to me, but also to a lot of other people.
Does this mean that the king of Israel is automatically the Mashiah? I think so, providing that the man is properly anointed. It explains why, even today, the properly anointed king of Israel is considered to automatically be Mashiah. Sha'ul was properly anointed in chapter 10, verse 1 of the same book; the story begins at the beginning of chapter 9 and continues through chapter 10 in Jewish versions.
So, David was correct to feel badly about cutting the corner of the kingly robe of Sha'ul haMelech. In the end, however, David, and not Saul, was chosen to beget (father) the family of Mashiah.
This process also shows that all the prominently-known candidates for Mashiah are certainly not qualified, and never will be.
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So, what do we do now, with so much water under the bridge that we don't know what steps to take?
The Rambam, in the Talmud book of Sanhedrin, perek 20b, says that there are 3 steps in the sequence to building the Beit haMiqdash upon our entrance into the Land of Israel: Appoint the King; Annihilate Amalek; and Build HaShem's House, in that order.
This suggests that the king's first job is to wipe out Amalek, even before the Beit haMiqdash is built. It would seem that even our poor semblance of a governance system (the "government" in Israel is referred to by who runs it at present; in American terms, it's called an administration) is responsible to defeat our enemies.
The chapter in Sanhedrin doesn't mention the procedure for choosing the king; some rabbis say we can have almost any type of governance we choose, not even looking for the current heir to King David's throne. However, there is a clue here: "God has sworn by His throne that God will have war with Amalek" indicates in a Baraita (very early teaching, pre-Torah, before anything was written down) that we have to choose our leader first above all, and then wipe out the evil.
The first time, God gave "the people's choice" a chance to do the job. But...much like today...
King Saul didn't obey HaShem's order to wipe out Amalek while he had the chance to do it back in chapter 15, which was when he lost the kingdom as a result. This suggests to me that he, or his son-after-son descendant, could have been Mashiah Tzidkenu if he had only wiped out the nation who became the primary source of evil in the world when it came against a weary nation of Israel, fresh from slavery as she left Egypt/Mitzrayim, to wipe her out without mercy, killing the ones at the rear first because HaShem commanded it! King Saul lost a lot more for this "merciful" act than David did for snipping a corner of the kingly garment he wore.
But it's King David's descendants we look to for the next King and Kingdom of Israel,
as HaShem clearly promised him that his kingdom will be forever, even if his family line sins in between David's time and when Mashiah Tzidkenu is finally revealed (as Eitan the Ezrahi wrote in Tehillim 89:30-38), may it be in the blink of an eye.
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So, why doesn't the Tana"ch explain in more detail the relationship between the king of Israel and the Mashiah? See what you think of this: My understanding, from what I have heard from many others in relation to general Jewish behavior practice, is that HaShem didn't want to disgrace the Kingdom of Israel by calling out Melech Sha'ul more than He absolutely had to for his endangerment of the Jewish People when he didn't obey Him, to wipe out Amalek while its population was still small. As a result, we always note on Purim that Haman was an Aggagite — a direct descendant from the king of Amalek in Melech Sha'ul's time. How many more of the actual descendants still exist, we have no idea.
And don't forget: Amalek is not just a nation any more. An Amalekite can be one in spirit as well. We have seen in approximately the last year-and-a-half just how people from many nations, if not from every single one, have the same hatred toward every single Jew, no matter how merciful we are — or not (Thank God the Muslim month of Ramadan is now over.).
May we live to see the day when the search for the heir to David's throne is successful. In the meantime, may we have a successful search for the hametz in our homes in preparation for Pesah, and a victorious month of Nisan.
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More reading:
Avi Abelow: Solving the ultra-Orthodox draft issue means seeing through the political manipulation | Myrtle Rising: The bizarre need to battle for kedushat hamachaneh ["holiness in the camp" -HDG] in "the only Jewish army in the world" | MR again: What is statism? How does it differ from nationalism?... |
Video:
Yishai Fleisher: Dr. Mordechai Kedar explains best plan for Gaza | John Anderson: Melanie Phillips explains the disturbing logic of the Left H/T: Israel Unwired | Avi Abelow: Israel's historic moment: Reclaming our land, restoring the truth (you will surely be surprised!) | R' Yehuda Richter: Hostage Forum Takeover H/T: Tomer Devorah | H/T Tomer Devorah again: Jaw-Dropping Oct. 7 Prophecy in Torah UNCOVERED | Two fair sides to every story? NBC's Kate Snow interviews Bazy Rubin from Efrat, on Instagram vs. Avi Abelow's Pulse of Israel interview with her, on YouTube |
