Vayera 2021

I have often been perplexed by the very different reactions The torah has to the sin of King David and the sin of King Saul.  King Saul failed to fulfill the Torah’s command of wiping out Amalek in his war with them.  He let Agag the king of Amalek live.   Shmuel the profit takes Saul to task and tells him that he will be removed from the kingship due to this sin.   King David also committed a great sin, sleeping with Bat Sheva and sending her husband to the front.  Though Natan the profit takes king David to task and tells him he has committed a grave sin, David is allowed to remain as king.  Why the difference between David and Saul?

I think the most obvious answer is that David’s is a personal one and Saul’s a national one.    To be sure David’s was was immoral and abhorrent, but it was  not a sin that threatened the national security and the Torah’s policies for the People of Israel as a whole.    

While David’s sin was one of desire Saul’s was one of ego.   Why save the king of Amalek?  This was a common practice in ancient times to show victory, to gloat over one’s enemy.   

Why were David and Saul so different?   I think the answer may lie in this week’s parsha, Vaera.   

“Amram took to wife his father’s sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses; and the span of Amram’s life was 137 years.” -Shemot 6:20

The Chizkuni (13c) is bothered by this since  it is forbidden to marry one’s aunt and he comments:   

“Why did God agree that a great man such as Moses should be the product of a marriage which was destined to be forbidden by the Torah?  Because no one is appointed as an authority over the community unless there is something objectionable in their past, lest they lord it over the community, as we see with King David. (Who came from Ruth the Moabite on one side and Yehudah and Tamar’s relationship on the other).”

Humility seems to be the most important criteria for leadership and David’s past kept his ego in check.   While humility will not stop a leader from committing a personal moral sin as David did, it will stop a leader from sinning on a national level and threatening the security of the people, as Saul did.  For such sins, the Rabbis are telling us, always emerge from too much haughtiness.   Such was the sin of Saul, one of ego that threatened the country and violated the governance of the nation as a whole.  For this  he had to be removed from his position as King.