After the spies sinned and Hashem rebuked Israel, “If any of these people, this evil generation, see the good land…” (Dvarim / Deut. 1:35) “And you answered and said to me, ‘We have sinned against Hashem, we will go up and fight as Hashem our L-rd has commanded us.’ And you girded on each man his weapons of war and ventured to go up the mountain. And Hashem said to me, ‘Tell them, “Neither go up or fight; for I am not among you, lest you be smitten before your enemies. So I spoke to you; and you would not hear, but rebelled against the commandment of Hashem and went presumptuously up the mountain. And the Amorites came out… and they pursued you as bees do; they struck you down in Seir as for as Chormah” (Dvarim / Deut. 1:41-44). Here is an instructive example of how sometimes people insist on doing something that seems to them to be the “will of heaven,” despite the elders of the generation informing them that it is contrary to the Torah. And finally, even their good intentions are of no use to them, and they come to their punishment.
We saw with King Shaul (Saul) that he too was caught in the net of the evil inclination. “Shaul was a year old when he was king” (1 Shmuel 13:1) and the Sages said about this: As a one year old who is free from sin (Yoma 22b). And they even praised him because he was better than King David! (ibid.) Nevertheless, when the prophet Shmuel (Samuel) commanded, “Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has” (15:3), “And Shaul spared Agag and the best of the flock and the herd…” (15:9) and all out of a “good measure” of compassion. He further argued to subvert the simple intent of the law: “And what if one soul (=that which was killed) said the Torah, “Bring a heifer and break its neck {in response to the murder} how much more all these souls! If a man has sinned, what sin has the animal committed? If the great have sinned, what sin have the small committed?” A voice came out and said to him: “Do not be too righteous!” (Yoma 22b). And the sages taught us, “Anyone who becomes merciful instead of (being) cruel, will eventually become cruel instead of (being) merciful” (Kohelet Rabba 7/36). Therefore, when Shaul said to Doeg, “You turn and strike the Cohanim (priests)”, a prophetic echo came out and said to him: “Do not be too wicked” (Yoma 22b). In other words, a distortion and deviation towards extreme mercy are what ultimately led to extreme cruelty (eighty-five men were killed).
Therefore, we are commanded to “walk in all His ways and cling to Him” (Dvarim / Deut. 11:22) and they say there in Sifri: “Just as He is merciful and gracious, so you should be” (and this was brought by Rambam, Hilchot De’ot 1/5). And this needs further investigation, what does this come to add to the general commandment of “Love your neighbor as yourself”? Rather, the way of the Holy One Blessed be He is without extremes, as the Rambam says there: “And we are commanded to walk in these ways according to the middle path, and they are the good and upright ways.” That is, there is “mercy” that is for evil, like the mercy shown to Amalek. Therefore, “going in all His ways” of the Holy One Blessed be He comes to limit and restrain, to reduce the evil inclination of exaggeration in the guise of piety that comes to mislead us.
This is not the first time that King Shaul followed his own intellect and disobeyed the word of the prophet. Once he was commanded to fight against the Plishtim (Philistines), “And you shall go down before Gilgal, and behold, I will come down to you to offer burnt offerings, to slaughter peace offerings. Seven days you shall tarry until I come to you” (1 Shmuel 10:8). But when he arrived at the battlefield, “the Plishtim gathered to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen, and a people like the sand on the seashore in multitude” (13:5). This was ten times the number of soldiers in the regular army of Shaul and Yehonatan (Jonathan) (13:2). And the children of Israel were afraid, “and the people hid themselves in caves and in thickets and in rocks” (1 Shmuel 13:6). “And he tarried seven days, according to the time set by (the word of) Shmuel, and Shmuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people scattered from him (meaning, even that small number of warriors who were with Shaul, also began to scatter) “. And Shaul said, Bring to me the burnt offering and the peace offerings (as he says below in verse 12, “And I have not made supplication to Hashem”) and it came to pass, when he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Shmuel came! And Shmuel said, ‘what have you done?’ And Shaul said, ‘because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the set time’… And Shmuel said, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of Hashem your L-rd, which he commanded to you… And now your kingdom shall not be established. Hashem has sought for him a man after his own heart… because you have not kept that which Hashem commanded you” (1 Shmuel 13:9-14). It is clear to us from all these scriptures that Shaul’s entire intention was to draw near to Hashem, to ask him for help in his distress. The very act of offering the burnt offering was an act of a mitzva, and everything must be done to save the lives of Israel who were in terrible danger. Especially since Shmuel said he would come, and apparently he did not keep his word. And there was no understanding in his words that his coming was a pre-condition that could not be waived before bringing of the sacrifices. And here he heard a terrible “judgment” that deprived him of the kingship for all his generations. And not only that, but Hashem asked for a man after his own heart (= faithful and obedient) and from this we learn that Shaul does not fit this definition. Is there anything more disgraceful than this?
Let us compare in contrast to him, the behavior of King David, when he too was “under mental pressure” from the approach of a threatening enemy. The Plishtim went out to fight Israel “and spread themselves in the Valley of Rephaim” (Da’at Mikra’s commentary, because they surrounded Jerusalem from the north and south). David asked the Urim and Tumim what he should do. They answered him: “You shall not go up, but make a circuit behind them, and come upon them by the Bakha trees (a type of tree). And it shall be that when you hear the sound of marching (of the angels whom Hashem sends to help) at the head of the Bakha trees, then you shall bestir yourself (=to go out in a leap into battle) for then Hashem will go out before you to strike the camp of the Plisthim” (2 Sam. 5:23-24).
You do not have permission to lay a hand on them, even if they are close to you, until you see the tops of the trees shaking
And the Sages explained to us in the Midrash: “You do not have permission to lay a hand on them, even if they are close to you, until you see the tops of the trees shaking… When the Plishtim came and saw them, and were not far from them (=from David’s soldiers) only eight cubits away, Israel said to David, ‘Why do we stand?’ (=Let us defend ourselves and save our lives, because in a little time they will strike us!) David said to them: ‘We have already been commanded from heaven not to lay a hand on them until we see the tops of the trees shaking. And if we lay a hand on them, we will die immediately. And if we do not lay hands on them, they will kill us immediately. Better that we die righteous and not die guilty. But you and I will fix our eyes upon the Holy One Blessed, be He.
When they had placed their trust in the Holy One, Blessed be He, all the trees swayed. They immediately began to lay hands on them, as it is said, “And David did so, as Hashem commanded him, and he smote the Plishtim” (Midrash Tehillim, chapter 27). Here is a wonderful “lesson” for us, how much a person must gather strength with trust in Hashem and obey His word with exacting rigor. After all, David’s soldiers had already seen the whites in the eyes of their Plishtim enemies approaching to destroy them, heaven forbid, and they folded their hands and weapons and did nothing until a signal came from Hashem. And indeed, David was considered by Hashem to be “a man after His own heart.”
The Trial of the Akeida
Thus we also found in the case of our forefather Avraham, “And you found his heart faithful before you” (Nechemiah 9:8). How so? When he brought his only son whom he loved to the Akeida, the wonderful promise of the Holy One Blessed, be He echoed in his head “For in Yitzchak (Isaac) shall your seed be called.” And now Hashem says to him, “Bring him up as a burnt offering”? (See Rashi on Genesis 22:12, “For now I know”). It is obvious that Avraham did not know the ultimate answer, that Hashem only said, “Bring him up” and did not say, “Slaughter him,” because he did not need to slaughter him. For if he had thought of the solution, there would be no value to his trial! Rather, Avraham believed that Hashem would fulfill His word by resurrecting the dead, that after He slaughtered Yitzchak, Hashem would bring him back to life. Hence, exemplary obedience.
And this is what was lacking in Moshe’s generation. Indeed, the land of Israel is a wonderful and very exalted gift of Hashem. And after the Israelites “realized” what they had failed to do by believing the spies, they wanted to make amends in the opposite direction, to correct what they had done wrong (“Ha’emek Davar”, Bamidbar 14:40) and even accepted upon themselves to die for the conquest of the Land of Israel. And more explicitly in the words of the Netziv on Dvarim (1:44) “If (the Canaanites) had taken them (the Jews in captivity) back and remained in the Land of Israel, they would have been happy to be there even in slavery… or even if they had killed them there, behold they would have merited burial in the Land of Israel!… And all this was a rebuke to Israel that just as it is not permissible to disobey the word of Hashem by neglect and being careless against His will, so it is not permissible to do against His will in a matter similar to sacrificing one’s soul for the commandments (if it is contrary to the will of Hashem). And about this it is written “Who does not show partiality and does not take a bribe” (Dvarim 10:17) here ends his wonderful words. (See also the Netziv’s words on Sifri, Section 2, p. 57).
The prophet Shmuel concluded this: “Does Hashem delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of Hashem? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (Sh. 15:22). The lesson is clear for our generations.
It is said that when a group of “Chassidim” asked the son of the “Chafetz Chaim” (after his death) to describe to them how his father was an outstanding (perhaps miracle performing), righteous man, he answered them in the same type of language that they would understand: “It is accepted in the world that ‘a righteous man decrees and the Holy One Blessed be He fulfills'”. But my father was a righteous man of a different kind. The Holy One Blessed be He decrees (=mitzvot in the Torah), and He fulfills with outstanding precision and without any deviation. And this is a wonder.
Translated by Shlomo Moshe Scheinman