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King Shaul, descending from Rachel’s Tribe of Binyamin, invested enormous efforts to prevent partnership in rule with David of Yehuda (from Leah). Shaul saw David’s presence as an existential threat, whereas his son Yonatan was prepared to concede primary rule to David and act as his assistant. Shaul also acted to prevent David’s marriage with his daughter Michal and to kill him. The attempt failed because Michal lowered David "through the window" (Shmuel I 19:12), a term we will return to. Shaul reacted extremely harshly – giving Michal to Palti ben Layish as a wife.
David’s response served as defiance toward Shaul – he married two additional women, thus declaring that he was fully alive and that his daughter now had rivals. Yet David’s wound did not heal. Years later, after Avner, army chief of Shaul’s son Ish-Boshet, turned away from his king, David made a covenant with Avner and promised to appoint him as his deputy, but David demanded that Avner bring Michal back to him.
Thus, hope for the creation of a partnership between Rachel and Leah was restored, with David, from Leah, as king and, from Binyamin, Michal as queen and Avner as deputy. The plan utterly failed because Yoav, David’s general, had Avner killed with the claim that his intentions were impure and that Avner would try to seize the kingship. This extinguished the light of unity.
The remaining chance to achieve unity depended on rehabilitating David and Michal’s relationship and producing a shared descendant with integrative lineage. While Michal returned to David’s house with joy, there were thorns in their side – David’s other wives: Avigail, Achinoam, Ma‘acha, Chagit, and Avital. Michal claimed that she alone was David’s true wife, while all the others were, at most, maidservants. The other women did not concede, and each sought to push her firstborn son to the status of heir apparent.
The ceremony of bringing the ark to Jerusalem brought the dispute to the surface with full force. Michal claimed that only she was meant to stand at David’s side, and David apparently did not agree. Michal boycotted the ceremony, remained at home, and stationed herself "at the window" (Shmuel II 6:16). In this way she demonstrated her resentment and reminded him of her rights as his first wife, the loving one, the king’s daughter who had saved his life. The long separation apparently exacted a heavy price; the relationship was not rehabilitated. The navi concludes that Michal, daughter of Shaul, had no child until the day of her death (ibid. 6:22-23).
Rabbis in Midrash
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Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part I
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Our King on Rosh Hashana, Our Father on Yom Kippur.
Based on Aroch Siach, p. 221 (Rav Shaul Yisraeli)
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part II
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part II
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
Parashat Hashavua Happiness for the Right Reasons
[With painful longing, we share these divrei Torah from our co-Rosh Kollel for close to 40 years, Harav Moshe Ehrenreich zt”l.]
