Beit Midrash
- Sections
- Chemdat Yamim
- Parashat Hashavua
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Shmot
- Beshalach
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).
Parashat Hashavua: Divinely Ordained Sibling Deceit
Rabbi Yossef Carmel | Cheshvan 5786
Parashat Hashavua: Neither Menashe Nor Yerachme’el
Rabbi Yossef Carmel | Tevet 5786
Glory in the Clouds
Rabbi Yossef Carmel | 7 Shvat 5768
