{"id":57471,"date":"2019-06-14T16:50:01","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T13:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=57471"},"modified":"2023-01-08T08:10:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T06:10:00","slug":"saul-the-lose-r","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/saul-the-lose-r\/","title":{"rendered":"Saul The Lose-r"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[886,466,885],"acf":{"old_id":"57471","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34245,"related_cahpter":"241","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Saul the youth doesn\u2019t know it yet, but the lost asses are merely his initiation into a lifetime of losing things ","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saul\u2019s walks onto the national stage when he seeks lost asses. But underneath the story of this quest, the storyteller supplies us with an inventory of other, future losses; he shows us everything that Saul will lose in later years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saul the youth was good, \u2018<em>tov<\/em>\u2019, a word that overflows with promise. God saw that the light was \u2018<em>tov<\/em>\u2019 (Genesis 1:4) and went on with the world\u2019s creation. Moshe\u2019s mother saw that he was \u2018<em>tov<\/em>\u2019 (Exodus 2:2) and went on to hide him, sowing the seeds of Israel\u2019s salvation. What might we expect from a man who is introduced to us as \u2018<em>tov<\/em>\u2019 not once, but twice in one verse (1 Samuel 9:3)?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But later, when God will reject him, the \u2018good\u2019 Saul will be driven to horrible acts by an evil spirit, \u2018<\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ruach ra\u2019a<\/span><\/em><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saul the youth had people to guide him well: a father to send him on his way, a servant to give him counsel, encouragement and even funds, girls to give him directions, and a prophet to set him on a grander quest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Saul the king will seek guidance to his detriment. When the people\u2019s desires will guide him to act against Samuel\u2019s orders, he will lose God\u2019s favor. When Doeg\u2019s advice will prompt him to massacre a city, he will lose his honor. And when his desperate need for counsel will lead him to the forbidden art of calling upon the dead, he won\u2019t find comfort, but rather the knowledge of his own impending death.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even the quest itself will come to represent a loss. The youth who embarked on a simple, innocent search for lost asses will be called upon to embark on a much harder task: pursuing an entire nation\u2019s welfare. But just as he lost the ability to complete his first quest (since others found his asses), Saul won\u2019t be able to complete his grander one. His failure will push him to further ruin himself in an obsessive quest to destroy David, whom he loved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe art of losing isn\u2019t hard to master,\u201d writes Elizabeth Bishop in beautiful poem about loss, pain and denial. \u201cLose something every day\u2026 Then practice losing farther, losing faster:\/ places, and names, and where it was you meant\/to travel. None of these will bring disaster.\u201d Saul the youth doesn\u2019t know it yet in 1 Samuel 9, but the lost asses are merely his initiation into a lifetime of losing things \u2018farther and faster.\u2019 His losses will take him very far away from where he meant to go, and belie Bishop\u2019s ironic denial: Saul\u2019s losses will bring about disaster. <\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":57472,"id":57472,"title":"isam9-donkey sign","filename":"isam9-donkey-sign.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam9-donkey-sign.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/saul-the-lose-r\/isam9-donkey-sign\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"isam9-donkey-sign","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":57471,"date":"2019-06-14 13:49:47","modified":"2019-06-14 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