{"id":61171,"date":"2019-08-15T17:09:16","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T14:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=61171"},"modified":"2023-03-13T11:43:34","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T09:43:34","slug":"davids-halachic-disputations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/davids-halachic-disputations\/","title":{"rendered":"David\u2019s Halachic Disputations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Talmud tends to read King David, the warrior, politician and prolific lover as a Talmudic scholar and yeshiva head who loved to discuss the fine points of halacha. How should we understand this line of interpretation? Is it apologetics, anachronism, (deliberate or otherwise) or is there a deeper point?<\/span> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s chapter is a case in point. Our last glimpse of David in the field as a fighter is a curious episode. Camping near a Philistine garrison, David felt a craving for water from the cistern at Bet Lehem. Three of his warriors managed to evade the nearby Philistines and brought back the water. But the king refused to drink and poured the water out, an offering to God. He belatedly regrets the danger his men placed themselves in to gratify his request.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Talmud (Bava Kamma 60b-61a) rereads this story in a way that seems fantastically far from any plausible construction of the plain meaning. First, it assumes that David wasn\u2019t really interested in water. What he sought from Beth Lehem was Torah knowledge – often compared to water \u2013 from the sages there. David, the Talmud explains, wanted answers to certain specific halakhic questions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rav Nachman offers that David was asking about the halakha of a concealed article damaged by a fire; whether the law is like Rabbi Yehuda, that one is liable to pay for such damage, or whether it accords with the Rabbis, that one is exempt from liability for fire damage to concealed articles. If a fire you negligently lit burns down a haystack in which are hidden valuable tools, are you liable to compensate the owner? Can you say, \u201cI never imagined those things were hidden there\u201d or are you obligated even by what you never imagined?<\/span><\/p>\n

Rav Huna says that David\u2019s question refers to the episode earlier in our chapter of a battle against the Philistines in a field of lentils. Does he have to pay the field owner, David asks? Can he substitute beans for lentils as compensation?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Really? Where is all this coming from? I suggest that the Talmud is reacting to David\u2019s moral fastidiousness in not drinking the water for which his soldiers have endangered themselves. This is a recurring trait of David\u2019s. Think of his horror at laying a hand on Saul, or of harming any of Saul\u2019s descendants whom he has sworn to protect. The biblical David paradoxically combines the attributes of a warrior who sheds blood in profusion and one who is capable, at times, of fine ethical discrimination. The imagined halakhic queries are, I suggest, the sage\u2019s translation of this side of David into their language.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder whether Rav Nachman\u2019s version of the question is a way of representing in halakhic language a central dilemma of David\u2019s life: when the dogs of war are let slip, when fire breaks out, in the Talmud\u2019s image, destroying indiscriminately, how far does liability for the damage reach? Can a leader who aspires to an ethical life live with his responsibility for all the damage, both open and hidden?<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Detail of Darmstadt Haggadah, Scribe, Israel b. 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