Shmini's Haftorah: Putting the Other Person Above Religious Experiences

This Shabbos, which took place two days after the conclusion of the holiday of Pesach, combined the immediate aftermath of the murders of 3 members of the Dee family in Israel, another terrorist attack that had taken place on Shabbos Chol Hamoed in Israel, and a tragedy of a flash flood in Israel. It was also a unique opportunity of hearing the assigned Haftorah for Shmini which is not usually read as Shmini often falls out on Parshat Parah or HaChodesh, for which we read a special Haftorah. The following sermon was delivered at Anshei Chesed Congregation in Boynton Beach, on Shabbos April 15, 2023

Parshat Shmini: Putting the Other Person Above Religious Experiences

Rabbi Avi Billet

Yesterday I received two communiques that felt like a follow up to my speech pre Yizkor. One was asking if on the Shabbos that speaks of the deaths of Nadav and Avihu whether I would be making the parallel to the deaths of the Dee sisters? The other was an article of another pair of siblings who tragically lost their lives in a flash flood in Israel over the holiday as well.

Having touched upon the terrorist tragedy already (at Yizkor on Yom Tov), as well as noting that there are car accidents and floods that take lives, לא עלינו, I have only one thing to add in response to this because the pain is too much, and honestly I wanted to talk about something else today. 

Nadav and Avihu’s father Aharon’s reaction of silence is well known. How did their mother respond to their untimely demise? The Talmud (Zevachim 102a) tells us that on the day of the inauguration of the Mishkan Elisheva had 5 things that she could rejoice over, and 1 thing which was a cause of mourning. Her brother in law was the king, her husband was the High Priest, her son was the assistant to the High Priest, her grandson was a Kohen anointed for war, and her brother, Nachshon ben Aminadav, was the Prince of a tribe. Her mourning was because her two sons died. 

The simple message that I gather from this passage is that tragedy, sadly, unfortunately, tragically, is a part of life. And there is not much that a person can do with the pain – except, hopefully, with God’s help, compartmentalize, and look at the total picture of what we have. This was the message of Rabbi Dee in his incredible eulogy for his wife, which is on the table outside. It is raw, powerful, and filled with incredible insight about what living an intentional life could be. And in the case of Elisheva, she had 5 things to be happy about and one tragedy, albeit a double-tragedy, and undoubtedly an extremely painful one. 

Elisheva And Aharon learned that when there is joy, there will be joy. Sometimes a lot of it. But they also realized that sometimes there will be sadness, sadness which, often in retrospect, helps us become who we become. Was Aharon more of an inspiring figure before or after the tragic deaths of his sons? My bet is on after…. 

When the sadness comes, we sometimes need community to bring us back to reality, and then we need the rest of our lives to figure out what we do with that hole in our hearts. And how we can infuse our lives and our circles with Kedusha. 

Today I wish to delve into a tale that is found in the middle of the Haftorah. It is most likely that the Haftorah was chosen because of the parallel of the death of Uza to that of Nadav and Avihu – Uza was struck down when trying to prevent the Aron from falling out of a wagon. His intentions, like those of Nadav and Avihu, were good. But clearly God felt he went about doing what he did in a way that brought about his death. I say it that way because we tend to view death in this manner as a punishment, but I do wonder if God took their souls because they were too pure for this world. 

[Please note this last paragraph was a reflection on the Biblical narratives, and not meant in any way as a comment on the recent tragedies which unfolded in Israel referenced at the beginning]

 That, of course, is a perspective worthy of a much longer conversation. 

The tale we’ll examine concerns a conversation between David and Michal, his wife who was the daughter of Shaul. This whole episode was supposed to be a celebration of bringing the Ark back to Yerushalayim after it had been in the house of Avinadav for several decades after it had been returned by the Pelishtim who had captured it in a battle recorded early in Shmuel I. At this point, after a short stint in the house of Oved Edom, because the death of Uza put its initial return on hold, it is brought into Yerushalayim. 

 We read this morning that David was dancing with all his might before the Aron. His wife, who was a real princess, felt that he behaved in an undignified manner for a king of Israel. 

 Rabbi Amnon Bazak compared the two tales of our Haftorah in saying that Uza cared so much about the Ark that he gave his life to honor the Ark. Michal on the other hand, diminished this attitude and measure of love, making the honor of the King of Israel more important in her eyes than the honor of God Himself. David doesn’t care about anything else when it comes to God’s honor. 

 He quotes Rambam who describes the Simchas Beis HaShoeva and what the great rabbis of the Anshei Knesses HaGedolah would do, dancing, juggling… all for the love of the Mitzvah, all for the love of God.

Someone who humbles oneself in order to serve God out of love – such as David – is only elevated and honored even more. 

 From David’s perspective, dancing to honor God was considered dignified. From Michal’s perspective it wasn’t dignified. 

 Rav Bazak notes that she is continuing the ways of her father, King Shaul, who was demonstrably, on a number of occasions, more concerned about appearances than the honor of God. He would do things that made him look good in the eyes of the people, succumbing to what he felt was their will, and he didn’t listen to the instruction that came to him from Shmuel, and thus from God.

 The reality is that the king is subject to the same God as the people are. This is a message David had to convey to her – your father missed this point. It’s not about the king… it’s about God and the people. 

 It is possible that when she saw him putting all his energy into serving God, into expressing love for God, perhaps she felt the panging of loss over the fact that David could not or would not do that for her. 

 Understandably, Michal may have felt abandoned. She may have felt dropped by David. Whatever she had once upon a time felt about him, this has all turned over time. To bring one image that Rav Bazak points out – here we have Michal watching David from a window in a critical vein, and there was another time when she watched David from a window after she had lowered him down from a window to save him from her father’s men who had come to arrest or even kill David. 

Her life with David – which started with being enamored/intrigued by him and an infatuation of youth, but also included some time away where she had some kind of relationship with Palti ben Layish, which is a different discussion – is in a sense bracketed by these window experiences: one where she does everything for David, and one when she is most critical of him in how he goes about acting in a way her father, as king, never would. 

 It is possible, if not even likely that David’s attitude toward her, in their reunion, was somewhat estranged. 

 This is a perspective on relationships. And in this particular tale, it is a perspective of a heavy focus on God to the exclusion of just about all else. And the result is a tragic outcome – as the Haftorah tells us that Michal never had children, which is either a reflection of her own barrenness, or is a reflection of how south her relationship with David went. 

 There is another perspective that I first came across in Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s book, “Words that Hurt, Words that Heal.” In fact, I’ve only seen it there, because most commentaries come across siding with David, in his choice to honor God first. 

Rabbi Telushkin offers food for thought in noting that “David and Michal both suffered from the same character flaw – a sharp tongue which they refused to control when angry. The Bible describes the incident that triggered the end of their love…” 

 Rabbi Telushkin shares the background story then writes, 

 “In an outburst of joy, he [David] danced passionately, even wildly, in front o thousands of his subjects… Michal was disgusted by the spectacle of a monarch carrying on with such abandon. And so when David returned to the palace she greeted him with cold sarcasm: ‘Didn’t the king of Israel do himself honor today – exposing himself… as one of the riffraff might expose himself?’”

This translation does not mean “exposing” as we might hear today. It refers to just “letting himself loose” in a manner she felt was unbecoming. Telushkin goes on… 

 “Were Michal’s withering remarks justified? Had David truly acted in a manner that diminished the dignity of his office? Perhaps, but whether or not Michal was right, her tactless criticism of her husband on this great day in his life blew a dispute into a gale-force fury. 

“Michal’s attack, however, was only the first factor in the tragedy that ensued. In the face of his wife’s scorn, David did not remain silent, walk away until the tension eased, or even try to defend his behavior. Instead, he responded with the cruelest counterattack he could muster: ‘It was before the Lord Who chose me instead of your father and all his family [that I danced.]’ 

“David’s words in no way address the substance of Michal’s critique. As many of us do when criticized, he went ‘straight for blood,’ attacked the most painful event in Michal’s life, God’s rejection of her father, and his subsequent death, along with three of Michal’s brothers, at the hands of the Philistines.

“In the very next verse, the Bible records: ‘So to her dying day, Michal, daughter of Saul, had no children.’ Why is Michal’s childlessness recorded at this point? Perhaps because after so brutal an exchange – and there might well have been others – Michal and David were never intimate again.” 

 

Telushkin’s comments here are presented in a chapter entitled “Controlling Rage and Anger,” a topic which of itself is worthy of dissection. But I will limit the comments shared from that book to the specific analysis of the rupture of this relationship, as he addresses it. 

 Noting that anger is a bad middah, and that relationships are easily destroyed over what people sometimes say in anger, he writes: 

“I believe that most of us can control the expression of anger for far longer than a few minutes or even hours. Here’s another situation: Suppose you were told that if you cut back on screaming at your spouse (or children, friends, or employees) by 75 percent during an entire year, you would be given two millions dollars. Do you think you would find a way to control your temper? 

“Obviously we have more control over our rage than we are willing to acknowledge. For some, the control might be almost total; for others it might be far less. People who have less control must recognize the moral obligation to curb their harsh words. If they find themselves incpabale of doing so on their own, they are morally obligated to seek the sort of professional help that will enable them to exert greater self-control. 

“Each year, large numbers of once-loving relationships, worth far more than two million dollars, are destroyed because of the hateful things people say when angry. To counter this, we must destroy the myth that Michal and David, and you and I, cannot control what we say or do.”

A lament is issued a few paragraphs later: 

“Indeed, one of the saddest things about the David-Michal story is that the Bible records no effort by either to repair the damage caused by their tactless and cruel words.” 

So he concludes with a suggestion of how things could have turned out differently if different words had been chosen, beginning with an important suggestion. 

“If you’ve ever ruptured a close relationship with angry words, consider whether observing the following rule could have led to a different outcome: Limit the expression of your anger to the incident that provoked it. Focusing the discussion in this way enables the criticized party to feel that his or her whole being isn’t being attacked. It was this principle that David violated in his cruel counterattack after Michal mocked his dancing. He could have responded in many different ways: “It hurts me that you attack me on this incredible day. I was overcome with joy and I didn’t control my dancing because I didn’t want to”; or “I wish you’d give up your aristocratic ideas of how a king must act and realize how wrong you are. I made myself more, not less, beloved in the eyes of the people by showing them that I am a creature of flesh and blood just like them.” He could have even spoken more sharply: “You are the one who acted wrongly, Michal, by remaining in the palace, and acting coldly and indifferently on so great a day.” 

“However, what David did wrong was to attack Michal at her point of greatest vulnerability. “It was before the Lord Who chose me instead of your father and all his family [that I danced].” These words were calculated to humiliate and devastate his wife; they were the equivalent of responding to a slap in the face with a shot to the heart.” 

 This concept of using a person’s weakness as a killshot in an argument might be fair in a boxing match or wrestling ring. But in the realm of human relationships, all it does is sever what might have once been a bond, even, and sometimes most tragically amongst family members. 

 So Rabbi Telushkin offers some sage advice in recommending not to reconcile during a fight because at that time: 

 “You are likely to be much harsher, and the other person far less receptive if he thinks your comments are part of an attack. If sore points must be discussed, do so when you are feeling love for the person, not animosity. 

"Had David and Michal abided by this rule, they could have fought about the issue that provoked their anger, but their dignity, and hence their relationship, could have remained intact.”

This is not to suggest whether Michal would have had a child. Maybe that was never the goal. Or maybe that was the goal – uniting Malchus Beis Shaul with Malchus Beis David to create the ultimate united kingdom. 

 Rabbi Telushkin’s point is that it didn’t happen - because of middos that had never properly been worked on. 

And so we are left with a conundrum. Which interpretation is more powerful? 

Rav Bazak, who along with many others, comes down on David’s side, or Rabbi Telushkin, who is uniquely, though I feel justifiably critical of David’s comment? Do we prefer the view that blames Michal for not minding her business? Or the one that points to David as dealing the even lower blow? Was Michal correct in her criticism, that David’s behavior was beneath his dignity? Or was David correct, that before God I am like everyone else and if I’m honoring God, there’s no such thing as “dignity?” 

 I think no matter how we look it, there’s a common message to be taken from here. I heard it a long time ago when I read Rabbi Haskel Lookstein’s article, which was originally a sermon, entitled “Mentschliness Before Godliness” (a topic he revisited 26 years later in Part II) and it’s a line I’ve heard from many an educator, which is “Don’t be more frum than God.” 

And it goes like this. If a person is doing something you feel is wrong religiously, remember the person’s feelings before issuing a critique or a corrective. There are ways to get a message across, but as we often note, every case is different and every person is different, so the best way to get a message across will be different in every circumstance. [And there is always the possibility that absent context, your critique may even be wrong!] 

This is one the great components of Pirkei Avos, which we begin learning this afternoon – a focus on Middos being paramount, and a concern for the other person’s wellbeing always rising above anyone else’s religious experience.

 Halevai we can always put our Bein Adam LaChaveiro first. God tells us in so many ways that how we treat one another is more important than all the Korbanos we could bring and all the ways we could please Him. 

May all our relationships improve with this simple reminder that Mentschliness must always take priority over Godliness.