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Re: Melachim II 011: Asalyah and her Murderous Plans
David Goldman asked:
>>Greetings. I was thinking over these issues on Yomtof, and was wondering
what you may think about these matters. I don't find them addressed in
meforshim, especially the Meam Loez..........
1) The killing by Shaul Hamelech was not of ALL Kohanim, only those in Nov,
except for Aviatar, yet the punishment Chazal describe of the House of
Dovid Hamelech was on ALL his descendants for affiliating with the house of
Achav (except for Yehoash). Thus this is lechoyra a lack of symmetry.
This was in addition to the destruction by Yehoram, Asaliah's husband of
all his own brothers, and then subsequently the loss of all his sons in the
war with the Arabs/Emorites, except for Achaziah, the father of Yehoash,
and all their sons (grandsons of Yehoram) by Yehu.
2) The gezeyra given to Yehu ben Nimshi was apparently ONLY on the males of
the house of Achav (aside from Izevel). Likewise, although Asaliah sought
to kill "kol zera hamelucha" she did NOT seek to kill her daughter,
Yehosheva/Yehoshvat, who may equally have had children of Beis Dovid by her
husband, Yehoyada.
Thus, one could certainly ask how Asaliah planned to exterminate the house
of Dovid if her daughter and possibly other females survived and had
children who were descendants of Dovid.
3) Had Achaziah not been killed, presumably Asaliah would not have planned
to destroy all the members of the House of David, so why was it that only
with the death of Achaziah the Sefer Melachim indicates that she decided to
carry out this revenge, and not upon the deaths of her own parents by
Yehu?! Why didn't she seek to destroy Yehu, who was the one who killed them
instead?
4) Why did Asaliah not decide to be the same type of (negative) influence
over a young king Yehoash that she was on his father, her son, Achaziah as
the queen regent?
5) Apparently Yehoash's mother Tsivia was dead when Asaliah took over,
otherwise Tsivia would have become the Queen mother.
6) Why did Asaliah run out to the Beis Hamikdash unprotected by her own
retinue of guards to condemn the crowning of the child instead of accepting
it and waiting for a time when she could affect the child king, especially
since it was her own grandchild, of the house of Achav?? By killing all the
zera hamelucha, who was she planning to succeed after her own death if not
Yehosheva herself or Yehosheva's child?<<
The Kollel replied:
>>1.
a) We can understand this if we look carefully at the Gemara in Sanhedrin
95a-b. The Gemara tells us that ha'Kadosh Baruch Hu said to David, "Until
when will this sin be hidden in your hand? Through you, Nov, the city of
the Kohanim, was slaughtered... Do you want your seed to be destroyed or do
you prefer to be given over to the hands of your enemies?"
b) The Maharsha (DH Retzoncha) explains that the alternative presented to
David was that his seed should be destroyed in the same way that the seed
of the Kohanim was destroyed. The Maharsha refers us to the Gemara on 95b
which cites the verse that Asalyah destroyed all of the seed of the
kingship. The Gemara questions this, since she did not actually destroy
everyone, because Yoash survived. The Gemara answers that Evyasar, from the
Kohanim of Nov, also survived. Rav Yehudah then states in the name of Rav
that if Evyasar had not survived as a descendant of Achimelech, then
absolutely nobody would have survived from the descendants of David.
c) We see from here that the disaster that befell David corresponds to the
disaster that befell Achimelech. Because David caused the destruction of
the seed of Achimelech, he himself received a punishment that his seed was
destroyed. Not all if the Kohanim in the world were killed in Nov, but
neither was the punishment that all of David's family, the Shevet Yehudah,
should be destroyed. We now can see how the punishment is symmetrical.
I have only answered the first question, and there is still a lot more to
write, but I am going to send this off for the moment, and continue later,
b'Siyata d'Shmaya.<<
---
David Goldman asks:
Thanks! But in fact a smaller total of kohanim were killed by Shaul than
the total of the seed of David by Asalia which was apparently total except
for Yoash and Yehosheva, so it isn't really equivalent. And then of course
remain the other kashes.....
--------------------------
The Kollel replies:
1. I think we learn from the Mishnah in Sanhedrin 37a that it does not
depend on the amount of people killed. The Mishnah there states that the
reason why the human race was created intially as a mere individual, Adam
ha'Rishon, is to teach us that if someone kills even one person, it is
equivalent to destroying the entire world. We learn from this the great
value of every human life, because every person is worthy to be the only
one in the world. The Mishnah also tells us there that if someone is
murdered, it is not only he who was killed, but also all of his potential
descendants have been destroyed. When Kayin killed Hevel, he was
reproached, "The voice of the bloods of your brother is crying out to you
from the ground" (Bereshis 4:10). The Mishnah says that the plural word
"bloods" indicates that it is not just the blood of Hevel that cries out,
but also the blood of all his potential descendants.
2. So it is not a mathematical sum which is involved here. Rather, every
human being is infinite and possesses infinite possibilites, so it is quite
possible to compare the descendants of Achimelech who were killed with the
descendants of David, and nobody can really say which is more important,
either in quality or quantity.
3. Apart from the above, it anyway is not clear how many of the descendants
of David really were killed. I hope to go into this point in greater detail
in a subsequent reply, but I will try now to give a very brief outline. One
of the problems starts with the Gemara in Kesuvos 62b which states that
Rebbi Yehudah ha'Nasi, who redacted the Mishnah, was a descendant of
Shefatyah ben Avital. Avital was the son of David. This was a different
branch of the family than that of Yoash, so this suggests that there were
other survivors. One way of solving this riddle is suggested by the Yad
David to Sanhedrin 95b who writes that when the Gemara says that the seed
of David was destroyed, this refers only to those close to the kingship
from the line of Shlomo ha'Melech. Asalyah was not interested in
exterminating other branches of the family because she was not afraid that
they would represent a challenge to her plans to take control of the throne.
4. I plan to go into this question more thoroughly later on, but my chief
answer now remains that if, for example, someone loses, G-d forbid, his
only son, his grief might be just as great as someone who lost a larger
part of his family. On matters like this it does not always depend on
numbers. Therefore, the disaster for Achimelech of what happened to his
family could be just as tragic as the catastrophy for the seed of David.
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom
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