David, Melekh Yisrael! (a Jewish Camp-favorite song revisited)

This reflection is part of the ongoing Forest Hills Haftorah Series. The rest of the content can be found here: https://www.sefaria.org/groups/FHJC-Haftorah-Series .

Dovid, Melekh Yisrael - Chai v'kayam! - David, the King of Israel, lives and endures!

You might recognize the line above as the words to one of the most famous and beloved Jewish songs, sung regularly in Jewish Camps, day-schools, and youth programs world-wide. The most popular tune is often bouncy and playful, and the singing is sometimes accompanied by goofy hand-motions. I myself have many fond memories singing it in such contexts.

Most people have never learned the fascinating origin behind these words with which most of us are so familiar - It was first used as a secret code in order to stealthily pass on a critical message from one sage to another - and this moment happened nearly 2,000 years ago!

Let's turn to the Babylonian Talmud, where the incident is recounted.

And there it is! The first moment that know of that these words were spoken.

Upon reading this passage - you probably have a few questions:

• Why did Rabbi Yehuda instruct Rabbi Hiyya to go to Ein Tav?
• Why did they need to set up a secret code to convey this seemingly innocuous information?
• Why was this code - a strange reference to King David - chosen specifically?

While all these questions are important, the first two are a bit too complicated to answer concisely, and would take us a bit off-track. So for our purposes let's just focus on the third for now.

Consider the following passage from Psalms:

In the verse of psalms above, God's favor will never be taken away from David's line. And to what is this enduring quality of David's status likened? As verse 38 above says - the moon!

While Rabbi Yehuda does not state this explicitly, many of the commentators are convinced that he was hinting at this specific verse from psalms.

It is worth taking a few minutes to read this psalm in its entirety, for it is a beautifully poetic interpretation of 2 Samuel 11-17, which is the original source of God's unconditional, eternal covenant with David.

We read this chapter from Samuel in this week's Haftorah, where we see that David, out of his love for God, wants to build for Him a more permanent and grandiose Home then the portable mishkan (tent) that He had been dwelling in ever since Sinai.

God is moved by David's intentions - and while he tells David that this project is not for him, he can rest assured that it will be successfully undertaken by his offspring; And unlike the offspring of Saul - who lost the opportunity to lead the Israelites due to Saul's not following God's instructions (1 Samuel 15), the status of David's line is eternal:

We traditionally attribute Psalm 23 (YHWH is my shepherd) to King David, and in it we see the boundless and unequivocal trust in and love for God which David felt throughout his entire being.

In this deeply moving moment from the Haftorah, we are given a glimpse into the heart of Hashem, where we see this love being reciprocated.

How fortunate we once were, to have had leaders who experienced such intimate closeness with the Almighty!

To this day - 3,000 years after his death! - we proudly proclaim in our day schools and summer camps that King David lives! Not David the individual, but the legacy he left behind, and the lasting impact he had on his people. While a deeply flawed leader and individual (as all humans are), David constantly yearned - ached, even - for closeness to God, and in this at least he would set the standard for all of Israel's leaders ever after.

As it says elsewhere in psalms - God is close to ALL who call upon him - to all who call upon Him out of a truthful and real desire for this closeness (Psalm 145:18) - and David gives us an example of what this can look like in our Haftorah.

Shabbat shalom!