SACRIFICES OR OBEDIENCE?

Last week, Shaul had claimed that he had in fact obeyed Hashem’s command, sparing only Agag; it was the people who had taken some of the animals for sacrifices to God. In Shaul’s view, apparently, that counted as listening to God.

Shmuel responds sharply and somewhat poetically, almost as if this were a moment of prophecy in the technical sense (these books are generally prose, so when a prophet bursts out with more rhythmic speech, it stands out). He notes that God prefers obedience to sacrifices. Note verse 23, where the phrase reads ki hatat kesem meri, which literally means for a sacrifice of magic is rebellion. The commentators, following the Aramaic translation, interpret this to mean that the punishment for rebelling against God is the same as for those who consult magical sources.

Along lines we have suggested before, the phrase might wish to say that the belief that sacrifices are effective regardless of what God wants is itself an act of kesem, of magic in its original sense. Originally, magic referred to physical acts people did with the belief that they could in that way control God (or, more likely, the gods). Shaul’s allowing the people to take animals for sacrifices when he knows that God wants them all slaughtered means that he, Shaul, and they, the people, don’t really care what God wants. They know that sacrifices make them closer to God, and God’s direct order cannot beat their certainty. That act of magic, of treating God as if He can be controlled by sacrifices against His will (kevayakhol, lehavdil, and all the other words one inserts here to be sure that we don’t mean what we are saying), is the rebellion here.

I would add that this particular spiritual perversion is not, sadly, completely alien to our times. We can often see people adhering to common Jewish practice even in situations where the halakhic recommendation would be otherwise; those people are not, in that moment, acting with a desire to fulfill the Divine Will. That pretense of acting religiously when other concerns are primary is what I see Shmuel as protesting here.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEADERSHIP

Shaul gets the point, finally, and admits that he has sinned, particularly in fearing the people and listening to them. Shmuel, we should recall, had also stressed the issue of Shaul listening to the people rather than commanding them to do as he insisted. The navi, of course, never directly blamed the people for taking the sheep as opposed to Shaul; verse 9 had only said that Shaul and the people had taken pity on the sheep. From Shmuel and Shaul’s references, we realize that Shaul had had no hand in the taking of the sheep, except in not stopping it (as, for example, he had stopped the people from eating without proper shehitah in a previous chapter). His failure here—and the Talmud points out other examples of similar failure—was in not having protested a wrong he could have averted; for not doing so, the verse (and God) treats it to some extent as if he had done it himself.

Having conceded his sin, Shaul only looks to have Shmuel return with him to bow to God. Note that Shaul admits his sin, but does not seem to have much remorse. He does not, for example, ask how he could rectify the situation with God; he does not dwell on his sin; he only asks Shmuel to publicly return with him.

That lack of real remorse might explain why Shmuel harshly refuses to join him, saying that Shaul reviled the word of God, and therefore has been himself reviled as a king over the Jewish people. Shaul’s lack of obedience (and, it seems from here, stubborn refusal first to admit that he was wrong, and then to internalize the meaning of that having been wrong) has to some extent already stripped him of his leadership.

THE TORN GARMENT

Shmuel turns to leave, and the verse ambiguously refers to somebody taking hold of someone’s garment and it tearing. Shmuel then uses that as a metaphor for God having torn the kingdom from him and giving it to someone else. He then stresses that Hashem is not one to change His mind, to go back on punishments He enunciates.

The commentators, while noting the simple sense of the verse (that Shaul ripped Shmuel’s garment while trying to stop him from leaving), also raise the possibility that Shmuel tore Shaul’s garment. The latter version explains how he was so ready with a metaphor to comment on the action—he had performed it in order to get to that point. In the former, simpler version, Shmuel shows his quick wit, which lets him turn a coincidental occurrence into an expression of the message God was trying to send.

Shaul again admits his sin, seeking only honor before his elders, and wishes to bow to Hashem elokekha, your God (meaning the God that Shmuel worshiped). This finally shows that Shaul has gotten the message that the people’s disobeying God to give sacrifices meant, to some extent, that they were worshiping a different God. Perhaps for that minimal growth on Shaul’s part, Shmuel returns with him.

Along the lines of claims we made previously about Eli, I wonder if, even here, Shaul might not have made his situation better with a fuller remorse, a broader attempt to correct that which he had done wrong. While Shmuel had firmly said that Hashem would not change His mind, we have seen that changing oneself can often lead to some kinds of changes in one’s fate. (Remember that Eli’s family could find ways to achieve some kapparah, although Hashem seems to indicate that they could not; similarly, Hizkiyahu gets fifteen more years of life, although Hashem had said that he was going to die). The definition of irrevocable is certainly not our intuitive one.

AGAG GETS HIS

Shmuel left Shaul, but was not finished with his business yet. He sent for Agag, who came to him ma`adanot, sure that he was no longer in danger of being killed. Shmuel kills him, preceding the event with an almost formulaic recitation—as Agag’s sword had left many women widows, so too would his mother now be without her child.

The whole episode is puzzling. First, Shmuel takes care of Agag, but not the sheep (who were the focus of his rebuke of Shaul); if the problem was that Shaul had not fulfilled God’s command, particularly by letting the people take sheep, why does Shmuel only take care of Agag? Second, why does Shmuel feel the need to kill Agag himself? Third, why does Shmuel ascribe Agag’s death to his having made women widows, instead of to his having been part of Amalek, a nation that God had determined needed to be punished for their attack on the Jews in the desert?

Before working on those issues, we might note Agag’s confidence. In battle, we understand that we might be killed. As soon as a battle ends, though, we expect a return to civil society, in which killing is no longer practiced. Having survived the actual battle, Agag feels sure that he will live, perhaps as a permanent prisoner, but alive nonetheless. Part of what Shmuel is showing us—a lesson I could apply to current events if this were a sermon—is that battle might be the most convenient time to get certain jobs done, but not the only possible time.

That may explain why Shmuel takes it upon himself to kill Agag. We ordinarily do not think of prophets as warriors, nor as those who mete out God’s justice themselves (at least not after Moshe). Shmuel is showing us that, at least in the case of Amalek, God’s desire to have them removed from the earth makes their killing a sacred task. While that itself is obviously a dangerous idea and applies only to limited cases (perhaps I should be careful to say severely limited), where it does apply even a prophet should see it as his responsibility to fulfill.

Perhaps a more felicitous example, although it too was misused a decade ago, would be the case of killing a rodef. In its correct halakhic form, we are allowed to kill someone who is about to kill someone else, and who we can find no other effective way of stopping. A policeman, for example, who sees a criminal aiming a loaded gun at an intended victim, and who cannot shoot for his hands or legs, has the responsibility to stop that criminal by any means necessary. That act, just as much as a doctor’s performing a crucial surgery, is an act of saving a life and should be internalized as such. Shmuel, understanding that this killing was a sacred act, felt fully comfortable doing it himself.

As to why Shmuel did not eradicate the sheep, I suspect it was an element of wiping out Amalek that only applied during the battle, and was more important as a sign of obedience to God’s command than for itself. When the people allowed themselves to take sheep, they were proving that they were not moved by God’s Word, but by their national/personal desires for conquest and booty. Having done so, killing the sheep would not rectify anything. Agag, however, was a part of a nation that God, for reasons of His inscrutable Will, had marked for extermination, a desire that needed to be fulfilled both during the battle and after.

Last (of our questions about Agag and Shmuel), Shmuel might have recognized that Agag could not fathom God’s decision to mark an entire people for permanent obliteration (as many Jews today cannot as well). In this case, Shmuel saw no reason to attempt to explain it to him. Rather, he offered Agag an understanding of his fate that would make sense to him. If so, Shmuel might be showing some sensitivity to Agag—instead of just killing him with no explanation, he tries to help him understand why his fate was going to be different than he had expected.

THE DISTANCE OF LOVE

The chapter closes by noting that Shmuel never spoke to Shaul again, because he was mourning Shaul's failure. While this demonstrates Shmuel's connection to Shaul, as we have noted before, it also emphasizes a truth to which we often do not pay enough attention: the distance from Shaul that Shmuel created probably in itself hurt Shaul, made him feel even more isolated than before. Without meaning to criticize Shmuel, it seems like an example (others of which we can certainly find in our days) where our love for someone causes us to hurt them more rather than less. A lesson for parents, children, and anyone involved in any sort of relationship to keep in mind. Shabbat Shalom.