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RABIN MISHNAH STUDY GROUP
Daily Mishnah Study
in the climate of Masorti (Conservative) Judaism

Rabbi Simchah Roth
of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel.
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25th October 1996 12th Marcheshvan
5757
First Yahrzeit of Yitzchak Rabin z"l

Today is the first anniversary of the murder of Israel's late Prime
Minister, Yitzchak Rabin. It is most fitting that we should have an
extraordinary learning session on this day, in memory of the leader
for whom our Mishnah Study group is named. What can one study that
might arouse the passions of disgust and remorse that this event must
perforce create in our hearts? The murder of Yitzchak Rabin was a
cowardly act, the traitorous killing of an innocent man, whose
virtues, both personal and political, far outweighed his shortcomings.
On this one occasion I have decided to turn to the Biblical record,
instead of to Mishnah.

One story in the Tanakh [Bible], it seems to me, contains most of the
elements that we recognize: a people divided, the assassination of a
political leader, and the desperate attempts of those left behind to
pick up the pieces and to unite the disunited people.

Instead of Mishnah, today we shall study a short passage from the
SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL, CHAPTER THREE, VERSES 31-39:

And David said to Joab and to all the people that were with him, "Rend
your garments and put on sackcloth and perform the mourning rites for
Avner." King David walked behind the bier, and Avner was buried in
Hebron. Then the king raised his voice and wept over Avner's grave
and all the people wept. And the king composed the following dirge
for Avner: "Should Avner have died like a churl? - hands not bound nor
feet fettered in chains; You fell as one felled by worthless men."
And all the people wept all the more. The people came to offer David
the meal of consolation while it was still day, but David made a
solemn oath: "So may God do to me and yet more: before sundown I will
not eat bread or anything else!" Then all the people understood and
approved everything that the king had done. Thus all the people and
all Israel knew that day that the king had no part in the killing of
Avner ben-Ner. The king then said to his entourage: "Do you not see
that a prince, a great man has fallen this day in Israel? I am newly
come into my kingship and these men, the sons of Zeruyah, are too hard
for me. May God punish the evildoer appropriately."

EXPLANATIONS:

1. Avner ben-Ner was a close relative of Israel's first king, Saul;
he was also the military commander of Saul's armed forces. After
both Saul and Jonathan died in the battle of Mount Gilboa, Avner
managed to maintain one of Saul's surviving sons in some kind of
power in opposition to David. Thus the country was divided
between those whose allegiance continued to be given to the House
of Saul under the leadership of Avner (in the north of the
country), and those who preferred to be true to David (in the
south).

2. David, whose popularity and power were growing in Hebron, realized
that he could not become king of all Israel without doing some
kind of deal with Avner. Avner realized that he should not
maintain the division of the loyalties of the people for ever, and
so sought a peaceful transfer of the allegiance of the people of
the North to the House of Judah in the South, recognizing that
David was a far more worthy leader than Ishbosheth his (Avner's)
puppet-king. Thus we see that Avner was not only a great soldier,
but also a peacemaking statesman and a master of 'real-politik'.
Avner made overtures to David who invited him for talks in Hebron,
after having given cast iron assurances that Avner's person would
be inviolate if he came to David's headquarters for the
discussions.

3. David's own military leader, his cousin Yoav ben-Zeruyah, could
not believe that David would let pass this golden opportunity to
eliminate his only opponent of stature. Thus it was that Yoav
assassinated the unsuspecting Avner, for political motivations, in
the middle of the peace talks in Hebron. All this you can read in
detail in Chapter Three of the Second Book of Samuel, verses 1-30.

4. David was now in the terrible situation of being suspected of
having advance knowledge of Yoav's plans, possibly of having
approved them, or even of having instigated them. Worse, unless
he acted quickly and appropriately he would have the North up in
arms against the traitorous South, and all hopes of a peaceful
reunification of the divided people would be gone. This explains
the great pains David took at Avner's funeral to exculpate himself
from all suspicion.

5. The Talmud {Sanhedrin 20a] recognizes this. The mishnah on that
page, discussing the limitations placed on a king of Israel during
times of sorrow (so that he may never lose his dignity in public),
notes that a king who has suffered a bereavement does not leave
his palace. The Gemara points out that while this is the general
rule, a king may join a levaya [funeral procession] if he so
wishes, citing David's behaviour at Avner's funeral as proof. Why
did King David take part in Avner's levaya? - in order to take the
opportunity to go from man to man and from man to woman to explain
personally that he had nothing to do with Avner's death! (The
Gemara also learns from this that there is no objection to women
taking part in a funeral procession. The objection of today's
ultra-orthodox to the presence of women at the grave side is
kabbalistic in origin.)

6. The Gemara learns all this from a Kre-Ketiv: this refers to a
situation where the traditional reading of a word is different
from the written form of the word that had come down to the
Massoretes (who are responsible form the Hebrew text of the
Tanakh). Our text reads that the people wished to offer David the
meal of consolation ["lehavrot"]. The sages point out that the
Ketiv [written text] reads "lichrot" [to lynch]. This suggests
that David knew that the people wished to lynch him for the
dastardly assassination of Avner, but because he went from person
to person during the funeral to explain that he had nothing to do
with the murder, he managed to pull his chestnuts out of the fire.
(I wonder what his bodyguards thought about it!) The most
amazing thing is that in our present text of the Tanakh there is
no Kre-Ketiv at this point!

7. David can be criticized for moral turpitude in that he did not
punish Yoav for the murder of Avner. The fact that he excuses
himself ("the sons of Zeruyah are too hard for me") shows that he
knew that he should have done. I suppose we can put down his
negligence in this matter to "political necessity". On his
death-bed, decades later, he charged his son Solomon to see to it
that Yoav ben-Zeruyah did not die a natural death - because he
murdered Avner ben-Ner all those years previously!

8. I find that there are phrases in the passage we have studied that
are also most appropriate to the murder of Yitzchak Rabin: if one
replaces the name Avner with the name Rabin it becomes poignant.

"Should Rabin have died like a churl? - hands not bound nor feet
fettered in chains; You fell as one felled by worthless men..."

Is this the way the victor of the Six-Day war should have died,
the soldier who lay down his arms and sought to bring the fruits
of peace to his people? Radak [Rabbi David Kimchi, Provence,
Middle Ages] interprets thus: He was not arrested [not bound or
fettered] or tried for any crime: who then had the right to kill
him thus? Certainly Rabin fell as one felled by a worthless man
[ben-avlah].

"Do you not see that a prince [Sar], a great man has fallen this
day in Israel?" How poignant. The title in his funeral oration
that David gives Avner, Sar, is the word used in modern Hebrew to
designate a Cabinet Minister, a member of the Government. Indeed,
a Sar and a great man was done to death this day one year ago by a
'ben-avlah', and his grave may be visited in Jerusalem. And the
grave of another great man who wanted to bring about peace and was
done to death by his political opponents can be found to this day
in Hebron, right by the Cave of Makhpelah. It is virtually
unvisited.

"May God punish the evildoer appropriately" - the evildoer both of
then and of now.

One last note of a topical nature. I ask myself why it is that Hebron
so often seems to have been the site for extreme violence. This
propensity seems to have passed on to the present inhabitants of the
city (of both religions). Surely it's better to sit down together and
DRINK a cup of tea that to put it to more violent and divisive uses.
The fact that such an incident should have occurred in Hebron of all
places and on the eve of Yitzchak Rabin's Yahrzeit is surely a
disturbing omen.

May the great soul of Yitzchak ben Rosa u-Nechemya Rabin rest in
peace. Amen and Amen

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Please feel free to pass this material on; my request is that you cite
me as the source. Group members are invited to contribute to the
discussion.

The address for discussion, queries, comments and requests is:
To: Rabbi Simchah Roth <siroth@inter.net.il> Re: RMSG

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