Welcome back to our series on the David Hashem Ori.

We've been digging back into our audio files and re editing these episodes to make them even better than they were the first time, and I'm especially excited about how this one came out.

As part of this remastering, we're actually splitting this episode up into two parts.

They are already both in your feed, so listen away.

And before I begin, just a reminder to join our WhatsApp group for insights and updates.

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Welcome back to Tehillim Unveiled.

This is Ari Levison.

I'm Rob Jeremy.

And this is our second episode ever.

Double trouble.

How did you feel the first time went?

Awesome.

We got deep.

Yeah, we got deep.

Truth is though, in my mind, everything we did last week was really just an excuse to get to this week.

We're going to be.

Continuing our series on the David Hashem Ori Tehilam Khafzai in 27 last time we described the overall structure of them is more the story that it tells on a shot on a like a literal level.

This time I want to dive deep into David's life itself.

We we touched on that last time, but now I want to really embed ourselves into the David story and uncover what I think is is the real heart of this mess more.

And to me, why?

It just tears my heart in pieces and puts it back together all over again.

Let's do it.

You ready for that?

I'm ready all.

Right.

Why don't we start with a recap of what we did last time?

So we see in the beginning of this muse more David starts from this place of security, right?

He says, who can touch me, right?

Why should I be afraid?

I'm in the stronghold.

None can come close to me.

And we saw that as the muse more progresses, we see that tenor for David change shifting from looking at the people to looking at the divine and saying God, really what I want, I don't want to be in the stronghold.

I want to be in the palace.

I want to see.

You the the opportunity and the idea of actually seeking a spiritual connection with God is only unlocked once the enemies are no longer concerned of His.

Once those physical wars are in the back of his mind, then that that tense, that of God, which was originally the thing that was protecting him, now is this opportunity.

It's this place where he can offer sacrifices, where he can sing praises, where he can seek God's face.

Right.

And we talked about this transition from Lehola Sarai, right, Khui Benafshi, right of, of David moving inwards.

And as he makes this inward more spiritual transition, we see David move for again from this place of confidence to this place of not only lack of confidence, but also vulnerability of questioning, of no longer saying confidently, this is what I have.

I'm beginning to ask, God, can I see you?

Can I have you right?

Can I be close to you?

And from that deep place of insecurity, he brings us back to that sort of place of of surety.

Now, maybe not so much as announcement as hodab, but now is like hila lulea Mandela rotu hashembehr.

It's Rahim kavel Hashem, Khazakh remitz de betha de kavel Hashem saying I want to just see you, I want to be with you.

And taking again this line, Khazakh Bethemitz de Betha normally is, is almost a battle cry and turning it into a a spiritual feel, a spiritual call, you know?

One of the things though that I felt was just kind of missing there was our interpretation of those last two lines.

Felt like we had beginning of something but that there was something missing.

What is Debbie doing in the end?

He seems to console himself saying like Uleiha Manti that wrote the 2 of Hashem Eretz Kayim.

Had I not trusted to see the good of Hashem in the land of the living?

dot dot dot where?

Where did that trust come from?

What exactly is it that he's trusting in?

What is the 2 of Hashem, the goodness of God that he's talking about here?

That's what I want to try to answer in this week's episode.

But to do that, I want to focus on what perhaps the most memorable line of this entire mismore, this request that he makes.

He says, I thought Sha Alti made Hashem.

There's one thing that I asked from God, you know, I was thinking about that and thinking about David's life and thinking about, well, when was there a time when David asked something from God, like not a not a small little thing like, you know, God help me find my missing headphones.

A life changing request that he made from God, something that he would never forget, something that his whole life he might be thinking about.

That brought me into second Samuel Chapter 7 from all that Parekh Zion with Jeremy.

What goes on in this chapter?

In this beginning, in the beginning of this parakh, it is settled in right.

He's living in his palace and suddenly he turns to Natana Navi and he says I'm living in this amazing palace, but the Arun is sitting in a tent.

How can I be sitting in a home when there's not a permanent home for the Arun?

What's he really asking?

He's saying let me build for Hashem Amikdash, a palace.

I want to create a space that Hashem has that sort of home and that place of living among us.

Natan says go for it, do whatever you want.

That's during the day.

Then we get to the night.

Hashem comes to Natan in the night and says, is this something that I ever asked for?

Can you think of a single time when I went to anybody in Jewish history until now and said, I'm mad at you, You're in trouble because you didn't make me a house.

Hashem says, did I need a house before when I did all of these amazing things, when I brought Israel out of Egypt?

She says, the house is not something that I need, right?

And then he speaks a little bit further, says Hashem.

He says this is what I want you now to tell David.

I've been with you all your life.

I've been with you in your battles.

I've been with you to make you the king.

And he actually says the opposite of what David was asking, right?

Shem says not only are you not going to build me a house, I'm going to establish your house, son.

I'll basically establish your house forever.

And he says even further than that, it's not only that Shlomo is going to be the establishment of your house, but it's Shlomo who will build my house.

David is like the precursor or almost this observer, but not the builder.

Nothing comes and says it's David.

David is ecstatic, right?

He says this is so amazing and and he basically continually is, is praising exactly this idea that David's house will be established.

And that's really the thing that cuts to the core for him.

Right.

So on the surface, if you would describe why God denies David's request?

Shem says I don't have a need for a house, really.

It's not you, it's me.

Right, exactly, exactly.

You almost get the sense that Hashem is saying I don't want a house, I don't need a house, and I don't want people to get the idea that I need a house.

Now obviously Hashim says there will be one for me, right?

Shlomo will build me a MC Dash.

But Hashem is almost a little put off by that request in that response it seems like.

Right.

And and no, you might be familiar with a different version of this story where God gives a much darker reason for why David cannot build this house, right?

But that's actually in the Dvrehayami in the Chronicles version of this of this whole events.

And we're going to come back to that.

But for now, let's just focus on this.

So let's let's come back to the tailum for a second and now try to imagine it in this slide, this parakh of Shmuel.

It started off by saying Mahiki is shav hamalfavitao when David was sitting in his own house.

Vashema niyaflo MI saviv kol ivov God gave him rest from all his enemies surrounding him.

And Armismore starts off with those first 4 verses that are describing how David is so confidently victorious in war.

He opens by saying, how can I be afraid?

Shem is my light, my salvation, right?

They come to consume me.

They fail every time.

He's untouchable.

Yeah.

And and the context of this story in Safer Shmuel is David has just defeated all his political enemies.

He's conquered Jerusalem and he comes there and he builds this grand palace for himself.

But then he's sitting in this amazing cedar palace, but he's kind of unhappy with it.

He says this is this is like nice, but I don't want to be living in this grand palace.

You're.

Starting to get me thinking about how we how we look at this news more.

David is sitting in this palace and he's saying this is not the real house.

This is not the real building that I care about.

Yeah, there's another building that I actually care about, that I actually want to see come to life.

And so he says, Akasha altimet Hashem, there's one thing I ask of God, like one thing that I just really, really, really want Ottava kesh.

This is what I seek out.

Shifty vait Hashem kolume FAI.

I I live not in my house, I live in God's house.

I remember how he uses the language of house versus tent in Shmuel, right.

By house, he doesn't just mean living in, in the Mishkan, in the Tabernacle.

He means I want to build God a house, a real House of cedar, a palace.

And that's where I want to live with him, not in my own palace.

And as he says, Keats Benini, Bisuka Biyomra, he's a trainee Biseter, a hello, right.

Because when I was fighting all of this time, when I was fighting against my enemies, he was protecting me in a sukkah, a a booth.

He hid me in his tent.

All this time God has been dwelling in a booth, in a tent.

But I don't want that anymore.

I want him to dwell in a house and I want to dwell there with him.

This is the request of David's light.

And then God says no.

And on one hand there must have been some disappointment on that.

But if you put yourself in David's shoes and imagine what God tells you and he says, look, it's not you, right?

For 400 years in Jewish history, I've never asked anyone to build me a house.

But actually, because you asked this, I'm going to make a promise to you that your, your house, your family is going to live on forever and your children are going to take the reins after you.

And actually, the thing that you wanted to do, the thing that no one has ever done before, your children aren't going to do that.

So how does David respond to that?

Joyously.

And even he, like, offers a prayer, right?

Maybe that's what it means here in the Tillam, Ashiwaba, Zamrallah Hashem.

Interestingly, he's still in God's tent at this point in the tillam, right?

He never switches over to God's house.

He's still in God's tent.

But he's like, you know what?

OK, I get it.

We'll stay in your tent.

But while I'm here, I have a lot of reason to offer offerings and sing and praise God.

And to follow that up, he says, Lakshmar libi bakshu pannan.

He's like, OK, I get it that I can't build you a temple.

But you know, I actually, I hear my heart saying something.

My heart is saying lacha Amar libi bakshu panai seek on my face a panerfashem of Acacia.

I see a good God's face.

And it's kind of this like alternative towards this big grand physical castle is we could still have a great spiritual.

Relationship.

I was also reading it a little differently.

I wonder if there's a element here of revelation for David that it's not that David is saying, OK, I'll settle for your face, I can't have your house.

But David first says the only thing that I asked Shivdi viveda shem lahazut manorma shem ulva kabek.

Hello, right.

Where do I want to see Hashem?

I want to see Hashem in the palace.

And we think about the spiritual dynamics here where Shem says you're not going to see me in my palace.

And then what?

Suddenly Lebio merrily, right?

It's almost surprising, right?

David hears it almost as if it's outside of him saying what you really want is, is la hazard banoa mashem, not levaka berhalo at Panera ashema bakesh, right?

And that's sort of what opens up this whole element for David.

Also, again, of that spiritual vulnerability of saying it's really your face I always wanted because that closeness, that feeling of connection, that's what I was always lacking.

And I always had that with you, and I always want to have that with you.

Yeah, and and you know what happened basically after God tells him this is he, he basically offers this beautiful prayer to God and he says in verse 27 there kya tashemtzvo TA locate Israel Galita T ozen of the Khali more bait avnelak.

And you, God, the the Lord of hosts of Israel, you've revealed to the ear of your serving.

Basically, you've told me saying bait avnelak, I'm going to build you a house, al Cain matzah abdaha ET libo.

Therefore, literally I have found my heart to pray to you this prayer.

And I wonder if that's what he means here.

Lacha Amar libi bakshu panai.

All of a sudden, as you said last time, right to you, my heart says, seek my face.

And then I kind of respond to my own heart.

David in his mind had this, this this whole building campaign that he wanted to do.

But then through God's response, he realizes what he actually wanted deep down in his real heart.

And it's that heart that sings and that speaks this prayer, this Fela to God.

We mentioned before that this is only one version of the story of David asking to build the temple, right?

The other version is from Chronicles.

It's from Dhivrayamim Aleph, chapter 27, verse 3.

This is David talking to his son Shlomo as he's kind of handing over the reins and he says Valohim Amali Lotivna by Italy, Shmekhi Ishmael Khemo Tata, the Damim Shafaqta.

God said to me, you're not going to build a house for my name because you are a man of war and you have blood on your hands.

That's very different from the story that we just read.

Before.

It was kind of God saying it's not you, it's me.

Now, at the end of David's life, he's turning to his son and said, no, it, it was me.

Right, right.

And, you know, it's interesting because there's no evidence that God actually told him this, but somehow by the end of his life, he seems to understand, or at least believe himself, that this is the real reason why God said no to letting him build the temple.

Which makes you wonder, where did he come to that realization?

Right when we left him earlier in his life, when originally that request was denied, He was really happy about it.

He felt really good about God's response.

He sings this beautiful prayer to God.

And at some point something changes.

That if you decide suddenly what God was just letting me down easy.

Right.

So I'll be honest, for a while I didn't really have much of an explanation for what changes and

my original plan as about 2:00 AM last night was that maybe because it's going to leave that as an open question or discuss that, sure.

But as I was lying in the head.

All good ideas come at 2:00 AM.

That's.

True, I couldn't fall asleep last night.

I was running over this year in my head, mostly pointlessly.

Just nonsense going over and over and over, turning into gibberish.

But then it hit me.

I think I know at what point W comes to this realization, or at least what events bring W to this realization.

And Jeremy, I think that you actually know it, too.

Do what I'm finding out now.

The reason I say that is because you brought up the story multiple times last week.

You, you really had a strong feeling that this story was a really strong part of this Miss Moore.

But Sheva.

Yeah, this is Second Samuel chapter 11-4 chapters after the one that we just read.

Man Yun.

Can you give us the Al Ragel Arhat version of the story?

Well, as Leonard Cohen told us, you saw her bathing on the roof, David, basically again on top of the world.

He comes out, he sees, but Sheva sees this beautiful woman, admires her beauty.

He says, I want her, right?

He brings her and actually they, they sleep together, right?

But what's the problem?

But Sheva's married, and she's married to a a member of David's army, and now she's pregnant.

And what makes this particularly problematic is the fact that Uria is out at war.

So if Batcheva, his wife gets pregnant, everyone's going to know that she cheated on him, right?

And, and, and of course, right, it's hard to say no to the king, right?

So if there's anyone to blame here for, for this happening, right?

He certainly seems like he used his power to take advantage of her.

And so basically his his only way out is to try to cover over this fact by sending Oriya home so that he can be with his wife.

So he invites Oriya to the palace and he tells Oriya, go home, go be with your wife, take a take a vacation, take a break and listen to Oriya, responds Vyomer Oriya al David.

Oriya says to David Aron Visur al Vyuda Yoshimba Sukkots, the ark and Israel and all Judah, they're all dwelling in tents.

Sukots, what does that remind you of?

Our Lashon and to heal him, right Right.

That God is dwelling in the tent and also what David said previously about his own reason for wanting to build the temple for God is like the Ark of the covenant is in some flimsy tents right now, right?

He says, look, the ark and all everyone's in tents.

Vaduni Yaav, the yaav who's the general Vadde Aduni Vapeni has said that Ronim, the whole army is camping in the field.

Vani of Vaal Beti, and I'm going to go to my house again, my house, my house, my real house.

Lachel really stout Lishkov Imishti to eat and drink and sleep with my wife Kayaka, the Kaye Nafshaha e-mail said to the visor.

How could I do such a thing?

It's so similar to that language that David himself just used when he was talking about wanting to build a house for God.

He's like, how can I live in this big beautiful house?

Well, God and in the Ark of the Covenant are dwelling in this flimsy tent.

Right.

Wow.

Imagine if you're divvied.

How do you feel when you hear that?

Right, right.

You've basically gone against your principles.

You've done something inappropriate in front of everybody and it stands to be found out.

And you bring this guy back to try to cover what you did.

And what is he?

He's bound by honor.

Especially when he basically uses David's own language, his own words about how could God's ark be in this tent and I'm going to go hang out in my beautiful house with my wife.

And I wonder how about that irony would have meant the David?

I wonder if you would have realized the irony there.

So what does he do next?

First, he tried to do it basically the easy way.

Yeah.

And what's he left with now?

In for a penny, in for a pound, right.

And this is where the story gets gets dark, right?

Where David writes to you of I need you to put Oriya on the front lines.

I need you to put Oriya in the heart of danger.

Right.

And especially thinking about war back then, the front lines are not even the most dangerous place.

You're basically a goner.

Yeah.

And so he says, put Oriya on the front lines and that's what happens where he gets killed in battle.

And Bathsheba is is widowed through this whole interaction.

And then David is able to take her as a wife immediately and there's a time she's pregnant.

No one knows that there's any wrongdoing.

So as far as David's concerned, it's like he got away with it.

He got the girl, the guy's out of the picture, even though we as the reader are disturbed by his actions.

David is sleeping soundly.

Right, right.

And so then what happens?

The Shem is obviously just like us, as the reader, displeased with what David has done and sends Natan, the very prophet who just a few chapters ago conversed with David about building the Benamita, right, About building the temple for a Shem.

Natan comes back and he comes before David, and Natan does something unusual.

He starts telling a story, a story that seems completely unrelated to anything, tells the story of a rich man who has a lot of sheep and a poor shepherd who only has one sheep.

And the rich man basically comes, and through trickery, through deceit, through guile, he steals that sheep from that poor man, leaving him with nothing.

Now, if you're David, you're like, OK, I don't know what's going on here.

Right?

Like you said, David's sleeping soundly.

He's not thinking about this.

We don't get the sense that David, with a guilty conscience, is looking to see the consequences of what he's done in his life.

And that's so true that when he hears this story, he's totally unfazed.

He says this rich guy should be punished, he should be killed.

And he said last time that David basically the words are he gets mad language of off at this hypothetical rich man.

And that was the only time that we saw that the language of anger is connected with David.

It's David getting angry at this hypothetical version of himself that he doesn't realize is actually himself, right.

You're fit, you see, even in that parallel, right?

How much he was not bothered by this until this point, right?

And then Natan obviously hits him with the message of the story, right?

You're the rich guy.

You just did this.

You're literally the subject of the story I just told.

And David, rather than fighting it, rather than getting defensive, immediately says, right, Khattati, right?

You're completely right.

That's exactly what I did.

I totally did wrong.

Natan tells David that the result of his actions will have massive implications for him, right?

And this is what we discussed last time, right?

The sword will never leave, never leave your house, right?

You will also have your wives taken from you just like you took somebody else's wife.

And you know, for David, obviously, immediately, most tragically, right, this child that you have with Butsheva is not going to survive.

David has this whole mourning ritual that comes with that.

And then the narrative skips from there at least nine months.

David and Butshev have another child, right?

Totally just skips what happens in between and just brings us to that next child and shows us the contrast.

This child who was born not out of guile and trickery, right, but out of repentance.

It says Vashimovo, right?

Sham loves this child.

By the end of chapter 12, you feel like David's come back to himself, right?

He snapped back to the hero that we've known for so many chapters anyway.

He's really one of the most heroic characters early on in his life.

And you wonder what happened in the middle, what what happened to him that he could descend to such depths morally.

And I I think the answer is really the first words of Chapter 11.

Vahili chuvatashana late sitam Lahim.

What's that the context of this story that the TANF embeds it in?

It's wartime.

It's when the kings go out to battle.

The whole context of the story, everything about this story is about battle.

And as we said last time, like the main thing we talked about was how war can really corrupt the person.

It it takes a toll on the soul of the person fighting, and he's actually the king who is chiefly responsible for that fighting.

And it's interesting, right?

Because war is not only the framing of the story, it's also the mechanism of the story, right?

Both in the sense of Oria being in battle, coming back from battle, right?

Paralleled with or contrasted with David's sort of private battle, right?

His inner sort of strategist coming out trying to win this public fight, this fight of public opinion.

Right.

It's almost like as if in David's mind, as long as I win, at the end of the day, it's all OK because those are the rules of war.

Except this isn't war, right?

This is someone's someone's family that you've just interrupted.

This is a husband that you just led to his death.

And I think that when Natan confronts him and David realizes what he's done, I think this might also be the moment where he realizes what his involvement in the war has done to him.

And my proof for that is what he names that second child, right?

The redo, the one where he's already done Shuva, he's repented for what he's done.

What does he name him?

Don't know.

Which literally means peace.

Peace.

He's like, I need to correct what I've done.

And maybe I will never achieve peace in my own life.

But this son who I've already been promised, right?

My my son is going to build the temple.

I'm going to name him peace in the hopes that he will actually live a life of peace and he won't get pulled into the mud of war like I have and won't suffer the consequences of war like I have.

And let's just do an exercise and close your eyes for a second and imagine we're Debbie did that point and given everything you said that your son is is dying or you should maybe just die.

And you're so you're so upset about it and everything.

And maybe you're going for a walk and you're reflecting and you're, you know, you're wondering, how could I have done such a thing?

And you're coming to this realization that it's really it's your involvement in war that has taken you to this point that has worn down your soul so tragically.

And then it hits you.

You know, a while back I asked God to build a temple and he, he said no.

And he gave me an explanation that kind of made sense, but it wasn't really an answer, was it?

I mean, God basically just said, I don't really need it.

Oh, but your son is going to do it.

And I kind of just let that slide because I was so happy about the promise that God made to me that my children will carry on the Kingdom forever.

But maybe, maybe there was another reason.

Maybe my involvement in war has done something to me.

What if that's the real reason God wouldn't let me build this temple?

Now imagine you're David at this point.

How's that feel?

What's going through your mind?

What do you want to say?

First of all, I would, I would feel, I would feel ashamed.

I would feel embarrassed for what I had done.

You think about this movement of David, you know, I would be saying to myself, I've fallen so far, Mamash, I don't even recognize myself.

Natan had to tell a story about somebody else to get me to see who I really am, right?

To hold up in the mirror.

I well, in that I regard, I just, I, I've fallen so far.

It's that moment where David really has to confront what he did and.

I wonder if that's what the last third of the mismore and tahilim is.

I'll tastera Panakamimani, don't hide your face for me.

I'll Tazzani, but don't abandoned me.

And now it's not you, Hashem, Who, who have been there for me when I had nobody else.

Now it's you, Hashem, who have every right to abandon me after what I've done.

Who I I could understand why you would not want somebody like this to be the king of your nation, the poet who brings you into the world, somebody close to you.

And.

When he says a line like Hareni Hashem, atar kafa, show me God, teach me God your way.

Now all of a sudden that has a new meaning too.

It's Teach Me Your Way because I think I've lost it.

Through it all, I wonder if there's a little feeling even of hope.

I'm thinking as David, like you said, it all comes crashing in the depth of how far I've fallen, the pain at who I am.

And then I would think back to Hashem's promise, which was not that.

David, if you're good, then I will have a house.

But it was David.

There will be a house and it will be through you, but it won't be through your hands.

I wonder if there there's even a piece of me that would insert to say, well maybe the door is still open.

And you know, that's the one thing that we haven't seen yet in this paragraph.

Tehila, which is such a key part of both of these stories we just read, is David's son Shlomo, who is going to build the temple.

God answers W's request through Shlomo.

So I wonder what would it actually look like to reference the story of Shlomo building the Mikdash?

We're actually going to end Part 2A here.

It's been a heavy conversation so far.

We broke down the story where one of our greatest heroes totally lost himself.

But as we pointed out, there is Hope, and that Hope's name is Shlomo.

The only question is, does our mismore itself talk about Shlomo?

That's what we'll explore in Part 2B.

It's already in your podcast feed, so whenever you're ready, we'll see you there.

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