A different reading of David and Yehonathan
I want to share one point from the shir by Rav Goldvicht that I attended last night with a bit of further explanation on my part.
David famously extolled his affection for Yehonathan in the second Book of Shmuel 1:26 with the words, "niflatha ahavathcha li meahavath nashim" This is usually translated as "your love for mee was more wonderful than the love of women." The description would fit in well with the Mishna in Avoth (5:16) that points to the love of David and Yehonathan as exemplary of one that does not depend on anything. (That brings to mind a line from Shakespeare's Sonnet #116: "Love is not love/ Which alters as it alteration finds.")
However, there is also another to read this verse, the way Rav Goldvicht did in the point he made: "the wonder of your love for me stemmed from the love of women." The source of it was in women, and which women were they? The great-great-great grandmothers. David came from the tribe of Yehudah and so was a descendant of Leah. His brother-in-law, Yehonathan, came from Binyamin, the son of Rachel. Generations back Rachel demonstrated her own wonderfully unselfish love for her sister in relinquishing her place to her as Yaakov's bride. So here David identified Yehonathan's strength of unselfish love -- in not trying to assert his own right to the throne as the son of the first king of Israel-- to his ancestress. Yehonathan's ability to love in that fashion is rooted in Rachel.
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David famously extolled his affection for Yehonathan in the second Book of Shmuel 1:26 with the words, "niflatha ahavathcha li meahavath nashim" This is usually translated as "your love for mee was more wonderful than the love of women." The description would fit in well with the Mishna in Avoth (5:16) that points to the love of David and Yehonathan as exemplary of one that does not depend on anything. (That brings to mind a line from Shakespeare's Sonnet #116: "Love is not love/ Which alters as it alteration finds.")
However, there is also another to read this verse, the way Rav Goldvicht did in the point he made: "the wonder of your love for me stemmed from the love of women." The source of it was in women, and which women were they? The great-great-great grandmothers. David came from the tribe of Yehudah and so was a descendant of Leah. His brother-in-law, Yehonathan, came from Binyamin, the son of Rachel. Generations back Rachel demonstrated her own wonderfully unselfish love for her sister in relinquishing her place to her as Yaakov's bride. So here David identified Yehonathan's strength of unselfish love -- in not trying to assert his own right to the throne as the son of the first king of Israel-- to his ancestress. Yehonathan's ability to love in that fashion is rooted in Rachel.
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