T'hilim, Psalms, Kohelet, Ecclesiastes 15-2

In times as difficult as these, what could be better than to go over my notes from this week's lesson? Personally, I believe that we're in the times of King Saul, when he was pursuing David. Instead of defending the Jewish People and ridding the country of its enemies, the Philistines, King Saul tried to kill David, who had been appointed his successor by Shmuel Hanavi, Samuel the Prophet. As David's son Shlomo, Solomon, wrote: "Ain chadash tachat hashemesh," There's nothing new under the sun.

May learning from David and Shlomo give us the strength and wisdom to survive these difficult times and bring the Moshiach ben David.

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We're at the end of chapter 34, lines 22 & 23
I knew that this would be relevent.

In order to dispose of evil, we just need to be patient, because in the evil that the evil do will be the root of their fall. They'll climb and climb and climb and climb, getting fatter and fatter and fatter, until the ladder won't be able to hold them anymore--CRASH!! G-d willing. Read the lines in T'hilim chapter 7, 16-8.

It's up to us to see the good in whatever happens.
If something bad happens, it's the result of what he did, though of course we don't know the exact formula.
"or metoch choshech," light in the darkness."
see the light in spite of the dark
Or the story of the family crowded in the small home, the wise man told them to add the chickens and the cow, and the goat and the horse, one after another, until suddenly he told them to remove all the animal, and they were relieved, suddenly, their house was so big.
Every new situation enables a person to get more zchuyot, better credit rating with G-d.

Now for something I've been saying for a long time: EVIL ISN'T FROM G-D, IT'S FROM PEOPLE, and the evil someone does will eventually destroy him. The world was not created complete; it's our job to fix it.

22- ...and the haters of the righteous will be condemned
Some people work very hard to destroy their own conscience. Doesn't that remind you of the politicians?
....I missed some of it due to a phone call.....

Then they were back in Bereishit, Genesis, talking about Lot, how he didn't want to leave Sdom, where he was considered such a tzadik, because next to Avraham, he was nothng, and he'd have to do a lot more. He had to be made to understand that if he didn't leave Sdom, he'd be punished with all the evil people. This was his only chance.

23- G-d will forgive those who start sincere tshuva, repentence.

Then we discussed a few general things about T'hilim, that it's the only book in the Bible that the chapter divisions (though not the order) were by the author. I guess we can think of T'hilim as a very early blog, of the personal diary kind. It's amazing to think that all the "posts," or diary entries, which must have had been writen in all sorts of places, difficult conditions, that 150 survived. And we read and study them to this day, right now.

Chapter 35
1- David calls to G-d for help, since he insists that he doesn't have the right equipment, weapons, to battle.
Shmuel alef (1st Samuel), David calls for his follower, especially his nephew Avishai, and explains that even though they can have complete access to the sleeping Saul, they aren't going to kill him, just leave a sign that will make it very clear, that they were in the room.
2- ONly after one has made every single type of attempt to to punish someone via the laws of olam hazeh, can one ask G-d to do it. It was ok for Sarah vs Avraham and Tamar vs Yehuda, not not David vs Saul.
Saul had offered to David to marry his daughter; David qrrived at the wedding and discorvered that she was marrying someone else., and then again.
3- david told Avishai not to worry, G-d wil punish Saul. What type of weapon vs such an enemy?

Next time, Kohelet