For Monarchy Jeremy A

Jeremy Appelbaum Nach Project

It says in Devarim that H wants us to have a king. If this was the only time that the torah says anything about the Jews having a king this would be enough for us to have a king. A good monarch is a king that has the best interests of the nation at heart. He or she is a person who sees how everything is connected to help the nation. The time between dynasties is absolute chaos because anyone with political ambitions is scrambling for power. As it says in Shoftim “In those days, there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his eyes.” Most Jews during these times continued to follow the torah but a small portion didn’t and began doing idol worship, because there was no one, material, central authority that the people could go to for answers. No Jewish king was ever so bad that he completely destroyed all traces of Judaism. However, even if a king was bad, every king did something or maintained something good. Each king did something for the Jewish people. Here are a few examples: - David conquered the land of Israel, wrote the book of Tehillim, and established the capital at Jerusalem. - Solomon built the Beit HaMikdash, and makes the Jewish people a politically and economically powerful kingdom in the Middle East.

- Rehoboam splits the nation into two. This is not directly necessary but it will be later for when all the tribes return to Israel it is one of the precursors of Meshach. - Achab maintains the land in peace and prosperity. - Hezekiah stopped a lot of idol worship and started everyone to return to H. - Omri makes the northern kingdom a force to be reckoned, and the norther kingdom was called “the house of Omri” - Josiah returns the Jews to H after paganism had made potentially devastating inroads in Jewish worship and national identity.

These kings weather they were good or bad never they were absolute dictators. These kings taught the Jews that there is good and bad, that it is hard to be good and yet so very easy to bad. They also showed that no matter how bad you were you could always return to H.