[Avodah] ___melech, ____malach

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 03/09/2016 06:38 PM, Simon Montagu wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 12:31 AM, Zev Sero via Avodah <avodah at lists.aishdas.org <mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org>> wrote:

>> David was a king in the
>> past, since he didn't die he is still a king, and he will be a king in
>> the future

> Where is it written that David didn't die (other than in so far as
> any tzaddik doesn't die)?

Melachim I 2:10 doesn't say that he died.  There are only two people
in Tanach whose passing from this world is described without the word
"and he died": Yaacov and David.   That is why we say "Yaacov Avinu
lo meis", and "David Melech Yisrael chai vekayam".   They experienced
some sort of process that removed them from life as we ordinarily think
of it, but they skipped the process called "death", whatever that is,
which everyone else experiences.

That all tzadikim, even after experiencing death, are called "alive", is
a different matter.  They are "the dead who have died", whom Shlomo
praises; i.e. they are dead only the sense that they have experienced
death, but not in any *real* sense.   (Shlomo contrasts them with "the
living who are still alive", i.e. resha'im who are alive only in the
sense that they haven't yet experienced death, but whose essential nature
is that of the dead.)   But Yaacov and David, alone of all tzadikim, are
not even "meisim shekvar meisu"; they are not meisim in any sense.

-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
zev at sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".