The Initiation of King David

“My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, you, God, will not despise' (Psalm 51:17) ...Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me”. (Psalm 51:10).

Jerusalem: The Role of the Hebrew People in the Spiritual Biography of Humanity

From Lecture 6: The Initiation of King David

In previous lectures we have already mentioned the spiritual torments of believers and commentators through the ages when facing the many difficult contradictions which actually constitute most of the Bible. But nothing can match the difficulties, the enigmas, and the religious and conscious pangs of conscience which the Book of Samuel prepares for the reader. For the last two thousand years, readers and commentators have agonized themselves and have asked over and over: why did the writers and editors of the Bible decide to publish the story of David's mistakes and sins, and above all the story of `The Poor Man's Lamb'? What about a little tact? Creating a suitable image of King David? Reasonable public relations? For we are talking of Kind David, conqueror of Jerusalem, father of the lineage of the Messiah, whose life plays out in the very heart of the chosen people and its mission. For David's deeds with Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite are among the most difficult stories in the Bible, if not truly the most difficult. It shows in the objective light of the straightforward, literal biblical style a most modern ego, freed of divine supervision, in which the power of the Serpent has grown with such intensity. And the Bible goes even further and presents to us King David in his sins as an adulterer, a murderer, and a betrayer of the trust of his soldiers and subjects, occupied with his private pleasures rather than with issues of the community. And for this deed, as written, he is punished with the greatest severity:

Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own. This is what the Lord says: `Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad day light'. (Samuel2,12:10-11).

The Bible, together with its complementary Greek double, The Iliad and the Odyssey, describes in great details its heroes' human weaknesses and sins with such dedication, that today's reader must experience a real turning point in his self-knowledge (if he refuses to be satisfied with the prevailing materialistic-psychological genre of reading the Bible). And the stories of David can help us with that, if that is what we really desire. For the results of the individuation of the self in the physical world, far from God and the spiritual worlds, have never been shown so profoundly, in such a revealing way, in objective detail. Let us recall, then, some of these devastating results: how Amnon his firstborn son rapes his sister Tamar, and how his son Absalom, Tamar's brother by the same mother, avenges her and murders Amnon; and how, later, Absalom rebels against his father and instigates a violent rebellion during which he tries to kill his father David, and goes on further by sleeping with David's mistress, and is executed by Yoav, David's captain of the guard; and let us not forget that Adonijah would also try to declare himself king in his father David's place, while he is still on his deathbed.

And here, to add contradictions and to stretch them to the limits of the intellect on one hand, and of the power of faith on the other, and to torment to the end our religious, philosophical, existential conscience, the Bible notes how King Solomon, who is born of David and Bathsheba, builds the first Temple, and the Messiah would spring from his seed. That is, precisely from this sinful union of David and Bathsheba the promised and most holy plant of the Messiah will grow! The Bible, whose artistic and dramatic craft is revealed in every single chapter, rises here to the highest climax of its literary art, which consists of a unique combination and synergy of drama, poetry, and prose. Such an artistic reading is a condition for reading the Bible's stories as true events of initiation, not just as psychological dramas, realistic or imaginary. And in the story of David's life, the art of the Bible achieves this by focusing totally on a detailed and painful description of the physical events, and this time it seems that it does not provide any glimpse or hint to the secret of his initiation behind them.

It stretches and intensifies the literal style, and with it the reader's soul, to such a level of human, personal, psychological, national, and religious realism, that creates in the human soul, with such skill, a growing crisis in each of these dramatic events. The intensity of the crisis is meant to prepare his soul to tear away the ordinary masks and disguises of the soul, to open the hardened gates of the heart, for penetration into the abyss of his own soul, for deepening his knowledge of himself as an earthly person who, on one hand, has never been farther away from the spiritual worlds, but for that very reason, on the other hand, is closer to them once more, but now in the depths of his soul; a much greater, intimate closeness, which however is, to begin with, unconscious and unknown. Only in such an artistic-dramatic reading of David's life does the window open which leads to the portal of his initiation, which is among the most exact archetypes of modern initiation.

And what is revealed here is a truth which is not easy to under- stand at all, a spiritual truth- truly piercing, in the literal-esoteric sense of `let Din, justice pierce the mountain' (Sanhedrin 6, referring there to Moses)- requiring us to say that as great as the tension and contradiction is, the release, the catharsis and the transformation will be as great, and that it is not despite David's failures and sins but precisely because of them that he could realize his initiation in the depths, which we shall describe below. And the building of the Temple and the seed of the Messiah owe their very existence to this truth, because the Messiah is the bearer of, and the one to actualize, the true higher self of the Hebrew people and humanity, and this self must gradually gather strength, and become ready step by step; and this is the aim of the various initiations of the teachers of humanity working through the Hebrew people. The true self of the Hebrew people and humanity, the purpose of whose evolution is true spiritual, moral, conscious freedom, must undergo all that the human soul and spirit must undergo on earth, freeing itself from the higher worlds and divine fatherly guidance and supervision, to find and establish itself solely on its own foundations. That is why without a fall, a rise is not possible; without sin there is no need for redemption; without the wound of individuation, of separation, of egotism, there is no future healing process, and without undergoing death it is impossible to experience resurrection. And without all these, a self-conscious, actual, free self would have never come into being.

That is where David is heading, and as the music he created in his youth was the music of the ancient divine virgin sun, still pure, able to cure Saul's madness when played, so was his mature human wisdom able, after ‘all your breakers and your waves have gone over me' (Psalm 42:7), to pour in poetry of the Psalms the innermost healing powers of the soul, which would ease and purify and comfort and gladden, from then till now, the pain and torment in the heart of every person who experiences with all his heart, soul and being the meaning of becoming a separate self, sinning, independent, becoming and creating: `My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, you, God, will not despise' (Psalm 51:17). ‘Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me' (Psalm 51:10).

David's initiation, of which, as we said, we can present only the main outlines in one lecture, is realized in four stages:

First: he must find within himself the powers leading from Mount Zion, indicating his youth and adolescence and the pure childhood powers of humanity, to the mountain of judgement, death and resurrection, Mount Moriah.

Second: this path requires descending into the abyss of individuation, which not only separates the two mountains but also exists under Mount Moriah itself.

Third: in this abyss, in which the powers of evil and egotism are maturing, whose forces of the deep are constantly threatening to erupt, he must create the foundation stone of the world, then shape and form it, individually, within his heart and whole being.

Fourth: he must learn to control and adjust the divine forces regulating and balancing the evolution of the world and of humanity. He thus completes the task of creating foundations for the Temple, in the depths of the world and in the depths of the human soul and becomes the father of the messianic stream...

The Father of the Messiah

David created, formed, and steeled the power of an independent self, the messianic power of redemption of humanity, in the depths of individuation and in his heart's blood. His entire being is a realization of a crucial, positive, redeeming descent for the purpose of ascent, which is why fate appointed him to be the spiritual father of the Messiah, who would be called` Son of David' and `Scion of the House of Jesse'. From all that has been said hitherto we can understand the position and the role of this great initiate among the great teachers of humanity. The secrets of death and resurrection become here fully human, in heart and soul. Everything becomes human in David, the Word becomes flesh, in his heart and fate, preparing the incarnation of the Word for humanity and the earth as a whole.

When Rabbi Ishmael seeks the secrets of redemption and the Messiah during one of his many spiritual journeys in the higher worlds, documented in the literature of the Hekhalot, he experiences this wondrous heavenly vision. He is shown how the divine spiritual beings work in unison, to prepare David's spiritual astral crown:

He let me enter and I saw squads upon squads of ministering angels sitting and weaving garments of salvation,
And making living crowns and embedding in them precious stones and gems,

And concocting all kinds of perfumes and heavenly delicacies, and sweetening wines for future righteous men.
I said to him: Splendor of my brilliance, for whom are these?
He said to me: For Israel.

And I saw one crown different from all the crowns,
With Sun and Moon and twelve constellations affixed to it.
I said to him: For whom is this excellent crown?
He said to me: For David, King of Israel.
I said to him: Splendor of my brilliance, show me the eminence of David.
He said to me: My friend, wait three hours, until David comes here, and you will witness him in his greatness.
[...]

And Lo, David King of Israel comes in front,
And all the kings of the House of David come after him, each with his crown on his head,
And the crown of David is unique and more excellent than all the crowns, and his brilliance goes to the end of the world.
And David ascended to the Temple which is in Heaven, and a throne of fire was prepared for him there, and he sat upon it,
And all the kings of the House of David were seated before him, and all the kings of Israel stood behind him.
David immediately stood and uttered songs and praises that no ear had heard before...

Read the whole 6^th lecture about the initiation of king David