ולא עוד אלא בשעה שהם עוסקין בארבע מיתות ב"ד פוסקין ממשנתן ואומרים לי דוד הבא על אשת איש מיתתו במה אמרתי להם הבא על אשת איש מיתתו בחנק ויש לו חלק לעוה"ב אבל המלבין פני חבירו ברבים אין לו חלק לעולם הבא
Moreover, when they are engaged in studying the four deaths inflicted by <i>Beth din</i> they interrupt their studies and taunt me [saying], "David, what is the death penalty of him who seduces a married woman?" I reply to them, "He who commits adultery with a married woman is executed by strangulation, yet has he a portion in the world to come. But he who publicly puts his neighbour to shame has no portion in the world to come."' Rab Judah said in Rab's name: <font>Even during David's illness he fulfilled the conjugal rights</font><span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'eighteen marital duties.'
');"><sup>21</sup></span>
Mesilat Yesharim
Marital relations are completely permitted but the sages decreed immersion in a Mikveh for those who had seminal emissions in order that Torah scholars not be frequently with their wives like roosters. For even though the conjugal act itself is permitted nevertheless he imprints this lust within his nature, and from there he can be drawn to the forbidden as our sages said: "there is a small organ in man. If one satiates it, it becomes hungry. But if he starves it, it becomes satiated" (Sanhedrin 107a).
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
Shenei Luchot HaBerit
Perhaps we have something similar in a statement of our sages on Samuel II 15,32: ויהי דוד בא עד הראש אשר ישתחוה שם לאלוקים, "When David reached the top where he would usually prostrate himself before G–d." Rabbi Yehudah in Sanhedrin 107 uses this verse to claim that David was about to commit an idolatrous act, claiming that the word ראש is a description of an idolatrous deity. He cites proof from Daniel 2,32. All this occurred when David had to flee for his life from his own son Absalom. His friend Chushai remonstrated with him saying that it was unseemly for a king of his stature to become guilty of such a grave sin. David responded: "How is it possible that a king such as myself should be pursued by his own son! Better that I should die having committed the sin of idol-worship than that the name of the Lord be desecrated publicly if my own son were to kill me." We must ask ourselves what could have possessed David to even contemplate the commission of such a sin? Clearly David knew that in the eyes of most of his people he was viewed as a pious G–d-fearing individual. Many people would begin to question G–d's justice if he were to become the victim of Absalom's revolt. He therefore preferred to commit a public sin so that people would not question how G–d could have allowed a pious man such as David to have been killed by his own son. David certainly harboured no idolatrous thoughts which would have led him to commit such a sin. Eventually, he did not go through with his plan, and that is why he said: "a king such as I, etc." [He fled, leaving ארץ ישראל, which is tantamount to serving idols, since one foregoes G–d's direct protection, cf. Maharsha. Ed.]
