The haftara of "Machar Chodesh," read when Rosh Chodesh falls out on the day after Shabbos (as it does this coming week), presents an episode in the great friendship between Yonasan and Dovid. Notwithstanding his father, King Shaul's, enmity and threats toward Dovid - who eventually would succeed Shaul as king, thus preventing Yonasan from assuming his father's throne - Yonasan willfully accepts Dovid's eventual reign over Israel and even assists him in fleeing from his father. In Jonathan's moving words as David is about to flee, "Go in peace! [We mutually commit to] that which we have sworn by Hashem's name, 'May Hashem always be between me and you and between my descendants and yours forever!'" (Shmuel 20:42).
This friendship between a descendant of Rachel, through Binyamin, and a descendant of Leah, through Yehuda, with the former pledging to assist and even be subservient to the latter is reminiscent of the reverse situation occurring centuries earlier. Yehuda, although initially responsible for the sale of Yosef, a son of Rachel, pleads before the Egyptian viceroy (Yosef himself!) to save Binyamin, Rachel's other son, from slavery, offering himself in his stead. The initial enmity between the sons of Leah and the son of Rachel was, for a moment in history, replaced with mutual responsibility and concern. This sense of mutual mission repeats itself in the opposite direction with the concern of Jonathan for David.
If we should assume that both sons of Rachel, Yosef and Binyamin, to some extent represent the same aspect of Divine service, the following pattern seems to emerge. Chazal had a tradition that the descendants of Eisav, and specifically Amaleik, would fall into the hands of the descendants of Yosef (see Rashi, beginning of parshas Vayishlach). Indeed, midrashic sources teach that the primary role of mashiach ben Yosef is to destroy Amaleik, whereas the role of mashiach ben Dovid, coming from the tribe of Yehuda, is to build the mikdash and lead the people in the service of Hashem in the messianic era. Some commentaries (see Sheim Mishmuel, Vayeishev 5677) note that the initial plan was that Shaul, a descendant of Binyamin, Yosef's brother, was to fulfill the role of "mashiach ben Yosef" and destroy Amaleik, as indeed he was charged to do. Then, Dovid, the "mashiach" from Yehuda would build the mikdash and lead the Jewish people, with Shaul becoming a viceroy.[1] Disappointingly, this plan failed. Shaul did not totally destroy Amaleik, and, as a result, when king David assumed the throne, he had to subsume in his role the mission of fighting against the enemies of Israel, including Edom, the descendants of Eisav. Consequently, he, who "fought many wars and spilled much blood" (Divrei Hayamim I 22:8) was not able to construct the mikdash, the building of which was delayed until the reign of his son, King Shlomo. Yonasan, realizing that his father's reign was destined to fail, willfully accepted his secondary role as a descendant of Binyamin under Dovid's primary leadership, thus somewhat preserving the original Divine plan of unifying the two main family branches in a joint rule. Unfortunately, this plan, after Yonasan's tragic demise in battle, did not come to fruition either.
Since both branches of the tribes, that of Yosef and that of Yehuda, were destined for kingship and leadership in some capacity, the kingdoms eventually split into two: one, the kingdom of Judah, led by Rechavam, Shlomo's son, and his descendants, and one, the kingdom of Israel, led by Yeravam, a descendant of Yosef through Efrayim.
On another level, the battles against the enemies of Israel are part of attending to the physical dimension of the welfare of the Jewish nation. Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohein Kook zt"l[2] teaches that just as Yosef primarily tended to the physical needs of the Jewish people, being the "mashbir" in Egypt and facilitating a smooth, comfortable transition into the years of Egyptian exile, so too would his descendant, mashiach ben Yosef, be assigned that task. By contrast, mashiach ben Dovid's more spiritual mission was rooted in the role of his ancestor, Yehuda.[3] This perhaps finds its initial indication in the fact that Yehuda, not Yosef, was charged by Ya'akov to found a beis Talmud in Egypt (Rashi, Bereishis 46:28).
The holy city of Yerushalayim, the reunification of which is to be shortly celebrated, is known as "עיר שחברה לה יחדו - a city joined together within itself" (Tehillim 122:3). In addition to other interpretations of the cohesive nature of Jerusalem, some explain that Yerushalayim also represents the combination of the two aforementioned forces, the physical and the spiritual. It is both mikdash melech, ir melucha, the seat of the royal kingdom, and beis mikdash'cha, the city in which Hashem's dwelling place on earth radiates to the whole world. I once heard from Rav Yoel Schwartz zt"l that this is the reason its name is ירושלים with the plural suffix "-ים" as it is meant to combine both aspects.[4]
Rav Kook writes that on the long road to redemption there is a necessity to repair and rebuild both the physical as well as the spiritual destruction caused by the long exile. Unfortunately, these two forces, rebuilding the physical and rebuilding the spiritual, are oftentimes in conflict with each other rather than working together in harmony as was the Divine plan. In Rav Kook's penetrating words:
When these two forces work at cross purposes as a result of the calamity of exile, shortsightedness and disarray, these are the "birthpangs of Messiah," or to be more exact, the "birthpangs of Messiahs." The Psalmist writes: "That Your enemies have defied, O Lord; that they have defied the footsteps of Your Messiahs." Two footsteps of two Messiahs.
More recently, in the Holy Land, the yishuv having gone through over two years of difficult war and other social upheavals, these two forces continue to be in constant friction with each other. Those for whom only the mission of physical rebuilding is significant often view those for whom the spiritual is their primary focus as pariahs, and worthless members of society. Those who attempt to combine both the physical and the spiritual have, of late, (to my humble mind, painfully and unfairly) been criticized as misrepresenting Torah by some groups who devote more time to the purely spiritual or as "messianic radicals" by the former group. Unfortunately, we continue to witness that which Rav Kook writes in his day: the two forces battle with each other instead of cooperating.
As Rav Kook himself writes:
Now the truth is, as long as the nation is fractured and incapable of uniting the powers, at times an attempt at unification will actually result in some theological or moral damage. This deep separation is the source of controversy in Israel.
A true unity and symbiosis between these seemingly opposite aspects seems elusive. Nonetheless, with dialogue, mutual respect and the avoidance of harsh rhetoric, we hope and pray that by appreciating the diverse roles and personalities of the many individuals involved in spiritually and physically rebuilding both the city of Yerushalayim and the Land of Israel that the day will come soon, as the prophet Yechezkel states:
Say to them, So says the Lord God: Behold I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim and the tribes of Israel his companions, and I will place them with him with the stick of Judah, and I will make them into one stick, and they shall become one in My hand….And My servant David shall be king over them, and one shepherd shall be for them all, and they shall walk in My ordinances and observe My statutes and perform them. (Yechezkel 37:19,24)
[1] Also see Sheim Mishmuel (ibid.) for the theological, conceptual framework for this division of roles.
[2] See Lamentation in Jerusalem, translation by Rav Bezalel Naor, available here.
[3] See the above essay in which Rav Kook explains how this duality was manifest in the leaders of the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel.
[4] He playfully stated that the nations of the world call it "Jerusalem" and not "Jerusalayim" not realizing its dual dimension!