Chapter 11 is the chapter that closes the story of Shlomo HaMelech, and it is the hardest of them all. The opening pesukim immediately raise questions: how could it be that Shlomo, wiser than any man, the builder of the Beit HaMikdash, married foreign women and went after Ashtoret and Milkom? We will read the pesukim in order, study the explanation of the Malbim and the Abarbanel, and afterward examine the words of Chazal who say explicitly: "Whoever says that Shlomo sinned is simply mistaken."
וְהַמֶּלֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹה אָהַב נָשִׁים נׇכְרִיּוֹת רַבּוֹת וְאֶת־בַּת־פַּרְעֹה, מוֹאֲבִיּוֹת עַמֳּנִיּוֹת אֲדֹמִיֹּת צֵדְנִיֹּת חִתִּיֹּת׃ - And King Shlomo loved many foreign women, and the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonites, Hittites.
If it says "many foreign women," then the daughter of Pharaoh is included as well, for is she not also foreign? Rather, there is a rule in the language of the text: wherever a group is mentioned and out of it the text singles out one individual by name, this comes to teach you that this one is the most important of them all. So too, for example, "and there were missing of David's servants nineteen men and Asael" - Asael was one of the nineteen, and the text takes him out of the group to indicate that he was the special one among them. So too here: he loved many foreign women, but the daughter of Pharaoh was the primary one, the special one whom he loved most. And who were those women? Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonites, Hittites.
The Malbim explains, based on the words of the Abarbanel, that here the navi comes to paint for us the complete picture: as long as Shlomo walked in the way of Hashem, success shone upon him beyond anything imaginable, in a wondrous manner, as we saw in the previous chapter. But when, at the end of his days, he began to stray from the path, correspondingly the success departed. "Hashem is your shade at your right hand" - like a shadow: you move away from the path, and your shadow too moves along after you.
And the sin here is threefold. First: "loved." It does not say he "married" foreign women but rather that he "loved" them, and love means attachment, like one enamored cleaving to his beloved. This is a harsher expression than merely taking a wife, and it teaches that there was here a far more significant bond. Second: "foreign" - nations about whom the Torah said that they must remain in their foreignness, as in "an Egyptian shall not enter the congregation of Hashem" until the third generation, and as with the Hittites of whom it is said "you shall not let any soul live." Third: "many" - there is a problem in the very multitude, even had they been Israelites, for the Torah warns "he shall not multiply wives for himself," and Chazal say even like Avigail - and Avigail was one of the seven prophetesses. How much more so when he multiplies wives who are not like Avigail, to put it mildly.
מִן־הַגּוֹיִם אֲשֶׁר אָמַר־יְהֹוָה אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא־תָבֹאוּ בָהֶם וְהֵם לֹא־יָבֹאוּ בָכֶם, אָכֵן יַטּוּ אֶת־לְבַבְכֶם אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהֵיהֶם, בָּהֶם דָּבַק שְׁלֹמֹה לְאַהֲבָה׃ - From the nations of whom Hashem said to Bnei Yisrael, "You shall not come among them, nor shall they come among you, for surely they will turn your heart after their gods" - to these Shlomo clung in love.
This pasuk comes in response to what was said, "and the daughter of Pharaoh": "you shall not come among them" - this is the warning "an Egyptian shall not enter the congregation of Hashem." And the Rambam says that all those women whom Shlomo married he converted, except that there were some for whom conversion does not help because of their very lineage from Egypt. "Surely they will turn your heart" - this is the warning that indeed came to pass, though not in the plain sense of the words, but rather in an exceedingly subtle manner. "To these Shlomo clung in love" - once again the text repeats and emphasizes that this was not merely a matter of marriage, but a dimension of love and desire, and this was the trouble.
וַיְהִי־לוֹ נָשִׁים שָׂרוֹת שְׁבַע מֵאוֹת וּפִלַגְשִׁים שְׁלֹשׁ מֵאוֹת, וַיַּטּוּ נָשָׁיו אֶת־לִבּוֹ׃ - And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart.
Corresponding to "many foreign women" in the first pasuk, the text now details the numbers: "princesses" - women of rank and importance, seven hundred; "concubines" - less important women, three hundred. And the Malbim explains: as long as Shlomo was in his youth, the turning was subtle and in minor matters - "and his wives turned his heart."
וַיְהִי לְעֵת זִקְנַת שְׁלֹמֹה נָשָׁיו הִטּוּ אֶת־לְבָבוֹ אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים, וְלֹא־הָיָה לְבָבוֹ שָׁלֵם עִם־יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהָיו כִּלְבַב דָּוִיד אָבִיו׃ - And it came to pass in the time of Shlomo's old age that his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not whole with Hashem his God, like the heart of David his father.
In his old age the pull grew stronger and became harder to resist, and so here it says "they turned his heart after other gods." But pay close attention to the end of the verse: "and his heart was not whole with Hashem his God as was the heart of David his father." That closing phrase is the entire explanation of the opening, and it puts everything into proportion.
וַיֵּלֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹה אַחֲרֵי עַשְׁתֹּרֶת אֱלֹהֵי צִדֹנִים וְאַחֲרֵי מִלְכֹּם שִׁקֻּץ עַמֹּנִים׃ וַיַּעַשׂ שְׁלֹמֹה הָרַע בְּעֵינֵי יְהֹוָה וְלֹא מִלֵּא אַחֲרֵי יְהֹוָה כְּדָוִד אָבִיו׃ - And Shlomo went after Ashtoret the god of the Tzidonim, and after Milkom the abomination of the Amonim. And Shlomo did what was evil in the eyes of Hashem, and did not fully follow Hashem as did David his father.
אָז יִבְנֶה שְׁלֹמֹה בָּמָה לִכְמוֹשׁ שִׁקֻּץ מוֹאָב בָּהָר אֲשֶׁר עַל־פְּנֵי יְרוּשָׁלִָם, וּלְמֹלֶךְ שִׁקֻּץ בְּנֵי עַמּוֹן׃ וְכֵן עָשָׂה לְכׇל־נָשָׁיו הַנׇּכְרִיּוֹת מַקְטִירוֹת וּמְזַבְּחוֹת לֵאלֹהֵיהֶן׃ - Then Shlomo would build a high place for Kemosh the abomination of Moav, on the mountain that faces Yerushalayim, and for Molech the abomination of the children of Amon. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrificed to their gods.
Before we explain, let us stop and understand. Imagine, God forbid, that we were told about the son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, that a wicked son was born to him who worshiped idolatry and committed the gravest of sins, and after all this description they added: "and he was not quite as righteous as his father." Can such a thing be said? If you tell me his heart was not as whole as his father's, I understand that we are speaking of someone who was very close and simply did not reach his father's level. But after such sins, what does "his heart was not whole as" mean? On the one hand you are speaking to me about a fourth leg of the divine chariot, and on the other about an idolater who transgressed all the gravest sins in the Torah.
Certainly every person of understanding grasps this: when Scripture says "his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not whole with Hashem his God as was the heart of David his father," it itself gives us the measure and proportion of that turning, that he did not reach the completeness of David. And likewise in verse six: "and he did not fully follow Hashem as did David" - he was close, and less than that.
But it still says "and Shlomo went after Ashtoret," and it says "then Shlomo would build a high place for Kemosh" - how shall we explain this? The Gemara relates that Rabbi Eliezer's cow would go out on Shabbat with a strap between its horns, and it asks: how can this be, this is an outright prohibition? And it resolves: it was not his but his neighbor's. If so, why does Scripture call it "his cow"? Because he did not protest. He did not protest, so he is held responsible. "You shall surely rebuke your fellow and not bear sin because of him" - if you do not rebuke, his sin clings to you and is counted against you, since it was in your power to rebuke him.
So too, when the prophet comes and describes all that Shlomo "did" - the turning of the heart, the building of the high place, Ashtoret and Milkom - all of it was the doing of his wives. And why is the matter attributed to Shlomo's name? Because he was able to protest and did not. And therefore in verse eight Scripture states this explicitly: "and so he did for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrificed to their gods" - they were the ones offering incense and they were the ones sacrificing, each one built herself a house of idolatry according to her customs, and he did not protest against them.
And to anyone for whom this explanation seems forced within the verses of Scripture, we will prove such a thing explicitly from the verses themselves, in the two most famous cases in the Torah. The first is the incident of Achan. After the defeat at Ai the Holy One, blessed be He, rebukes Yehoshua and says: "Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant, and they have also stolen, and they have also deceived, and they have also placed it among their belongings." One who hears such a thing understands that we are speaking of at least half the people of Israel, of a band of traitors and a gang of wicked men. And afterward it turns out that it was not half, nor a quarter, nor an eighth, nor a thousandth, but only a single person. From here you learn the language of the author of Tanach: when he writes of a sin regarding all of Israel, it may be that only a single person is involved, and Scripture attaches it to everyone - why did such a one come out from among you? The sin belongs to all of you.
A second example is the sin of the Golden Calf. There Hashem was angry with the people of Israel and wished to destroy them at once, and anyone who hears understands that at least all of them worshiped idolatry. And afterward it turns out: how many worshiped? Three thousand men, those whom the water tested and who died. Three thousand out of six hundred thousand, only half a percent. And not even idolatry in its literal sense, for we have already explained at length that from the verses it is proven that they were not seeking a replacement for the Creator of the world but a replacement for Moshe Rabbeinu, and they continued to believe in Hashem. And yet the superficial reader says: this is speaking of a nation of idolaters. But since the matter came out from within the collective, it belongs to the collective. So too here: from Shlomo's house such a thing came forth, and therefore the sin is connected to him as well.
And what does "and so he did for all his foreign wives" mean? The Malbim explains that he did not protest when they built high places, but one must not think that he himself worshipped, for "they were offering incense and sacrificing to their gods." The Abarbanel adds that Shlomo, in his great wisdom, grasped the entire reality of the spiritual forces within creation. We have explained several times that idol worshippers were not fools and imbeciles; they knew how to activate lofty spiritual forces, and those forces would act according to their words. They were not acting in a vacuum, this was a reality. Lavan had teraphim, and he managed, through forces of impurity, to draw power down into the teraphim. What are teraphim? A human skull over which skin is stretched and dried, and the teraphim would speak and tell him where Yaakov had fled. This was Lavan's "GPS," and that is why Rachel stole the teraphim, so that if they were in his hands he would know where they had fled; and beyond that, because she did not want him worshipping idolatry. These people knew how to use the forces of impurity and to draw down the powers of the demons, and they truly saw partial success in the way they operated.
Shlomo knew all the forces in creation and also knew how to activate them, just as we saw that he knew how to summon Ashmedai, the chief of the demons. And this is "and so he did for all his wives": he reached an understanding of every single celestial minister, of every one of the powers of the angels and, by contrast, the powers of impurity and the demons, and he taught them the ways to draw down the flow of bounty from those spiritual forces. Certainly this is not our path at all, for we never draw down bounty from spiritual forces but only from Hashem alone, and one who does so is called an idol worshipper. Would you approach a clerk when the king stands before you and ask him to arrange your affairs? "He did not do so for any nation" - He apportioned to the nations, and they may approach those forces, but we have a direct line to the Creator of the world. Idolatry is of course forbidden to them as well, but drawing down bounty from those forces was not forbidden to them.
However, all those women had already converted, and when he allows them to engage in this there is already a prohibition, for they are not gentiles but Jews. How could he let them offer incense and sacrifice to their gods, something that is forbidden? And beyond that, a person is forbidden to keep idols in his home even if he does not worship them, as brought in the Mechilta on "you shall have no other gods": even if you do not worship it, merely that it is found in your possession. It emerges that a sin clung to Shlomo, but not as it appears from the plain meaning of the verses. Therefore Chazal say: "Whoever says Shlomo sinned is simply mistaken." For if Scripture writes "his heart was not whole with Hashem his God like the heart of David his father" and "he did not fully follow Hashem like David his father," this refers to a subtle sin, that he did not reach David's level and allowed such things to be done in his kingdom, but a sin in its plain sense certainly cannot be attached to Shlomo.
The Gemara in Tractate Sanhedrin (21b) says: Rabbi Yitzchak said, at the time that Shlomo married the daughter of Pharaoh, Gavriel descended and planted a reed in the sea and raised up a sandbar, upon which the great city of Rome was built. When you plant a reed in the sea, the sands moving in the current get caught and halted around it, and little by little the sand accumulates until a sandbar rises, that hill within the sea upon which a ship "runs aground" with its keel. The hill kept growing, and upon it Rome was built, and that very Rome is the one that came and destroyed the Beit Hamikdash.
And Rabbi Yitzchak further said: Why were the reasons for the Torah's commandments not revealed? For the reasons of two verses were revealed, and the greatest man in the world stumbled over them. It is written "he shall not multiply wives for himself," and Shlomo said: I will multiply and not turn astray. "Lest they turn his heart away" was said to ordinary people, to people who are like a wind-blown leaf and have no intellect or wisdom to grasp the truths of the Torah; I, wiser than any man, there is no chance such a thing will happen to me. And it is written "and it came to pass, at the time of Shlomo's old age, that his wives turned his heart away." And it is written "he shall not multiply horses for himself," and Shlomo said: I will multiply and not return the people to Egypt, and it is written "and a chariot came up out of Egypt for six hundred pieces of silver." Thus he thought the matter did not apply to him, and nonetheless he stumbled. This teaches us that there is no wisdom, no counsel, and no understanding against Hashem: that which you were commanded, you ought to do; what you were commanded, do, and do not outsmart Hashem's command.
And what does "Gavriel descended and planted a reed in the sea" mean? After all, historians note that Rome was built much earlier, and there was an island and dry land there, so how does this fit? The commentators in the Ein Yaakov say: Know that the aggadot of Chazal require study. One does not read them superficially, and even one who is greatly expert in pilpul is not necessarily suited to explain aggadot. Indeed we find in the Gemara, even regarding Rabbi Akiva, the master of the Oral Torah, that several times he wished to explain aggadot and they told him: Akiva, what have you to do with aggadah? Go to nega'im and ohalot, there lie your matters and there lies the root of your soul. The manner of studying aggadah differs from ordinary study.
Let me give a small example. Suppose a great king conquered many lands, and his emblem is an eagle, and the newspaper writes: "The great eagle spread its wings over many countries." The meaning is simple: the king conquered lands. Along comes someone who says: I understand only the plain meaning of the text, and surely this is an article about bird migration or something at a safari. You would tell him: you are talking nonsense; understand the matter, the terminology and the language, and then you will know what is being discussed.
So too here. Most of the aggadot of Chazal speak in parables. They planted a small stick in the sea, and years later, when you ask who built this enormous hill, they will tell you: that poor little stick that was planted there in the middle. You will say: I see no stick. They will tell you: it is already deep down below, you cannot see it at all, but everything began from it. So too with Shlomo: when you ask from where Rome received the power to destroy the Beit Hamikdash, they tell you: it all began on the night Shlomo married the daughter of Pharaoh. That was the small stick, around which more and more sins gathered, more and more failures, until it became a lofty mountain.
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה לִשְׁלֹמֹה, יַעַן אֲשֶׁר הָיְתָה־זֹּאת עִמָּךְ וְלֹא שָׁמַרְתָּ בְּרִיתִי וְחֻקֹּתַי אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִי עָלֶיךָ, קָרֹעַ אֶקְרַע אֶת־הַמַּמְלָכָה מֵעָלֶיךָ וּנְתַתִּיהָ לְעַבְדֶּךָ׃ - And Hashem said to Shlomo: Since this has been with you, and you have not kept My covenant and My statutes that I commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.
A small deviation, Pharaoh's daughter, something that did not match one hundred percent what the Torah wrote, caused more sand and more mud and more filth to accumulate, until the kingdom was torn apart and part of it was handed over to Yeravam ben Nevat. And Yeravam added sin: he closed off the pilgrimage to Yerushalayim, and afterward he built calves; and one deterioration after another, one grain of sand after another, until an enormous landmass was formed, and Rome came and destroyed the Beit HaMikdash. How did this come about? From a small stick. This is the spirit of what Chazal come to teach us in this parable, and one must not read it literally as though Rome was actually built on sand.
Another Gemara, in Tractate Sanhedrin (104b), concerning those who have no share in the World to Come. The Gemara asks: Who counted them? Rav Ashi said, the Men of the Great Assembly counted them. Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: They sought to count one more, and Rashi explains: Shlomo. They sought to count him among the kings who have no share in the World to Come. The image of his father's likeness came and prostrated itself before them, David HaMelech himself descends and prostrates himself before them, and they see his likeness, and they paid no attention to it, they continued the halachic discussion as though David had not dropped in for a visit to the beit midrash. A fire came from heaven and licked at their benches, and they paid no attention to it; the beit midrash begins to burn, and they carry on. A heavenly voice went forth and said to them: "Do you see a man diligent in his work, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before obscure men", one who gave precedence to My house over his own, and moreover, that My house he built in seven years and his own house in thirteen years, he shall stand before kings, before the kings of Torah, for through Me kings reign, and he shall not stand before obscure men, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, who have no share in the World to Come. And they paid no attention to it, for "it is not in heaven". A heavenly voice went forth and said: "Should He then requite it as you see fit, for you have refused, for you must choose, and not I?" And then the matter was dispersed. And Rashi explains: Is it upon you to pay the penalty of the punishment of a person whom you find repugnant, to say that he has no share in the World to Come? Is the choice dependent upon you and not upon Me, to say who has a share and who does not? Surely the matter depends on Me.
And this Gemara is an enormous wonder. First wonder: what led the sages to sit and deliberate on this? What halachic ruling is there here? Suppose they decide that he has no share, what comes of it, and what have you gained? Does one need to convene a session of the Sanhedrin to deliberate whether Shlomo has a share in the World to Come? Second wonder: even if they were to declare that he has no share, in heaven they judge according to a person's deeds; in heaven they have already judged Shlomo and decided. What use is their ruling and what does it change? And one sees plainly that the heavenly voice greatly disturbed them, that the decision they were about to make was disrupted.
To the second question the answer is simple: in truth, what is decided here determines matters even in heaven. "It is not in heaven" means that the power of decision was placed by the Creator of the world here on earth. The Sanhedrin and the beit din, whatever they declare determines matters above. If they set a particular date for Rosh Chodesh, the festival of Pesach is postponed or advanced by a day, and that is the festival of Pesach even in heaven; and so with all rulings.
But why in truth did the sages see a need for such a deliberation? The Ben Ish Chai says a very wonderful thing about this. There are many people who would read the verses and say that there is a double standard here: here is Yeravam ben Nevat, Menashe, and all those mentioned there, people who sinned, and see in what sharp language they spoke of them, they have no share in the World to Come; whereas for Shlomo they showed favoritism, for after all he built the Beit HaMikdash, the son of David, his books Kohelet, Shir HaShirim, and Mishlei entered the Jewish canon, and he was close to them, and therefore they did not want to harm him. And they would cast blame upon Shlomo, that truly he has no share in the World to Come, only that the sages had pity on him.
The sages came in order to prove to everyone that Shlomo does not resemble those wicked kings in the slightest, not at all, not in the least. And how do they prove it? They sat and held a session of the Sanhedrin to rule that Shlomo has no share in the World to Come, and the entire purpose was that a heavenly voice would go forth. And that heavenly voice would say to them: how are you not ashamed to say such a thing about Shlomo, "Should He then requite it as you see fit?" And through this it would be clear to all that from heaven they testify about Shlomo that he is righteous and that this punishment is not fitting for him, and that in truth he did not sin as is implied by the plain meaning of the verses. It emerges that the whole matter of the gathering was so that the heavenly voice would come and testify from heaven about Shlomo's righteousness.
It remains for us to understand: why, after all, did Shlomo marry foreign women? The answer is very simple. Shlomo ruled over the entire world, over all of it, and he was interested in perfecting the world under the sovereignty of the Almighty, he wanted to bring the redemption. And the way in which the redemption would come is that all who come into the world would know that Hashem is God: "Let every made thing know that You made it, and let every creature understand that You created it, and let everything that has breath in its nostrils say, Hashem the God of Israel is King, and His kingship rules over all." Shlomo said: I have the first opportunity in history to do this, there was no king before me who could, and there will be no king after me who will have this ability.
And how? I will marry all the daughters of the kings. And indeed every king felt great honor in giving his daughter to Shlomo, and they were princesses. I will marry them, and I will raise their sons with me in the palace; the children will grow up as full-fledged Israelites, the princes are already like my own sons, and I will send them back to their kingdoms. And just as the king of Kuzar transformed an entire kingdom to walk in the way of Hashem, so my sons will transform all the kingdoms and will perfect the world under the sovereignty of the Almighty, and all will walk in the way of Hashem, and by this I will ensure that the redemption comes. A mighty and wonderful idea, that only a wise man like Shlomo could think of.
And where is the downfall? Where is the mistake? A tiny mistake, which sealed his fate: it contradicts what is written in the Torah. The Torah said "he shall not multiply wives for himself", and that is all. "True, there is a problem here, but see what I am about to do", they say to him: my master, there is no such thing. There is no wisdom, no counsel, and no understanding against Hashem. If the Torah said no, all the calculations will not help, not even "I will bring the whole world back in repentance". The Torah said no, and this was Shlomo's mistake. A yud went forth and prosecuted before the Creator of the world and said: what will become of "he shall not multiply wives for himself"? The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Let Shlomo and a thousand like him be nullified, and not one letter of the Torah will be nullified. There is no such thing as succeeding in something that is against the Torah; against the Torah it will not go, with all the intentions for the sake of Heaven.
According to this we can also understand why he did not protest against them, which is astonishing - at the very least, protest against them! But Shlomo said: there is a problem with the women, yet they do not interest me at all; the women are a small detail, it is their children that I want. The children are the main thing, in them I invest, they will be educated, they will study in Shlomo's Talmud Torah, they will carry on. This was his mistake - that he thought one could succeed even if the matter is not one hundred percent according to the Torah, because the perfect result is so tremendous that a small prohibition is a small obstacle; and surely to me this will not happen, as the Gemara says: "I will take many wives and they will not turn away my heart." In the end he was held accountable for taking many wives, and Scripture testifies before us "he loved foreign women" - he began purely for the sake of Heaven, and as the Malbim says, "loved" teaches that there was here a matter of attachment and not merely the taking of wives. From that very holy and lofty purpose he came also to a state of attachment, and this was already something not fitting before Hashem.
The chapter describes the end of Shlomo: many foreign women, high places built during his reign, the tearing away of the kingdom. But Scripture itself gives us the measure - "his heart was not whole with Hashem his God as the heart of David his father," "and he did not follow Hashem fully as David his father did" - and from here we learn that the sin was subtle, in that he did not protest and did not stand in the breach, like the plowing of Rabbi Eliezer, like the "Israel has sinned" of Achan, and like the three thousand who fell in the sin of the calf. His intention was holy and exalted: to perfect the world under the kingship of Shakai through the sons of the kings who would grow up in his palace. But one small point was decisive - the matter was against the Torah, and "there is no wisdom, no counsel, and no understanding against Hashem." A small reed that was thrust into the sea raised a sandbar upon which Rome was built, and Rome destroyed the Temple; and against this very thing a heavenly voice went forth and testified about Shlomo "he shall stand before kings," to teach us that whoever says Shlomo sinned is simply mistaken - and as for the one who gave you the command, you should have obeyed him.