The Navi relates how King Shaul had pity on the best of the sheep, as well as on Agag. And he informs us what happened when he allowed that pity to get the better of him, causing him to disobey Shmuel’s instructions. And this in tum later resulted in his own demise. The Gemara in Yuma (22b) however, fills in the background, describing what really went on in Shaul’s mind.
Commenting on the Pasuk “and he quarreled in the valley”, Rebbi Mani explains that it was not just with Amalek with whom Shaul quarreled, but with Hashem. Presumably, the word “quarreled” does not fit so well into the context, since this is not the way one normally refers to a battle (and the word ‘fought’ would have been more appropriate).
In fact, the Gemara explains, Shaul objected to his instructions to wipe out Amalek. And he based his objection on the Parshah of Eglah Arufah, where the Torah takes the death of one individual extremely seriously, requiring a calf to be brought as a form of atonement, and its neck to be broken. How much more of a tragedy it was, he argued, to kill all these innocent people! Even if the people did sin, he argued, what did the animals do? And if the grown-ups were guilty, why did the children have to die?
G-d’s response to Shaul was in the form of a Heavenly Voice, which announced ‘Don’t be such a big Tzadik!’ (Koheles 7)
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The sequel to the above episode took place sometime later, when Shaul ordered Do’eg to kill Achimelech the Kohen Gadol, together with the eighty inhabitants of Nov, the city of Kohanim.
This time, the Heavenly Voice responded with the words ‘Don’t be so wicked’ (ibid.).
For so Chazal have taught – ‘Someone who is kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind’!
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We can learn from this that, when sins are not the result of bad midos, then they are often based on weak hashkofos, and what is perhaps even a more basic flaw, on a lack of faith in G-d and in the firm conviction that His Torah is true. This in itself, may not be such a terrible sin. Yet it is the pillar that makes for a sound edifice when it is strong, but which causes that same edifice to collapse when it is weak.
