The Joys of Six: How to think outside the box while living inside the box

 

We read in our ancient writ the great joy and celebration that occurred some 3,000 years ago when King David elected his son Solomon to take over the reigns. Surprisingly, the highest joy came to the people not as a result of the celebration as much as from the act of gifting, of donating stones and crystals, gold and silver, and other gifts toward the construction of the Sacred Temple. Moreover, the narrative tells us that the more heartfelt and sincere the intention behind the gifting, the greater the joy that resulted: “And the people rejoiced because they contributed to God with a whole heart; and even David the King rejoiced” (First Chronicles, 29:9).

 

Even David rejoiced? Of course he rejoiced. He contributed toward this sacred endeavor far more than anyone (verses 2-5). What’s this “even David” thing about? Of course he was overjoyed, gladdened by the frenzy of wholehearted gifting that was going on all around him, let alone his own magnanamous contributions.

 

But as we read on, we realize why David ought not to have been so overjoyed. You see, he was keenly aware of something most if not all the other donors were oblivious to. David, you see, lived outside the box, as we say; he saw right through the six-sided box, and beyond it. He saw how the people were being made glad by giving to God what God had given to them! It was actually pretty funny. “Who am I, and who are my people?” he exclaimed to God, “that we purport to be gifting to you when everything that we have comes from you in the first place? Everything is from you, and we have given to you from what is already in your hands!” (verse 14).

 

Great question. Great observation from beyond the Six. What can be so extraordinarily joyful about giving someone something that you got from them to begin with? Let’s say you come to my house and I let you have my VCR, and you turn around and give it to me as a birthday gift. Would you feel any joy in that? Would you not feel joyfulness if you gave me something of your own rather than something of mine? So what possible joy can we experience from the act of giving something to God? And yet, our ancestors never had a better time than doing just that!

 

Puzzling.

 

 

“Hashem our God,” David continues, rubbing-in this strange paradox, “all of this enormous bounty that we have contributed toward building a house for you, for the sake of your Holyness, is from your hands; all of it was yours in the first place!” (verse 16).

 

Poor David. It must have been really hard living outside the boundaries of the Six, out of reach of the naively innocent Joys of Six. The less we know, the happier we are. If we are under the illusion that we can give something to God in gratitude for what God has given us, without realizing that we would then be giving God today the very thing that God gave us yesterday, and be slop-happy about it, how wonderful. Leave well enough alone. Ignorance of the masses, as they say. The Joys of Six.

 

David, even though he lived outside the box – like going up against a giant without any armor and armed only with a meager slingshot and a stone – was still capable of experiencing the Joys of Six. Yes indeed, “EVEN David the King rejoiced.” How did he find joy in something he knew was not what it seemed? Read on, as he says to God: “And I know, my God, that you examine the heart, and it is from the integrity [of people’s heart intentions] that you derive what you desire” (verse 17).

 

Yes, even David rejoiced. He who knew you couldn’t give anything to God, gave God a blessing even though he knew beyond the box that you cannot give a blessing to the one from whom all blessing originates. Because he realized the sacredness and truth of the Joys of Six. “And David blessed God before the eyes of all of Israel…” (verse 10). How did he gift a blessing to God? He said: “Ba’ruch atah -- Source of Blessing are you,” an innovation by David, which he repeats in his Psalms as well (Psalms 119:12). Nowhere else in the entire Hebrew Scriptural writ does this innovative proclamation appear. Sadly, we who have inherited it and adapted it into our daily prayers, mistranslate these words as “Blessed are you…” We cannot gift to God by giving God what God already gave us, and already is. We can gift to God, David taught us, by acknowledging God as the source of those gifts. We give to God, so to speak, as a rite of acknowledgment that God is the source of all that we have.

 

And wasn’t that exactly what David wrote in his psalms, that gratitude, appreciation, is the sacrificial gift that God desires: “The one who offers up a thank you offering, honors Me” (Psalms 50:23).

 

A simple lesson of the Joys of Six that comes to us from outside the box. And don’t forget. The Shield of David has six sides, too. But it’s not a box. Now you know why.