The true obstacle
to King David building the Temple - as Rav Sa’adia Gaon explains - was not an ethical-spiritual deficiency
connected to his participation in wars, but rather the need for him to dedicate
his life exclusively to the labor of war. Changing gears in his old age and
dedicating his life to a different labor altogether was not what Hashem had in
mind for him. This would be the
life-project not of King David, but of his young son, who would sanctify his
entire life to building a house for Hashem (Rasag, Targum Ha-Tanach Le-Arvavit
Le-Divrei Ha-Yamim 129:9).
One must
understand that the building of the Temple is the final, climactic step and not
the beginning. There are three Mitzvot which we are commanded when we enter the
Land - building the Kingship of Israel, fighting the war with Amalek, and
building the Temple - and they must be performed in this order (Rambam, Hilchot
Melachim 1:1-2). Therefore, anyone who is involved in building the Kingship of
Israel is also involved in the waging of war, which is necessarily connected to
it, as in the words of the Rambam’s title: "Laws of Kings and their
Wars". And all of this precedes, and leads to, the building of the Temple.
Anyone who fights
the wars of Hashem is involved in the preparation of the Temple. And this is
what was said of King David: Although you were not involved in the actual
building of the Temple, you nevertheless prepared it by the great wars which
you waged, and now your son is able to build it. Our Master Ha-Rav Avraham
Yitzhak Ha-Cohain Kook similarly writes: "In building the Temple, as the
King said to the prophet Natan: ‘See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the
Ark of God dwells within a curtain’ (Shmuel 2 7:2), the prophet responds to him
with the word of Hashem: ‘Did I speak a word with any of the rulers of Israel,
who I commanded as shepherds of my Nation saying, why do you not build me a
house of cedar?’ (ibid. verse 7). When the times comes, ‘I have appointed a place
for my Nation Israel, and planted them, that they may dwell on it, and be
troubled no more, nor will the children of wickedness torment them anymore, as
in the beginning’ (ibid. verse 10), then the time will have arrived to build
the Temple. Everything that King David, may peace be upon him, did, all the
wars that he waged with the enemies of Israel to break the nations of the world
from around our neck and to expand the borders of our Land, all of this was a
preparation and a readying for the ultimate goal of building the Temple"
(Ma’amrei Ha-Re’eiyah vol. 1, pp. 246-247).
