King David, sharp-slinging extraordinaire of the wild Judean west
A couple of years ago I set out on an endeavor to write my first-ever serious Torani essay, with the guidance of a friend from yeshiva. The result was a well-received (by the yeshiva and family) essay examining the often taken-for-granted story of the battle between David and Goliath. I called it (in Hebrew): David and Goliath: The True Story. Yep, dramatic. I think it was a good essay. The first section dealt with understanding the basic pshat of the text, which I think was commonly misunderstood by most people for, I guess, centuries now. The second section dealt with the question on how the commentators saw the story. The third part came to reconcile the different views and create one coherent understanding of the story. In any case, a question popped up yesterday on the Judaism stackexchange site, Mi Yodeya which tied directly into the first part of the essay. As such, I essentially rewrote the first part in English, so I thought I'd post it here, too: Shmuel I 17:38-39 : וַיּ...