Sanhedrin 036

2:
When someone in statutory mourning (for parent, sibling, offspring or spouse) returns from the place of interment to the place where they will be "sitting Shiv'ah" they are served a "Meal of Condolence" by family, friends or neighbours. By tradition this is a simple meal, usually including an egg – symbolic of the continuity of life. Mourners during this period traditionally sit on the ground. The king may not permit himself such an indignity, so he sits on a low stool while everyone else sits on the ground around him.

3:
Our mishnah mentions King David – whose Yahrzeit by tradition falls on the festival of Shavu'ot which we celebrate on Sunday. In this mishnah David is mentioned in connection with the funeral of Avner ben-Ner. By way of explanation, I bring here a reference to this incident that I explained in a previous shiur [RMSG of October 25th 1996]. The incident is recorded in II Samuel 3: 31-39:

1. Avner ben-Ner was a close relative of Israel's first king, Saul; he was also the military commander of Saul's armed forces. After both Saul and Jonathan died in the battle of Mount Gilboa, Avner managed to maintain one of Saul's surviving sons in some kind of power in opposition to David. Thus the country was divided between those whose allegiance continued to be given to the House of Saul under the leadership of Avner (in the north of the country), and those who preferred to be true to David (in the south).
2. David, whose popularity and power were growing in Hebron, realized that he could not become king of all Israel without doing some kind of deal with Avner. Avner realized that he should not maintain the division of the loyalties of the people for ever, and so sought a peaceful transfer of the allegiance of the people of the North to the House of Judah in the South, recognizing that David was a far more worthy leader than Ishbosheth his (Avner's) puppet-king. Thus we see that Avner was not only a great soldier, but also a peacemaking statesman and a master of 'real-politik'. Avner made overtures to David who invited him for talks in Hebron, after having given cast iron assurances that Avner's person would be inviolate if he came to David's headquarters for the discussions.
3. David's own military leader, his cousin Yo'av ben-Zeruyah, could not believe that David would let pass this golden opportunity to eliminate his only opponent of stature. Thus it was that Yo'av assassinated the unsuspecting Avner, for political motivations, in the middle of the peace talks in Hebron. All this you can read in detail in II Samuel 3:1-30.
4. David was now in the terrible situation of being suspected of having advance knowledge of Yo'av's plans, possibly of having approved them, or even of having instigated them. Worse, unless he acted quickly and appropriately he would have the North up in arms against the traitorous South, and all hopes of a peaceful reunification of the divided people would be gone. This explains the great pains David took at Avner's funeral to exculpate himself from all suspicion.
5. The Talmud [Sanhedrin 20a] recognizes this. The mishnah on that page, discussing the limitations placed on a king of Israel during times of sorrow (so that he may never lose his dignity in public), notes that a king who has suffered a bereavement does not leave his palace. The Gemara points out that while this is the general rule, a king may join a levayah [funeral procession] if he so wishes, citing David's behaviour at Avner's funeral as proof. Why did King David take part in Avner's levayah? – in order to take the opportunity to go from man to man and from man to woman to explain personally that he had nothing to do with Avner's death! (The Gemara also learns from this that there is no objection to women taking part in a funeral procession. The objection of today's ultra-orthodox to the presence of women at the grave side is kabbalistic in origin.)
6. The Gemara learns all this from a Kre-Ketiv: this refers to a situation where the traditional reading of a word is different from the written form of the word that had come down to the Massoretes (who are responsible form the Hebrew text of the Tanakh). Our text reads that the people wished to offer David the meal of consolation [lehavrot]. The sages point out that the Ketiv [written text] reads lichrot [to lynch]. This suggests that David knew that the people wished to lynch him for the dastardly assassination of Avner, but because he went from person to person during the funeral to explain that he had nothing to do with the murder, he managed to pull his chestnuts out of the fire. (I wonder what his bodyguards thought about it!) The most amazing thing is that in our present text of the Tanakh there is no Kre-Ketiv at this point!
7. David can be criticized for moral turpitude in that he did not punish Yo'av for the murder of Avner. The fact that he excuses himself ("the sons of Zeruyah are too hard for me") shows that he knew that he should have done. I suppose we can put down his negligence in this matter to "political necessity". On his death-bed, decades later, he charged his son Solomon to see to it that Yo'av ben-Zeruyah did not die a natural death – because he murdered Avner ben-Ner all those years previously!