Avot251

12:
In chronological order, the next 'crown' to be instituted within the Jewish people after the crown of priesthood was the crown of royalty. According to the bible the monarchy was established in Israel at the demand of the people and against the better judgement of the prophet Samuel. Until then the theoretic situation had been that Israel was a monarchy and God was the king in that kingdom. Now that the people were demanding a mortal king, so that they could "be like all the other nations", Samuel was displeased in the extreme – and there is possibly a hint of the psychological situation of the prophet in the authorization he receives from God [1 Samuel 8:4-7]:

13:
With hindsight we can say that the appointment of Saul as king of Israel was a disaster. The man suffered from an inferiority complex which, when subjected to the pressures of the need to rule, gradually developed into manic depression. The nation only survived that disaster from the political point of view because of the personality and ability of his successor, David. But, despite the fact that when viewed through the coloured lens of future yearnings David was seen as the ideal king, when his reign is subjected to scrutiny both from the moral and from the political points of view we find a flawed man. Indeed, it is probably the fact that he is so human that endears him to us to this day.

14:
Future yearnings also present David's successor as an ideal monarch; but Solomon was far from being such. Much of his reign smacked of what today we might call the police state and even if the bible is exaggerating when it claims that he had in his harem one thousand wives and concubines it is yet obvious that Solomon made no great efforts to subdue his concupiscence.

15:
The sad story of the Kings of Israel from the death of Solomon until the demise of that kingdom in 722 BCE is one long, sad saga of kings who, according to the judgement of the biblical writer, invariably "did what was wrong in God's eyes". In the Kingdom of Judah, which survived until 587 BCE the same sad situation was lightened by the incidence here and there of kings who were given a positive write-up by the biblical historian (Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah), but in the main in Judah too the monarchy was a sad failure.

16:
It is a fact that, whatever the historical exigencies may have been, after the return from the Babylonian exile in 539 BCE the monarchy was not restored. It was only more than 300 years later the the Hasmonean family re-instituted the monarchy, and by and large that experiment too was a failure. And when the Hasmonean dynasty gave way to the Herodians the experience was so terrible that the monarchy was doomed. It is true that for a very short time King Herod Agrippa (ruled 37-44 CE) was the darling of the sages, but after his demise Israel never knew a king again.

17:
Thus we see that, as with the priesthood, the crown of royalty could never assure that the wearer of the crown was a good and decent human being.

To be continued.

In Avot 249 we had occasion to note the request that Rava made of his students: "Please do not come here to study in the months of Nisan and Tishri (when the work in the fields is at its highest), otherwise you will be bothered by your economics throughout the year."

Bayla Singer writes:

I'm sure I'm not the only one who immediately thought "High Holy Days and Pesach" – Nisan and Tishri are not only the months when "work in the fields is at its highest," they are also months containing the most time-consuming observances.

I respond:

It is true that Nisan and Tishri are two months of great festival activity, but Rava's point is economic, as the context makes clear. In ancient Israel, before the advent of Passover the barley harvest had to be in and the fruits with which we decorate our Sukkah to this day commemorate the fruit harvest which was completed at that time of the year.