Sanhedrin 21: The Pitfalls of Knowing Reasons for the Mitzvot

Another daf with 2 mishnayot - on kings. First, he is prohibited from marrying too many wives - that is, no more than 18. With some dispute over whether that is because of the risk of being led astray (a problem if true of only one wife!) or an edict about the wives themselves. With a parallel question as to why the Torah prohibits taking a widow's garment as collateral - is it a matter of her financial standing or her status as a widow? Second - the king also is prohibited from having too many horses or too much wealth, and he must write his own personal Torah scroll, which he carries with him in the event of going out to war. Plus, King Solomon's marriage to the daughter of Pharaoh, and the rabbinic trace between that event and the subsequent eventual exile by Rome. Also, how King Solomon transgressed two of the kingly commandments, and how his great wisdom in understanding the reasoning behind them did not protect him from sin. Plus, the writing of the Torah scroll, and the various possible scripts (or fonts, as it were) that were in play at the time.