Shevet Achim Gam Yachad?

David HaMelech wrote in Tehilim 133:1,

שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת, לְדָוִד:הִנֵּה מַה-טּוֹב, וּמַה-נָּעִים שֶׁבֶת אַחִים גַּם-יָחַד

How pleasant and nice it is for brothers to live together.

This is a very famous pasuk that celebrates the concept of unity among the Jewish people. Yet I am forced to ask myself, "How often has this pasuk actually been realized?" My experience of the Jewish world, is that not enough Jews are making an effort to live together. This painful fact of life was reinforced for me in מלכים א פרק ט''ו which is the account of King Assa.

Now any of you out there in the hinterlands of the blogoshpere who have learned Sefer Melachim, know that a good king can be hard to find. So you can imagine my joy to read in pasuk 11 that Assa was an upright king, "ויעש הישר בעיני יקוק." However, I was then dismayed to read in pesukim 15-24 that King Assa took all of the money in Yehudah and gave it to Ben-Hadad the king of Aram (aka Syria) to attack Basha the king of Israel.

Where is the, "שבת אחים גם יחד"!? I understand the King Assa was losing a war to the idolotrous King Basha - but there must be a better answer than bankrupting the kingdom to hire Ben-Hadad. I was actually almost in tears as I read these pesukim thinking about how this money was wasted because of a futile war. I hope that we can all learn from the mistakes of the past and avoid repeating them.