by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper
Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik held that there is never a mitzvah to fight a war, only to achieve desired ends using means up to and including war as necessary. Rav Herschel Schachter argues for the near-corollary that there is never a mitzvah to fight a losing war. In this essay, I develop Chazon Ish’s somewhat related position that standard halakhic exemptions from military service are suspended when there is risk of losing a war. This position may have surprising implications.
Devarim 20:5-7 exempts bridegrooms and several others from military duty for a year. Mishnah Sotah 4:8 clarifies that these exemptions are not absolute. The tanna kamma (anonymous first opinion) states that they apply only in a milchemet reshut (authorized but optional war), while in a milchemet mitzvah, “even the bridegroom must depart his bedchamber and the bride her canopy”. Rabbi Yehudah says that the exemptions apply only in a milchemet-mitzvah, but that in a milchemet chovah (obligatory war), “even the bridegroom etc.”
Rabbi Yehudah’s position is introduced as Amar Rabbi Yehudah, a structure that generally indicates a comment rather than a disagreement. The Yerushalmi accordingly opens by quoting Rabbi Yochanan as saying that Rabbi Yehudah agrees with the tanna kamma and changes only the language.
However, Rav Chisda understands Rabbi Yehudah as disagreeing with the tanna kamma. According to Rav Chisda, the tanna kamma applies the exemptions only in milchamot mitzvah, defined as “the war of David”, and not to milchamot chovah, defined as the “the war of Yehoshua”. By contrast, Rabbi Yehudah defines milchamot mitzvah as wars where they attack us, and milchamot reshut as wars where we attack them.
(A fundamental problem with our text of the Yerushalmi’s presentation of Rav Chisda is that his terms for war are not used consistently with the Mishnah.)
The Bavli also records two Amoraic interpretations of the Mishnah. Each is subtly different from those in the Yerushalmi, or at least understood in a subtly different way.
The first position in the Bavli, also attributed to Rav Yochanan, contends that the tanna kamma and Rabbi Yehudah have only two categories of wars, and that the tanna kamma and Rabbi Yehuda draw the line between those categories in the same place. However, they use different names for the categories; what the tanna kamma calls reshut, Rabbi Yehudah calls mitzvah, and what the tanna kamma calls mitzvah, Rabbi Yehudah calls chovah. The Bavli does not say whether this semantic dispute has any practical implication. Rabbi Yochanan also provides no explanation the categories beyond their names.
The Bavli’s second position is attributed to Rava. He suggests that the tanna kamma and Rabbi Yehuda agree that the exemptions apply to cases parallel to “the war of David for expansion”, and that they don’t apply to the “war of Yehoshua for conquest”. Their disagreement is only in the case of a war “to diminish the idolaters so that they won’t attack us”. The tanna kamma calls this reshut, and Rabbi Yehuda calls this mitzvah. These semantics make a practical halakhic difference (nafka mina), because wars termed mitzvah or chovah exempt participants from other mitzvah duties on the principle that “one who is engaged in a mitzvah is exempt from other mitzvot”, whereas wars termed reshut do not.
Rashi contends that Rava is (re)interpreting rather than disagreeing with Rav Yochanan. Whether one accepts that position or not, Rashi makes clear that the nafka mina regarding “one who is engaged in a mitzvah etc.” applies within Rabbi Yochanan’s explanation as well.
My question is: What compels the Bavli to provide a nafka mina other than the one in the mishnah, namely whether the exemptions apply?
Another question: If we grant that everyone agrees which wars the exemptions apply to, and which they don’t apply to, which side does the case of “diminish the idolaters so that they won’t attack us” fall on? Rashi holds that everyone agrees that the exemptions apply in such a case, even according to Rabbi Yehudah who calls that a milchemet mitzvah and applies osek bemitzvah to it.
Rambam in his Commentary on the Mishnah follows Rava’s explanation and then states that the Halakhah is “not like Rabbi Yehudah”. In other words, a preventive war is considered a reshut, meaning that the exemptions apply and osek bamitzvah does not.
In Mishneh Torah Laws of Kings 7:4, Rambam writes that the exemptions apply to cases of reshut and not to cases of mitzvah. In Laws of Kings, 5:1, he offers a taxonomy of wars more detailed than those in the Mishnah and Talmuds:
What is a milchemet mitzvah?
This is the war against the Seven Nations,
and the War against Amalek,
and aiding Israel out of the hand of an enemy who attacked them;
afterward (the king) may wage a milchemet reshut,
which is a war that he wages with other nations
so as to widen the boundary of Israel
and to increase his greatness and reputation.
ואי זו היא מלחמת מצוה?
זו מלחמת שבעה עממים,
ומלחמת עמלק,
ועזרת ישראל מיד צר שבא עליהם,
ואחר כך נלחם במלחמת הרשות,
והיא המלחמה שנלחם עם שאר העמים
כדי להרחיב גבול ישראל
ולהרבות בגדולתו ושמעו.
Rambam adopts Rav Chisda’s category of ‘reactive defensive war’. According to the Yerushalmi, all sides agree that such a war is a milchemet chovah. Rambam does not mention Rav Chisda’s category of preemptive war. The simple meaning, parallel to his Commentary, is that it is reshut, meaning that theexemptions apply to such a war, and osek bamitzvah does not.
(After the First Lebanon War, much ink was spilled around the question of whether this meant that a preemptive war cannot be launched in the absence of a Sanhedrin. I assume that issue can be finessed in one of the many ways developed in that literature; it matters which, but that is an issue for another day.)
Chazon Ish understands the case of preemptive war to be one in which
The language of Rambam in the Commentary (ADK: in the old translation but not in Kafah) implies
that (the idolaters) are intermittently killing Jews, but not forming up for war,
just that they have no dread of Jews,
so that when they encounter an individual Jew or Jews – they kill him,
and we go to war to weaken them and to place the dread of Israel upon them.
ובלשון הר”מ בפי’ המשנה משמע
שהורגים ישראל לפרקים, אלא שאינם עורכים מלחמה,
אלא שאין אימת ישראל עליהם,
וכשפוגשים ישראל יחידי או יחידים – הורגים אותו,
ולוחמים להחלישם ולהטיל אימת ישראל עליהם,
Chazon Ish is puzzled as to how anyone can see this as reshut – Jews are dying, how can it not be a mitzvah to fight to save them?! His answer (in Laws of Eruvin 114(3)) is that such wars are obligatory for ordinary citizens – the dispute was about whether they are obligatory for those to whom the Torah gives draft exemptions.
It seems that that which we learn in Mishnah Sotah 4:8
that for a mitzvah-war ‘even a groom leaves his bedchamber’ –
is not dealing with a time where one needs their help to achieve military victory,
as this is obvious, that because of lifesaving and nationsaving – all are obligated;
rather, even in a time when there is need only for a set number –
and that was the case in most of their wars,
that there was no place for the entire army or warriors but only for a set number –
there was permission to take the groom from his bedchamber,
because “those who go back” have no privileges in a mitzvah-war;
and so also in a reshut-war –
they are exempt only in times when the victory of Israel does not depend on them,
because the necessary number of soldiers exists apart from them,
but if they are necessary –
they are obligated to come to the aid of their brothers,
and in fact that returns the situation to one of mitzvah-war;
but this is only if Israel has already entered the war,
but at the outset – one may not enter a reshut-war if it is impossible to win without “those who go back”.
But after one enters a reshut-war with a set army, if they see the need to add soldiers –
they do not take those whom we have been commanded to send back
so long as the necessary number exists apart from them;
even though they are now attacking us,
and had they attacked us initially – this would be considered a mitzvah-war,
nonetheless, since they initially entered the war as a reshut-war –
those who go back have their privilege so long as it is possible to war using others.
But if there is need for them for military victory – even the groom exits his bedchamber,
even if they initiated the war as a reshut-war.
Exemptions apply to preemptive defensive wars so long as an adequate army can be raised without drafting the bridegrooms etc. With regard to a mitzvah war, there is no need to consider such exemptions, even if an adequate army can be raised regardless.
Moreover, Chazon Ish, contends, even If the war goes badly and more soldiers are needed, the exemptions remain in force under the same conditions, meaning that one must not draft the bridegrooms etc. so long as an adequate army can be raised without them. The war does not become a technical mitzvah-war, and it seems clear that osek bamitzvah doesn’t apply, even though participating in the war certainly fulfills a mitzvah. IN ALL WARS, bridegrooms etc. can be drafted when they are necessary for victory.
Chazon Ish thus creates a category of war that fulfills a mitzvah (rescuing Jews) but is not technically a milchemet mitzvah because it began as a war of choice, even though the goal was preemptive defense. The existence of this category is what’s at stake in the dispute between the tanna kamma and Rabbi Yehudah in Mishnah Sotah.
We follow the tanna kamma and rule that this category exists. It is worth pondering what halakhah seeks to convey by acknowledging such a category. I suggest that there may be practical differences beyond the inapplicability of osek bamitzvah and the applicability of exemptions, and welcome your suggestions as to what those might be.
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