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| Eim haBanin Semeicha by R. Yisachar Shlomo Teichtel |
Introduction
This article – based extensively but not exclusively on the
research by Professor Reuven Firestone[1]
ꟷ
examines the Talmudic concept of שלוש השבועות or Three Oaths. It focuses on the
theological tension between the Three Oaths, which prohibit a return to
the Land of Israel until the Messiah arrives, and the desire to settle in the
Land. The Three Oaths were designed to engender a non-militaristic and
exilic ethos within the Jewish people after the defeats of the Bar Kochba
revolts against the Romans. It also touches upon the biblical notion of מלחמת מצווה, Mitzvah or Holy War.
NOTE: This is not intended to be a political discussion or commentary on the present situation in the Middle East. Rather, it is an inquiry into a Talmudic theology that has evolved dramatically and in different directions over time. Firestone’s original article was written in 2006 and I have additionally consulted various other sources entirely unrelated to present-day events. In any case, ideas discussed here can be simultaneously selected and used by protagonists and detractors from all quarters. The main concern here is the vast array of often tendentious exegesis and evolution of a Talmudic theology, paradoxically resulting in both its cancellation and resurrection.
Biblical war
The Torah is replete with references to war. Some wars are defensive, some are expansive, and others are described as ‘Holy” or ‘Mitzvah Wars,’ being condoned and even commanded by G-d. The Talmud (and the Babylonian Talmud particularly), however, generally insists on a more passive approach to be adopted by Jews [see: Kotzk Blog: 498) Did the Babylonian Talmud create the authoritative rabbi and the passive Jew?].
The redirection of the mindset of the Jew away from war by the Talmudꟷduring the early centuries of the first millenniumꟷwas in direct response to the utter devastation and ensuing reprisal attacks on Jews by the Romans, as a result of the three failed Jewish revoltsꟷperhaps conceived as ‘Holy Wars’ꟷagainst the Romans. These included the Bar Kochba rebellion in 132-5 CE (Mashiach 2020). The Talmudic rabbis tried to readdress the biblical attitude toward war so that from then on “biblical wars [would become] virtually unthinkable in their contemporary world” (Firestone 2006:954). Thus, the Talmud constructed a strategy of passivity to secure Jewish survival, particularly during those times. The Three Oaths become “the declaration of Jewish passivity during the period of exile” (Ravitzky 1996:63).
The Babylonian Talmud introduced the notion of the ‘Three Oaths.’ R. Yosi ben Chanina interpreted three verses in the Song of Songs that speak of “adjuring the maidens of Jerusalem with oaths” (Song of Songs 2:7, 3:5, 8:4) as alluding to G-d not wanting the Jewish people to hasten the redemption nor return to the Holy Land. They must rather wait patiently and passively in exile for the messianic redemption to come to them.
Based on these verses, R. Yosi ben Chanina ꟷ second generation Amora[2] ꟷ built an elaborate system of Three Oaths that he said were imposed upon the entire Jewish people, by G-d, to not attempt to gain political independence by settling en masse in the Land of Israel, nor attempt to rebel against their non-Jewish host nations. These two oaths were administered upon the Jews, but the Third Oath was upon the nations of the world, not to excessively subjugate the Jews:
לְכִדְרַבִּי יוֹסֵי בְּרַבִּי חֲנִינָא, דְּאָמַר: שָׁלֹשׁ שְׁבוּעוֹת הַלָּלוּ לָמָּה? אַחַת שֶׁלֹּא יַעֲלוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּחוֹמָה, וְאַחַת שֶׁהִשְׁבִּיעַ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁלֹּא יִמְרְדוּ בְּאוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, וְאַחַת שֶׁהִשְׁבִּיעַ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת הַגּוֹיִם שֶׁלֹּא יִשְׁתַּעְבְּדוּ בָּהֶן בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל יוֹתֵר מִדַּאי
1) The Jews must not go to the
Holy Land en masse.
2) The Jews must not rebel
against the non-Jewish nations.
3) The nations of the world must not subjugate Jews overbearingly (b. Ketuvot 111a).[3]
Rashi comments on the first oath which prescribes that “Israel must not go up (ya’alu=aliya) en masse or bechoma (lit. in a wall).” He interprets bechoma (in a wall) to mean יחד ביד חזקה, together with a forceful hand.
Because the Talmudic text is not vocalised, bechoma (in a wall) could just as easily be read bachoma (against the wall). In other words, the Jews must not go up against the wall (or ‘legal barrier’) of the Three Oaths, established by G-d to prevent mass immigration to the Holy Land.
R. Yehuda held a similar view and quoted from Jeremiah:
בָּבֶלָה יוּבָאוּ וְשָׁמָּה יִהְיוּ עַד יוֹם פׇּקְדִי אוֹתָם נְאֻם ה
“They shall be taken to Babylonia and there they shall remain until the day that I recall them, said the Lord” (Jeremiah 27:22) (b. Ketuvot 111a).
Possible Context
Although the Three Oaths is an extreme restriction against immigration to the Holy Land, it is paradoxically positioned within a pericope of the Talmud that speaks praises of living in the Land of Israel. The implication may be that individuals who go to the Land are praiseworthy as long as there is no mass return to the land.
A Holy War becomes a virtual impossibility
The extensive ramifications (for better or worse) of this Talmudic shift from the three earlier aggressive rebellions against Rome, to later political passivity in Babylonia, must not be lost on us. The Babylonian Talmudic rabbis put in place what they considered two safeguards that made war almost impossible:
1) They defined Holy War
in such a way that it would be virtually inconceivable to ever practically
apply the term again.
2) Jews would have to resign themselves to live in exile under the rule of strangers until the Messiah arrived.
אָמַר רָבָא: מִלְחֲמוֹת יְהוֹשֻׁעַ לְכַבֵּשׁ — דִּבְרֵי הַכֹּל חוֹבָה, מִלְחֲמוֹת בֵּית דָּוִד לִרְוָוחָה — דִּבְרֵי הַכֹּל רְשׁוּת
The Babylonian Talmud (Sota 44b) refers specifically to Joshua’s Wars of Conquest (milchamot Yehoshua lechabesh) when conducted under G-d’s command, as Holy Wars (milchemet mitzvah). Expansionary Wars, as in the time of King David, were seen as Discretionary Wars (milchemet reshut). A Defensive War in the Babylonian Talmud is not a Holy War.
The Jerusalem Talmud (Sota 8:10) agrees that a Holy War is only in the time of Joshua, however, it differs from the Babylonian Talmud in that it considers a Defensive War to be a Holy War.
Thus, in post-Joshua times, a Holy War is impossible according to the Babylonian Talmud and only possible accirding to the Jerusalem Talmud when Israel is attacked.
Essentially, this means that according to both Talmudim, Holy Wars can never be initiated by Israel. They were only undertaken, historically, in the times of Joshua and under G-d’s command.
Grappling with the notion of Holy War
The severity of the extremely restrictive Three Oaths seems to have met with disapproval by Maimonides who chose to ignore it. He excluded the Three Oaths from his enumeration of the 613 Commandments in his Sefer haMitzvot (although he did mention it in his Letter to Yemen, perhaps to discourage the Yemenites from following a false Messiah leading them to the Land of Israel).
Maimonides, interestingly, also ignored the Conquest of the Land, the commanded or Holy War, and even Settlement in the Land, as commandments in his Sefer haMitzvot.
His rival, Nachmanides, however, considered establishing a household in the Land as equivalent to ‘Conquering the Land.’ As we shall see, this view of Nachmanides ꟷ that settling in the Land is tantamount to conquering it ꟷ was later to become a cornerstone source for the Religious Zionist settler movement under R. Tzvi Yehuda Kook.
This illustrates that despite the Three Oaths, the notion of Holy War was never entirely expunged from the Jewish collective memory. According to Aviezer Ravitzky (1996:80) and Firestone (2006:954), the seeds of Holy War lay dormant until as recently as the Six-Day War of 1967. This hypothesis can, as we shall see, be mapped in the literary theological writings of the leaders of the Religious Zionist movement which bear witness to this resurrection of the concept of Holy War.
The rise of religious Zionism
The Three Oaths generally held sway over the Jewish people until the early stages of modern Zionism where, towards the end of the eighteenth century, several religious (including Chassidic and Mitnagdic) aliyot (immigrations) to the Holy Land were initiated [see: Kotzk Blog: 476) Did the Vilna Gaon’s Religious Zionism precede modern Secular Zionism? and Kotzk Blog: 477) The extreme messianic mysticism of the students of the Vilna Gaon].
With the birth of the State of Israel in 1948, the original
conflict between Arabs and Israelis was essentially nationalistic and secular.
With time it began to turn into a religious conflict. Firestone (2006:955)
notes that we generally see our world as a process of secularisation, but in
this case, we witness the exact opposite, desecularisation and a return to
religion and the original biblical notion of Holy War.
In terms of theology (putting politics aside, and for whatever reasons, and for better or worse), in contemporary times we have witnessed a fundamental departure from the classical rabbinic and Talmudic ethos towards war. This change necessitated a ‘cancellation’ or ‘expiry theology’ to counter the apparent authoritative Three Oaths of the Talmud. But is also sometimes called for a ‘resurrection’ theology.
Cancellation and expiry theologies
The Cantonists Decree as the breaking of the Third Oath
Already during the various eighteenth and nineteenth-century waves of religious immigration to the Land of Israel, we find a cancellation theology beginning to evolve. In 1808, eleven years after the passing of the Vilna Gaon, the first group of his followers made the first of many aliyot to the Holy Land under the leadership of his student, R. Menachem Mendel of Shklov (Michal 2024:320).
Arie Morgenstern (2006:87) writes that the Vilna Gaon’s students were “fully aware that they were acting in a revolutionary manner” by actively transgressing the Talmudic ban of the Three Oaths, by pressing for the messianic End and immigrating to the Land:
“[The students of the Vilna Gaon] explicitly departed from the traditional stance, confronted it, and rejected it” (Morgenstern 2006:87).
Morgenstern (2006:88) goes on to emphasise that this messianic awakening by the Perushim, as the students of the Vilna Gaon were known, was revolutionary in the extreme, and could only have endured its departure from traditionalism with the support and authorization of their leader, the Vilna Gaon. At the centre stage of the messianic program was the settlement in, and redemption of, the land:
“Redemption of the Land was the highest concern of the Vilna Gaon’s disciples…Settlement of the Land of Israel was not a means…but an end in itself…building the Land was the principal goal” (Morgenstern 2006:90).[4]
The difficulty, of course, was the seemingly binding prohibition of such immigration stemming from the Three Oaths. Nevertheless, they found a way to explain the expiry of the Three Oaths. Historically, before the first half of the eighteenth century, there was little Jewish habitation in Czarist Russia. This was mainly due to religious exclusionism by the Russian authorities. However, this began to change in the late 1700s after the partitions of Poland, and soon Russia was home to about a million Jews. This made it the largest centre of Jews in Europe (Morgenstern 2006:14). With this large immigration of Jews to Russia, came the intolerable Cantonists’ Decree of the Russian army draft between 1827 and 1857, which included Jewish children from as young as eight. Its program of intense Russification and assimilation of Jews was interpreted as the breaking of the Third Oath by the nations of the world, ‘not to subjugate Israel overbearingly.’ For many, including the students of the Vilna Gaon, the Cantonists’ Decree now signalled the end of the period of adherence to the Three Oaths (R. Yisrael of Shklov, Igrot Eretz Yisrael, 1943:352).
R. Menachem Mendel Kasher (1895-1983)
R. Menachem Mendel Kasher was the author of the popular Torah Sheleimah. In 1925, on the instruction of the Gerer Rebbe (R. Avraham Alter), he emigrated to Jerusalem to establish Yeshivat Sefat Emet. After the establishment of the State of Israel, R. Kasher wanted to institute a custom of drinking a fifth cup of wine at the Passover Seder, but the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, interestingly, rejected his innovation. According to R. Kasher, the Three Oaths can be considered null and void when a hostile government persecutes Jews. In this case, it would have been the Holocaust:
ואם המלך והממשלה עוברים על השבועה ורודפים את ישראל ומשעבדים עמהם אזי רשאי לישראל גם כן לעבור על שבועתם
“If the king and government break their Oath and persecute or subjugate Jews, then it is acceptable for Israel to break it [i.e., the other two] Oaths” (R. Menachem Kasher, Daat Torah al haShevua shelo yaalu Yisrael bechoma leEretz Yisrael).[5]
Adopting political
methodologies
R. Yisachar
Shlomo Teichtal
R. Yisachar Shlomo Teichtal, who had first-hand experience of the Holocaust, writes about the problem of the Three Oaths in his book Eim haBanim Semecha. He lived his earlier life as an anti-Zionist but the events of the Holocaust turned him into a Zionist. He encouraged Jews to go back to the biblical paradigm and learn how to wage war and defend themselves. As for the Talmudic impediment of the Three Oaths, he felt that one could sidestep the prohibition of “ascending in a wall” by ascending less overtly through negotiations, and legal procedures instead:
“[W]e are to use the natural means available to us, such as requesting
that the [political] leaders have mercy on us to end our exile and to conquer
the land [not by might, but] through [legal] monetary acquisition…but not to
rely on miracles” (Teichtel 1999:194-5).
Teichtel’s notion of not relying on miracles is a total reworking of the traditional understanding of the Three Oaths because they were usually understood as a prohibition against returning to the Land, and that Jews should rather wait for the Messiah and miracles. Now negotiation becomes a cancellation theology.
R. Nachman of
Breslov
Teichtel’s resort to politics and negotiations as a cancellation theology for the Three Oaths is an interesting position. It seems to reflect the opinion of R. Nachman of Breslov in his recently discovered secret writings, where he similarly calls for political negotiating and not war, in a return to Zion:
“Each of the kings will give him [i.e. the Jews] a present…and he will
exchange with each of them until he receives through barter the Land of Israel”
(R. Nachman of Breslov Megilat Setarim, Section II, line 25).
[See: Kotzk Blog: 463) The discovery of R. Nachman’s Secret Scroll].
R. Yitzchak haLevi
Hertzog
The first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine under the British Mandate, R. Yitzchak haLevi Hertzog adopted a similar approach. He replied to a question in a responsum about the impediment of the Three Oaths to the establishment of a Jewish state. His response reflects the same idea of political negotiation with international powers as a legitimate cancellation theology sufficient to nullify the Three Oaths:
“There is no ruling (halacha) that forbids us from establishing a
Jewish State with permission of the nations (birshut haUmot) [i.e.,
legally, even] before the coming of the Redeemer” (Hertzog n.d.:1:121).
R. Hertzog added one other creative detail. He reminded his people that the Three Oaths were only concerned with Jews not rebelling against the nations of the world, but “it is not said that God made Israel swear not to [wage] war against the nations of the world” (Ibid.). This was in reference to Jews who fought for the British Mandate against British enemies during World War II.
Taking cancellation theology even further, Hertzog explains that the reason why Maimonides omitted the Three Oaths from his Sefer haMitzvot, as mentioned earlier, was simply because the nations of the world had already mistreated and subjugated the Jews overbearingly in earlier centuries. Thus, Israel had long since been released from the Three Oaths and this was not a new innovation.
Maharsha (R. Shmuel Eliezer Eidels) (1555-1631)
Born in Krakow, R. Shmuel adopted the family name Eidels after his mother-in-law Eidel who supported him financially for twenty years. His pragmatic interpretation of the Three Oaths was:
ודאי דרשות לכל אחד מישראל לעלות לארץ ישראל, אלא שלא יעלו ביחד ביד חזקה, ולבנות להם חומות ירושלים. ונחמיה אמר:"לכו ונבנה את חומת ירושלים ולא נהיה עוד חרפה" ברשות המלך היה
“It is certainly permissible for any Jew to go up to Israel, except they should not go up together with force and build for themselves the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah [built the walls]…but only with permission from the king” (Maharsha, Chidushei Agadot Masechet Ketuvot 111a).
Incidentally,
I did notice that Sefaria[6]
translated “It is certainly permissible,” as “Of course every
Israelite is required to move to Israel,” which is not what ודאי דרשות means. In any event, Maharsha permits
limited immigration to the Land, but only within legal bounds or “permission
from the king.”
Religious
Zionism
Most of the earliest Zionists were observant Jews, but the character of the movement soon changed and commanded an extremely secular position (Firestone 2006:964, Luz 1988:66-7). The secularist Zionists did not believe in the Three Oaths, although the Religious Zionist minority did ꟷ and they, in turn, had to answer to the mainstream Orthodox camp, which certainly upheld the validity of the Three Oaths.
To counter this type of opposition to Zionism, the later Religious Zionists also had to develop a cancellation theology. They didn’t have to look far or innovate too much because it was difficult to argue against the idea that immigration to Israel was a life-saving and emergency project to save Jews from another potential Holocaust. This, surely, would warrant the annulment of the Three Oaths.
But once again Firestone emphasises that:
“the truly messianic nature of what has come to be known as ‘Religious Zionism’ only became publicly acknowledged by Religious Zionists…after what was considered the divine miracle of victory in the June war of 1967…[I]t seemed as if a dam had burst and everyone in the Religious Zionist camp was writing about the beginning of messianic redemption” (Firestone 2006:964-5).
With this open rebirth of messianism came a simultaneous rebirth of what had until then been the dormant and practically inapplicable biblical notion of Holy War. Based on the actual trail of recorded literature, Firestone notes that peaks in more recent references to messianism and Holy War:
“cannot be found in the writings on the topic before the paradigm shift of the 1967 war” (Firestone 2006:966).
I emphasise ‘recent references’ considering that the earlier aliyot of the students of the Vilna Gaon were indeed also messianically motivated [see Kotzk Blog: 475) Messianic Mitnagdim].
Evolution of
Zionism
Together with the evolution of various cancellation theologies to the Three Oaths, Zionism itself had also evolved:
“Zionism, always a movement of Jewish nationalism, thus adjusted and
evolved from an avowedly secular movement in the beginning of the twentieth
century to an increasing religious one by its end…The concept of ‘conquest of
the land’, for example, had earlier been applied by secular revisionist and
socialist Zionists to their own political ideologies, such as a return to
agriculture…In the discourse of the new ‘Jewish’ Zionisms, conquest hearkens
back to the Talmudic rendering of Joshua’s conquest of the Land of Canaan…of
divinely sanctioned conquest” (Firestone 2006:974).
If the past is anything to go by, this process of exegetical evolution and cancellation theology will no doubt continue into the future:
“Only in some future generation will we know where the evolving
doctrine of Jewish holy war has alighted, after which it will again inevitably
take to the air and reconfigure itself when the need arises…” (Firestone
2006:977).
Literary trail
of cancellation theology from Religious Zionist leadership
R. Shlomo Zalman
Shragai (1898-1995)
After the Six-Day War, R. Shlomo Zalman Shragai, representing the Religious Zionist Mizrachi organisation proclaimed in a speech at Heichal Shelomo, the seat of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel:
“At this time we have seen such miracles and wonders that, the vow or what is known as the ‘Three Vows’ has fallen and is annulled…we need to remember…that…the divine presence will return to its place only with the ascension of Jews as a wall (kachoma)” (Shragai 1969:276—7).
One notices a subtle play on words here. The Talmud prohibited ascending to the Land bachoma (in a wall), but Shragai replaced it with the much stronger kachoma (as a wall). This is an allusion to another Talmudic passage:
“If you had made yourself strong as a wall and had gone up
altogether in the days of Ezra, you would be like silver that never rots” (Yoma
9b).
In other words, if more Jews had left their exile in Babylon to return to the Holy Land and rebuild the Second Temple, the Jews would have maintained an eternal presence in the Land. Shragai is not only cancelling the Three Oaths but defying it by encouraging a mass movement of Jews to Israel.
R. Shlomo Goren (1917-1994)
R. Shlomo Goren (d. 1995) was the Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces and later the Chief Rabbi of Israel. He cites three reasons why the Three Oaths have been annulled.
i) According to R. Chaim Vital (d. 1620) ꟷ a major student of the Ari Zal (R. Yitzchak Luria) ꟷ his teacher had placed a one-thousand-year time limit on the Three Oaths. This had already elapsed.
ii) According to R. Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (d. 1926) the signing of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 was a public agreement, and therefore aliya can no longer be considered a rebellion against the nations of the world.
iii) Again citing R. Chaim Vital, R. Goren explains that when Israel is sincerely yearning for the Messiah, then G-d will yearn to bring the Messiah too, and the Three Oaths will naturally be annulled. This may explain why a rise in messianism would assist the cancellation theology of the nullification of the Three Oaths.
R. Phinchas haLevi Horowitz (1731-1804)
In a similar sense
to R. Chaim Vital, R. Phinehas haLevi Horowitz, the author of the Talmudic commentary Sefer Hafla’ah, limited the jurisdiction of the Three Oaths, not to time, but to space, Babylonia. Babylonia was generally good to
the Jews and the Babylonian Jews were encouraged not to leave “so as not to
forsake the [special] holiness residing there” (Sefer Hafla’ah on Ketuvot 111a).
R. Tzvi Yehuda
Kook (d. 1982)
R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook succeeded his illustrious father R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook (1865-1935) ꟷ the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine ꟷ as head of Mercaz haRav Kook. R. Tzvi Yehuda was one of the founders of the settler movement [see Kotzk Blog: 172) ‘ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PAGES OF RAV KOOK HAVE BEEN WITHHELD FROM US’:and Kotzk Blog: 115) THE CENSORED WRITINGS OF RAV KOOK:].
“His yeshiva students strove to live deeply religious lives through carrying out the activist ‘settlement=conquest’ program of Nachmanides. They were also powerfully influenced by the earlier generations of secular-messianist Zionist pioneers” (Firestone 2006:972).
Initially, the movement was non-violent but this changed after the 1967 war. Just before the Yom Kippur War of 1973, R. Tzvi Yehuda was asked how his view could be reconciled with those of the Three Oaths. This was his response:
“With regard to the rebellion against the nations of the world, when we were forced to expel English rule from here it was not rebellion against them, for they were not the legal rulers over our land. Rather [they were] temporary mandatory authorities…[With regard to] ascension in a wall [probably better read as bachoma, against the wall, rather than bechoma, in a wall]…this wall is nothing but the rule of the nations over our land…But in the course of the results of the [messianic] revealed End, it was annulled…” (haTzofeh, September 15, 1973).
R. Avraham
Rivlin
According to the Mashgiach Emeritus of Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh, R. Avraham Rivlin:
“[O]nce there is a sign from Hashem to return to the land, the oaths no
longer apply. In addition to the permission given by the nations, the national
reawakening and birth of modern Zionism can be viewed as a sign from Hashem
that it is permissible to return to the land…[T]he only way to violate the oath
would be if people came to Eretz Yisrael in very large groups. Since the Jews
entered the land slowly, and over the course of many years, they did not
violate the oath” (Torat Yavneh).[7]
R. Eliezer
Melamed
R. Eliezer Melamed, author of the Halachic anthology Peninei Halacha, first presents one interpretation of the Three Oaths as being applicable until the arrival of the Messiah. This literal reading is found in a fifteenth-century work entitled Megilat Ester by R. Yitzchak de Leon.[8] However, R. Melamed strongly counters that view with the dissenting opinions of “the rest of the great Rishonim and Aĥaronim.”[9] This notwithstanding Maimonides’ omission of the command of settling the Land. R. Melamed argues that the reason why Maimonides did not list settling the Land was simply because it was a:
“general mitzvah, upon which many mitzvot depend, and actually, all of the Torah.”[10]
R. Melamed also refers to the section in the Talmud dealing with the Three Oaths as a non-binding section because:
“one should not infer from this aggadic statement that the mitzva of settling Eretz Yisrael no longer applies.”[11]
This is based on the principle that we do not learn practical law, or Halacha, from an Aggadic or Midrashic section of Jewish literature (R. Avraham Bornstein, Avnei Nezer, Yoreh De’ah 454). R. Bornstein (1838-1910) also suggests that once the nations of the world have given permission for a Jewish State to exist, it signals the annulment of the Three Oaths.
R. Melamed writes that Rif, Rosh and other commentators do not mention the Three Oaths either, because its source is Aggadic. The Shulchan Aruch also does not mention the Three Oaths. This is because, according to R. Melamed, they all believed it was a command to ascend to the Land.
On the question of
the ‘Aggadic status’ of the Three Oaths, however, already
in the time of Nachmanides (who promoted settling in the Land as equivalent to conquering
it):
“the three oaths were powerfully reinvoked and even worked into the
realm of halakhic discussion” (Ravitzky 1996:220).
R. Melamed further offers
a novel interpretation of what the Talmudic expression ascending in a wall means:
“Indeed, there is reason to fear that, because of the hardships of exile and the protracted period of longing for redemption, people will ascend to Eretz Yisrael impetuously, without any practical means by which to build the land and defend themselves against the nations of the world. This will lead to destruction and crisis instead of the beginning of the redemption. Therefore, God made us swear that we will not attempt to return before carefully calculating our actions. Rather, we should ascend and build the land gradually, in coordination with the nations of the world, or by way of manifest miracles, if we deserve the ‘I will speed it’ form of redemption.”[12]
Although R. Melamed
writes that besides R. Yitzchak de Leon’s view that the Three Oaths
still apply, “the rest of the great Rishonim and Aĥaronim” counter that
position, it seems that numerous other rabbis indeed did not seek to apply a
cancellation theology to the Three
Oaths [see Kotzk Blog: 050) The Ethical Halachist].
R. Don Yitzchak
Abravanel (1437-1508)
R. Yitzchak Abravanel writes that the force of the Three Oaths serves to bind Israel:
“to suffer the yoke of their exile and dwell under the rule of the nations until the final days … and not to rebel and leave the exile before the time fixed by God” (Yeshuot Meshiho, Section 1).
Maharal of
Prague (1512-1609)
Another example is
the Maharal of Prague who writes that the exile must be borne with acceptance
and calmness, and any attempt to push a messianic fate is doomed to fail (Be’er haGolah, Be’er 7;6).
In all this complexity, it is noteworthy that the Karaites appear to have been favourably disposed towards ascending to the Land:
Karaites
The Karaite Jews, who only upheld the written law whilst rejecting the rabbinic oral traditions, enthusiastically encouraged their followers to immigrate to the Land of Israel. The tenth-century Karaite scholar, Daniel al-Qumisi, criticised the Jews who displayed a passive disposition toward the Land. He wrote:
“The scoundrels among the people of Israel say to one another: ‘We need not go up to Jerusalem until we are ingathered by He who thrust us out.’ These are the words of fools…”
Ravitzky (n.d.:53) points out that al-Qumisi’s position seems to have been antithetical to the prevalent rabbinic approach at that time, which was not to encourage immigration to the Land.
In more recent times, some rabbis went so far as to actively apply a resurrection theology to the Three Oaths, specifically in opposition to the nascent modern Zionist movement:
R. Eliakum Shlomo Shapiro of Grodno
In what is probably the first time the term “State of Israel” was used in Hebrew literature, R. Eliakum Shlomo Shapiro decried the Zionist movement and wrote:
“And how can I endure its being called a State of Israel without Tora and Mitzva, Heaven forbid? (R. Eliakum Shapiro, Or laYesharim, 57).
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R. Sholom Dovber Schneerson (1860-1920)
To add to the tension over the ideological roots of modern Zionism, in 1899, R. Sholom Dovber Schneerson, the fifth Chabad Rebbe − in an initiative that has come to haunt his legacy – equated Zionism with Sabbatianism. Under the auspices of the anti-Zionist Machzikei haDat, he:
“sponsored the idea of an open attack on the entire Zionist movement… [this led to] thousands of copies of letters signed by well-known rabbis, branding Zionism a Shabbetaean cult that aimed ‘to uproot the tenets of our faith’” (Greenbaum 1995:138).
As part of his argument,
he also referenced the Three Oaths. He writes:
“The Zionists will never succeed in gathering themselves together [in the Holy Land] by their own power. All their forces and many stratagems and strivings will be to no avail against the will of God” (R. Sholom Dovber Schneerson, Igerot Kodesh).
Surprisingly for those familiar with Chabad today, R. Shalom Dovber:
"laid the cornerstone of a principled ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) critique of Zionism...devoting considerable energy to implanting the idea that a political Zionist awakening as such—quite apart from the movement’s secular character—was a denial of messianism…in seeking to bring redemption through human efforts…" (Ravitzky 1996:15).
In keeping with Three Oath theology of not using force and not hastening the messianic end, he writes:
"we must not heed them in their call to achieve redemption on our own, for we are not permitted to hasten the End even by reciting too many prayers, much less so by corporeal stratagems, that is, to set out from exile by force" (R. Sholom Dovber Schneerson, Or laYesharim, 57).
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This view was later to be echoed in the writings of his son, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, who called for separation from the Zionists. He encouraged his followers:
“to separate from this congregation…which is striving to come up to Eretz Israel, contrary to the law of the Torah and contrary to the command and the prohibition of the Lord” (R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, Michtav Oz Shel Torah).
R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, wrote his Michtav Oz Shel Torah which was a 1923 polemic against Agudat Yisrael and its president, the Rebbe of Gur (Imrei Emet) and vice president, R. Mordechai Yosef Elazar Leiner of Radzin, for facilitating the settlement of religious Jews in the Land of Israel.
R. Yoel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe (1887-1979)
The Song of Songs, the source for the Three Oaths, has infamously become “the locus classicus for the…anti-Zionist position” (Schacter 2006:55). This position is perhaps best exemplified by the Satmar Rebbe, R. Yoel Teitelbaum. He claims that the reason why the Jews were subjected to the Holocaust was a punishment from G-d because they disregarded the Three Oaths (Vayoel Moshe 1961). The title of the book is significant because it is taken from Exodus 2:21 which speaks of Moses agreeing to remain with Jethro and remain “a stranger in a foreign land.” It has a section, Maamar Shalosh Shavuot, which specifically deals with the implications of the Three Oaths. R. Teitelbaum goes on to say that Zionism is incompatible with Judaism and also maintains that it is forbidden to speak Modern Hebrew. Most interesting is his view that the nations of the world never broke their oath to not harm the Jews more than necessary.
On a personal note,
I find his section on speaking Modern Hebrew, Maamar Leshon haKodesh,
rather interesting because R. Teitelbaum wrote it in response to a question
posed by R. Pinchas Hirschsprung, from whom I received Semicha [see Kotzk Blog: 174) A TRIBUTE TO R. PINCHAS
HIRSCHPRUNG:].
We have explored how the Talmudic conceptualisation of the Three Oaths, derived from three obscure verses in the Song of Songs, has left a trail of theological tension in rabbinic literature from antiquity to the present day. It forced the rabbis ꟷ be they Amoraim, Rishonim, Acharonim, later Chassidim or their polar opposite Mitnagdim, modern Zionists, anti-Zionists, Religious Zionists and anti-Religious Zionists ꟷ to seek to authenticate their diverse theologies concerning the Return to the Land on their own terms. This resulted in an unstable and inhomogeneous albeit creative combination of mutually exclusive cancellation and resurrection theologies. By either abolishing or reviving the theologies of the Three Oaths, the various interest groups have engaged very differently with the same few lines in the Babylonian Talmud ꟷ in ways that its author could never have imagined in his time-specific Babylonian context around the third century CE, let alone the original writer of the Song of Songs.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bartal,
I., 1995, Galut baAretz: Yishuv Eretz Yisrael beterem Tziyonut [Exile in the
Land: The Settlement of the Land of Israel before Zionism] (Hebrew),
haSifriya haTziyonit, Jerusalem 1995.
Etkes, I., 2024, The Invention of a Tradition: The
Messianic Zionism of the Gaon of Vilna, Stanford University Press,
Stanford.
Firestone, R., 2006, ‘Holy War in Modern Judaism?
“Mitzvah War” and the Problem of the “Three Vows”’, Journal of the American
Academy of Religion, vol. 74, no. 4, 954-982.
Greenbaum,
M., 1995, The Jews of Lithuania: A
History of a Remarkable Community 1316-1945, Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem.
Hertzog, Y.,
n.d., The Collected Writings of
Rabbi Yitzhaq Isaac HaLevi Hertzog,
vol.1 (Hebrew). Mosad HaRav Kook and HaRav Hertzog, Jerusalem.
Luz, E., 1988, Parallels Meet, Jewish
Publication Society, Philadelphia.
Mashiach, A., 2020, ‘The Failure of the Major Revolts
and its Impact on Jewish Identity’, Journal for the Study of Religions
and Ideologies, vol. 19, issue 56,96-109.
Michal, G., 2024, Sabbatian influences on the
Chassidic and Mitnagdic movements: An excursion into messianic Kabbalah and its
disseminators in the aftermath of Shabbatai Tzvi, Ph.D. Thesis, University of
Pretoria.
Morgenstern, A., 2006, Hastening Redemption:
Messianism and the Resettlement of the Land of Israel, Translated by Joel A.
Linsider, Oxford University Press, New York.
Ravitzky, A., 1987, ‘Redemption and Covenant:
Religious Zionism of Another Kind,’ Forum: On the Jewish People, Zionism,
and Israel, no. 60, 28-34.
Ravitzky, A.,1996, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish
Religious Radicalism, Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism, The
University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Schacter, J.J., 2006, ‘Religious Zionism and the Meanings of
Redemption’, TRADITION, vol. 39, no. 3, Rabbinical Council of America,
54-58.
Shragai, S., 1969, ‘Ascension to the Land: Eternal
Command’, Shanah beShanah, 275-8.
Teichtal, S., 1999, Eim haBanim Semeicha
(Hebrew), Kol Mevaser, Jerusalem.
Yaari, A., (Editor), 1943, Igrot Eretz Yisrael
[Letters from the Land of Israel], Gazit, Tel Aviv.
I thank Dr Avi Harel for the following sources:
הרב מנחם מנדל כשר, דעת תורה על השבועה שלא יעלו ישראל בחומה לא"י,מתוך אתר נטרונא, דעת תורה על השבועות שלא יעלו ישראל בחומה לא"י
[1]
Firestone, R., 2006, ‘Holy War in Modern Judaism? “Mitzvah War” and the Problem
of the “Three Vows”’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol.
74, no. 4, 954-982.
[2]
An Amora is a sage of the Gemara Period (210-500 CE). Thus, this
teaching would would have been presented about a century and a half after the
Bar Kochba Revolt.
[3] The
three verses from Song of Songs follow:
הִשְׁבַּ֨עְתִּי אֶתְכֶ֜ם בְּנ֤וֹת
יְרוּשָׁלַ֙͏ִם֙ בִּצְבָא֔וֹת א֖וֹ בְּאַיְל֣וֹת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה אִם־תָּעִ֧ירוּ ׀ וְֽאִם־תְּע֥וֹרְר֛וּ
אֶת־הָאַהֲבָ֖ה עַ֥ד שֶׁתֶּחְפָּֽץ
1) “I adjure you, O maidens of Jerusalem, By
gazelles or by hinds of the field: Do not wake or rouse Love until it please”
(Song of Songs 2:7).
הִשְׁבַּ֨עְתִּי אֶתְכֶ֜ם בְּנ֤וֹת
יְרוּשָׁלַ֙͏ִם֙ בִּצְבָא֔וֹת א֖וֹ בְּאַיְל֣וֹת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה
אִם־תָּעִ֧ירוּ ׀ וְֽאִם־תְּע֥וֹרְר֛וּ אֶת־הָאַהֲבָ֖ה עַ֥ד שֶׁתֶּחְפָּֽץ׃
2) “I adjure you, O maidens of Jerusalem, By
gazelles or by hinds of the field: Do not wake or rouse Love until it please”
(Song of Songs 3:5).
הִשְׁבַּ֥עְתִּי אֶתְכֶ֖ם בְּנ֣וֹת
יְרוּשָׁלָ֑͏ִם מַה־תָּעִ֧ירוּ ׀ וּֽמַה־תְּעֹ֥רְר֛וּ אֶת־הָאַהֲבָ֖ה עַ֥ד
שֶׁתֶּחְפָּֽץ
3) “I adjure you, O maidens of Jerusalem: why wake or why rouse Love until it please” (Song of Songs 8:4).
[4] Not everyone agrees with Morgenstern on the messianic nature of these immigrations. Immanuel Etkes, completely denies any messianic motivation whatsoever and sees no link between:
“the immigration to the Land of Israel by students of the Gaon [and] to any initiative or instruction of their rabbi [the Vilna Gaon]. Likewise, his words give no support to the claim that this immigration involved a Messianic expectation” (Etkes 2024:32).
For Etkes (2024:32) − and Israel Bartal (1995:52) −
the main reason for their journeying to the Land was “the centrality of
Torah study” which is better achieved in that holy place.
[5]
https://www.daat.ac.il/daat/kitveyet/shana/daat-2.htm
[6]
https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/82340.6?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en.
[7]
https://www.kby.org/english/torat-yavneh/view.asp?id=3970
[8]
According to R. Tzadok haCohen, the Megilat Ester would agree that nowadays
it is a mitzvah to settle in the Land (Divrei Soferim 14).
[9]
https://www.yeshiva.co/midrash/48173.
[10]
https://en.yhb.org.il/the-obligation-to-immigrate-to-israel/.
[11]
https://www.yeshiva.co/midrash/48173.
[12]
https://www.yeshiva.co/midrash/48173.
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