Who created morals? Who decides what is right or wrong? Is it possible to “nicely” conduct a warfare? Warfare is one of those topics where modern widespread morals (read “absurdity”) collide with Divine commandments. In no other topics a “political correctness” collides so much with “Torah correctness”…
We are sorry for the statement which is too obvious for any sane adults but because of the widespread acceptance of the absurd norms we have to do it as a reminder… – Any war is cruel, brutal for all the involved parties, and cannot be made “nice”, no matter how many “nice” resolutions on this matter getting born in the parlors of the United Nations. Another basic statement is this: we don’t care about opinion of other people no matter how widespread it is. We only care about the Will of God as it is expressed in His Torah. For “God is not human to change His mind“. If these statements are obvious, you can continue reading without the danger of a shock to preconditioned mind …
Rule #1 ( a moral preparation): “When you go out to war against other nations, and come face to face with horses and war-carriages and armies greater in number than yourselves, have no fear of them: for the Lord your God is with you, who took you up out of the land of Egypt“
Learn from this: 1 – Israel must get used to the fact that, according to a Divine Providence, Israel will fight against larger and well equipped armies. 2 – courage must be based on the trust in God. 3 – Trust in God is based on the knowledge of the fact – He is Real, it is Him who in the past brought our ancestors from Egypt’s slavery.
Kohanim come forward to encourage Israeli fighters even more: “today you are going forward to fight; let your heart be strong; do not let uncontrolled fear overcome you because of those who are against you; For the Lord your God goes with you, fighting for you to give you salvation from those who are against you.”
Rule #2: release from fighting all those who have unfulfilled immediate enjoyment of life: who built a house but did not live in it, who planted a vineyard but did not taste it’s produce, who is just married but was not yet with his wife. In all these cases Torah prohibits to put such a man at the front line so that he must try the result of his efforts and not make somebody else use the product of his labor. Justice for the individual preempts justice for the nation at war!
Rule #3: release from fighting all those who feel fear at heart “before he makes the hearts of his countrymen feeble“. – This is kind of extension to the Rule #1 – only courage in the ranks of Israel will bring the victory.
Rules #1 and 3 above show that Israel must not be concerned with the number of it’s own fighters nor with multitudes of the enemy. This teaches us that it is not by multitudes Israel is to win over it’s advesaries but by strong spirit based on the commitment to serve God by a warfare. This principle is highlighted in the book of Judges, the story of Gideon who’s army God commanded to be reduced to “300 lappers” so that Israel did not contribute it’s victory to the multitude of Israel but to the Divine help only.
Rule #4: “When you come to a town, before attacking it, make an offer of peace.” If peace is accepted, the inhabitants are to become servants of Israel. No promises written on paper meant here, but practical servitude. This would include either disarming of men of the town or making them fight on behalf of Israel. From the story of King David we learn that breaching such agreement automatically means a total destruction of all the men of the town without any additional offers. Such destruction to be done to the town which rejects a peace offer with Israel: “let every male in it be put to death without mercy”
(Side note for our times: how many times Israel tries to sign agreements with it’s Arab neighbors despite that none of them were fulfilled in the past? This not only goes against Torah but against common sense as well …)
And further: “But the women and the children and the cattle and everything in the town and all its wealth, you may take for yourselves: the wealth of your haters, which the Lord your God has given you, will be your food.” God outlines quite wide range of what is allowed to use as a booty from the defeated enemy but this is, as clearly expressed, what is “allowed”, not what is “commanded”. Again, the “means” described in the relation to times, habits and customs among all the nations in those times. But the message is eternal – a total destruction of the enemy by whatever means available in a given time in history.
Rule #5 regarding the nations of the Holly Land given to Israel: “So you are to do to all the towns far away, which are not the towns of these nations (inhabiting Holly Land, B.). But in the towns of these peoples whose land the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, let no living thing be kept from death“.
God clearly identifies a difference in treatment the nations far away from the Holly Land and those nations who live in the Holly Land. Torah lists all the nations living in Chanaan in those times to be subject to these commandment. Based on the presence of this listing, all the commentators concluded that this commandment is related only to those listed nations which do not exist in our times. But I wonder, if it is so, then the reasoning, put forward in Torah, which explains this commandment, is completely ignored and is not implemented in any way in our times! Specifically: “So that you may not take them as your example and do all the disgusting things which they do in the worship of their gods, this way sinning against the Lord your God.” This still could be a situation today if another nation lives side by side with Israel!
To understand this commandment in the way it was meant by God we must accept the reason provided for it. This is the same principle explained by Rambam where he said that it is impossible to fulfill a commandment without understanding it’s reason… This is a similar topic posted about the mitzvah of Amalek .
We must add here a “strange coincidence” – those who live today side by side with Jews in the Holly Land tend to display all the traits of Amalek and also they tend to influence Israel into their alien way of thinking. For example, as amazing as it is , many Jews in Israel (whatever label you put on them: leftists, liberals or whatever, for the sake of discussion they are Jews) even adopted a view provided by Arabs, that the Jews should not “occupy” many historical Jewish areas such as Hebron for example! Clearly Jews are adopting the mentality of alien nation living in the Holly Land – the main reason which was put forward in Torah to explain a required destruction of the Chanaan nations! This seem to indicate that God commanded the same treatment of the alien nation living in the Holly Land, either as a nation of Chanaan living in the Land given by God to Israel or as Amalek, who’s traits they remarkably resemble… either way you look …
