[Avodah] Mitzvah to ensure safety of Am Yisrael?

[Michael Makovi]

Was in Areivim, "Is it ...Galut", became a discussion on whether we
should make aliyah (or stay in chutz, or do any particular deed for
that matter) as a measure to save am yisrael, or whether it is
exclusively Hashem's duty to ensure our survival

>> There is no mitzvah of assuring the survival of klal Yisrael.
>> ...
>> The survival of klal Yisrael is not, in that sense, our job.
>> Our job it to do the mitzvos to the best of our ability. HKB"H
>> made a promise to us that klal Yisrael will survive. ... It is
>> His job to make sure that promise is kept.  When we look at
>> what we need to be doing, we need to be thinking in terms of
>> what the Torah requires of us, not adding in cheshbonos about
>> things we can't possibly expect to understand, and which are,
>> strictly speaking, none of our business.


> I would like to agree, and have written similar things myself on several
> occasions. But we are quite possibly wrong.
>
> Let's note the change from the original avoidance/prohibition of writing
> down Torah Sheb'al Peh to the current allowance of it. At the time, they
> could have said something like, "Things look pretty bad. But that's Hashem's
> problem, not ours. Our job is to continue doing what our parents taught us
> to do." But they do not do that. Rather, they picked up the ball which
> HaShem seemed to have dropped, and they ran with it in His stead, kavyachol.
>
> And so perhaps we too, need to consider such cheshbonos in our decisions.
>
> Akiva Miller


The Torah She'be'al'pe example is very instructive. It seems to me that eit
la'asot lashem (ELL) itself implies that we must act to ensure our own
survival, for ELL implies that something catastrophic will happen to Am
Yisrael (we know it is catastrophic because what else can justify destroying
part of the Torah?), and we have a chiyuv to do something about it.

And the Ohr Sameah's warnings in Meshech Chochmah that a holocaust was
coming, certainly seems like an action taken to ensure our survival. Rabbi
Meir Simcha certainly did not leave it to Hashem. More prosaicly, we see the
general chiyuv to do chinuch, as I said.

Also, Rambam writes that we would have survived the Roman era had we learned
warfare instead of astrology and magic and such. I'm not sure if Rambam is
commonly accepted here, because (1) Obviously many disagree with him on the
assertion that magic is bologna, and (2) I don't know how he exactly he fits
our causeless hatred in here; maybe Rambam's intent is that our sins caused
the galut, including causeless hatred of course, but (his chiddush) also a
lazy reliance on foolish quasi-idolatry at the expense of hishtadlut. But
many surely disagree with him that our failure to learn war and/or take
practical wordly action was a factor; instead they'll say that ahavah and/or
prayer would have succeeded where astrology failed.

It is clear that Rambam's intent is that had we occupied ourselves with
practical realistic action rather than foolish astrological lunch meat, we
would have survived. At least Rambam, if no one else, seems to hold a chiyuv
to ensure our survival; otherwise, why learn warfare? Just sit and study,
and let Hashem fight our wars.

Mikha'el Makovi