[Avodah] [Areivim] Re Love of Israel

[Chana Luntz]

Moved to Avodah as requested

RMYG writes:

> R'n SB:
> *Before we continue, I would appreciate if someone could 
> locate those *G'marot *and other sources that show that when 
> the King of Israel or the King of *Judea, or later, King 
> Herod (for example) didn't follow Halacha -- the *citizens 
> could ignore royal commands and laws and act as they pleased.
> 
> There was a technical problem with their not listening to 
> King Herod - they would get killed. Is there any source that 
> there was a halachic problem?
> 

If you read Hilchos Melachim in the Rambam (look particularly at Perek
3) you will see that there is a general principle that anybody who
rebels against a king may be executed (see halacha 8) - the example that
the Rambam gives is the king ordering a person to go to a particular
place and him refusing.  Halacha 9 then states that if a person was
preoccupied with a mitzvah he is not liable, on the principle that d'vri
haRav (ie Hashem) takes precedence over divrei haeved (ie the king).  He
then goes on to say that it is not necessary to say that if a king
decrees to mevatel a mitzvah, he should not be listened to.  But this is
by no means written as a blanket heter to not listen to the king in all
situations but only where there is a conflict between the divrei haRav
and the divrei Haeved.  The only conclusion I think that can be drawn
from that is that if there is no conflict, one is chayav misa if one
does not obey the king.

And of course the principle of giving kovod to a King is learnt out from
Eliyahu running before Achav (see Menachos 96a) and Achav was, as we
know, involved in Avodah Zara, among other things - so not exactly the
most dedicated of shomrei mitzvos.  Nor was he a melech of beis David.

And R' Mike writes 
> >From a strictly halachic perspective, obviously all those cases were 
> >cases
> of melachim,
> which is the only halachic government. Clearly, the 
> government nowadays is not a malchus

That is in fact not so clear at all.  There is a view that where a
community of Jews have sovereignty over their own actions, and
are not under the domination of a non-Jewish ruler - that constitutes
malchus.  That is, where we do not have an individual from beis David
to rule over us, then the community as a whole
takes the "reserve powers" as it were, and is considered a king.  If you
follow this halachic line (and i believe that Rav Kook and many of his
followers do - it is based on principles in the Ran by the way) - then
the establishment of Medinat Yisroel was the
restoration of malchus to Yisroel, in the Land of Israel.

(a melech must be 
> annointed not elected, must not be a woman, must be a ben 
> david, etc, etc.). There is no torah prohibition to violate 
> the word of Ehud Olmert medin melech. The government never 
> lost it's halachic legitimacy, because it never had any.
> 
> The government has no halachic legitimacy medin melech, and 
> therefore one may certainly question it's entire legitimacy. 
> (Not that I think there is anything productive to be gained 
> from doing so).

As mentioned above, if you hold by the reserve powers rule, then this is
not in fact true.  Another (but slightly different) position on this
holds that if people accept somebody as a king over them (kablu alehem),
then that person takes on that position (not dissimilar to accepting a
judge) even if they do not otherwise fulfil the characteristics
required.  The Ramban brings this as a justification as to how Devorah
could act as shofet, and again appears to be basing it on a form of din
melech.


> KT,
> MYG

Shabbat Shalom

Chana