[Avodah] Badatz Denounces Violent Demonstrations

[Meir Shinnar]

>
> me
> : the RZ position has that the government has the status of melech...
>
RMB
> That is A RZ position. R' Reines would not have agreed. There are  
> other
> forms of RZ than R's Kook messiano-Zionism. Most of them would  
> disagree
> with this assertion. I couldn't picture RYBS, for example, agreeing. I
> ask RHM to chime in about RAS.
>
> RJR
> ========================================================
> So in this formulation who would have the responsibility for  
> maintaining
> the social order in Israel today?
>
>
>
> RMB
>
> I think they would argue that the gov't qualifies as either tuvei
> ha'ir, or if tuvei ha'ir requires that they be observant, perhaps dina
> demalkhusa.
>
> But not din melekh.
>
  I think RMB is mixing up two separate issues.
1 is the messianic interpretation of zionut and the medina - and I  
agree that all the sources he cites (and others) do reject this  
messianic approach.

2 The second is that establishing a government means that the  
government has the right to  govern.  The question is the nature of  
the halachic status of such a right when the government is not  
committed to halacha - and there is a shitta of the ran that  
essentially a government by the consent of the people has the status  
of a melech.  This notion is not dependent at all on the messianic  
interpretation of the zionut and the medina.  (After all, the ran's  
shitta is specifically for premessianic times - not when we have the  
melech hamashiach....)

Now, all RZ, whether messianic or not, believe that the state has a  
halachic right to govern - (there are limitations on that right - if  
it would directly require violation of halacha without a halachically  
tenable justification - and much of the recent debate within the RZ  
community is whether orders to evacuate a Jewish settlement cross  
this halachic line or not) - but the fundamental acceptance of the  
halachic validity of state actions is, IMHO, universal across all  
stripes of RZ.  The ran's shitta is  the best known halachic  
justification of this shitta.  Whether it was accepted by RYBS and  
RAS, or would have been accepted by R Reines (who was pre the  
medina) , or whether they would have used another line of reasoning,  
I don't know - but this shitta does not have the messianic  
implications that they objected to.

Meir Shinnar