[Avodah] border issues.....pikauch nefesh??

[Zev Sero]

On 26/05/2011 6:25 AM, Micha Berger wrote:

> I /think/ the primary issue dividing Lisa's post and RDI's reply is
> whether defending borders is a MM issue bizman hazeh, or if today a MM is
> only if it will make Jews safer.

Indeed, this is the issue, which ultimately boils down to a machlokes
of the Rambam and the Ramban, whether kibbush ha'aretz is one of the
613 mitzvos, and therefore applies at all times, or was a specific
mitzvah once, and will be again, but isn't right now.


> As did RYBS, when he wrote in Qol Dodi Dofeiq that if the generals and
> politicians would conclude that giving away the Kotel Plaza would save
> more Jewish lives than it would cost, we would be obligated to do so.
> IIRC, ROY holds similarly.

So did the LR, with the caveat that only the opinion of active military
experts may be listened to, not politicians, because they must be
speaking from a purely military point of view, without taking into
account any political or diplomatic considerations.  The only question
they may be asked is "will this deal *in itself* make the country easier
or harder to defend"; if they say that in itself it will make it harder
to defend, but if it works it will reduce the chance that the country
will need to be defended, we must stop listening to them, because the
halacha explicitly rules that out as a valid consideration.  And when
the question is put in those terms, the answer from the experts has
always been that any territorial concession, and even any *talk* of
concession, emboldens the enemy and endangers Jews.

IOW the above all paskened like the Rambam, that mitzvas kibbush
ha'aretz does not apply bizman hazeh.



> One would need to be a specific type of Religious Zionist, the messianic
> sort found among followers of R's Kook and Gush Emunim, to take it for
> granted that there is a chiyuv to acquire and retain territory as part
> of aschalta dege'ulasa. If today is still a full-fledged part of Galud
> Edom, I fail to see how a milkhemes mitzvah is possible

Because they hold that the mitzvah doesn't depend on the end of galus
or the beginning of geulah; it's noheg bechol hadoros, and the only
reason we did not try to fulfil it before was that we were unable to.
The moment we are able to raise an army and conquer the land, we must
attempt to do so, without regard to whether we're in galus or geulah.
Only when we have a specific commandment *not* to go, as the Ma`apilim
did, may we refrain.   At least, this is how I understand the RZ shita.



-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher