[Avodah] Esther and the King

Lisa Liel lisa at starways.net
Wed Feb 27 10:33:04 PST 2013


On 2/27/2013 12:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> As for whether the 3 yeihareig ve'al ya'avor were in place yet, I think
> quite the reverse. At the time of the Purim story, the pesaq that there
> were ONLY three mitzvos that were YVY wasn't yet concretized. In Seifer
> Makkabiim we learn that the Chassidim haRishonim wouldn't fight a war
> on Shabbos. Piquach nefesh -- saving SOMEONE ELSE's life -- is only a
> matir / dokheh Shabbos because of the opportunity to keep more Shabbos
> later if kept alive. So it would seem to me (miqal vachomer) that Shabbos
> is only off the YVY list for this reason. And not like the other 609.

I don't believe your analysis of Sefer Maccabim is correct.  Mattitiyahu 
didn't say, "From now on, people need to fight."  He said, "We need to 
all learn how to use weapons so that we'll be able to fight."  In other 
words, the Hassidim Rishonim had a point.  They had no weapons and no 
idea how to use them, so fighting back would have been futile.  They 
decided that since they were going to die one way or another, violating 
Shabbat wasn't an option.  Mattitiyahu wanted to change the context, and 
make it so that fighting could be effective.

Lisa




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