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Holy War in Modern Judaism? "Mitzvah War" and the Problem of the "Three Vows" Author(S): Reuven Firestone Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol

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Holy War in Modern Judaism? Holy War in Modern Judaism? "Mitzvah War" and the Problem of the "Three Vows" Author(s): Reuven Firestone Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Dec., 2006), pp. 954- 982 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4139958 Accessed: 18-08-2018 15:51 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Academy of Religion This content downloaded from 128.95.104.66 on Sat, 18 Aug 2018 15:51:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Holy War in Modern Judaism? "Mitzvah War" and the Problem of the "Three Vows" Reuven Firestone "Holy war," sanctioned or even commanded by God, is a common and recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible. Rabbinic Judaism largely avoided discussion of holy war for the simple reason that it became dangerous and self-destructive. The failed "holy wars" of the Great Revolt and the Bar Kokhba Rebellion eliminated enthusiasm for it among the survivors engaged in reconstructing Judaism from ancient biblical religion. The rabbis therefore built a fence around the notion through two basic strat- egies: to define and categorize biblical wars so that they became virtually unthinkable in their contemporary world and to construct a divine con- tract between God, the Jews, and the world of the Gentiles that would establish an equilibrium preserving the Jews from overwhelming Gentile wrath by preventing Jewish actions that could result in war. The notion of divinely commanded war, however, was never expunged from the repertoire of Jewish ideas. Remaining latent, it was able to be revived when the historical context seemed to require it. Such a revival occurred with the rise of Zionism and particularly after the 1967 and 1973 wars. THE VIOLENT CONFLICT BETWEEN JEWS AND ARABS over the Land of Israel/Palestine' originated in the late nineteenth and early Reuven Firestone is a professor at the Hebrew Union College, 3077 University Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90007. 1 Terminology is sensitive on this issue because no term, either for the protagonists (i.e., Israelis/ Zionists/Jews and Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims) or the land (i.e., Land of Israel, State of Israel, Palestine, Holy Land), is free from particular religiopolitical perspectives. Because this study treats a particular Jewish perspective regarding land that is defined, according to those holding that perspective, as the "Land of Israel," we freely use that term. Journal of the American Academy of Religion December 2006, Vol. 74, No. 4, pp. 954-982 doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfl027 ? The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] Advance Access publication November 3, 2006 This content downloaded from 128.95.104.66 on Sat, 18 Aug 2018 15:51:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Firestone: Holy War in Modern Judaism? 955 twentieth centuries as a conflict between competing national move- ments. It was a secular conflict and recognized as such. But in the last third of the twentieth century, it has been described increasingly by both sides as a conflict between religions. We are used to processes of secular- ization, but here we have movement in the opposite direction. How did something that both sides saw as secular become something both sides see as religious? Much thought and analysis has been applied in recent years to under- standing religious justification for warring in Islamic tradition (Cook 2005, Johnson and Kelsay 1990, Kelsay 1993). But surprisingly, little attention has been given to the fact that religious justification for warring has become an increasingly important motivation among certain sectors of the Jewish population as well. What follows is a study of one aspect of the problematic of divine authority for engaging in war over the biblically defined Land of Israel among a small but influential population of reli- giously orthodox Jewish Israeli thinkers. The issue is complex and cannot be given its full due in a single article, but certain aspects are of particular interest to those engaged in the study of biblical interpretation and in the study of religion.2 This article will primarily analyze two movements in Jewish thought about war. First, it details how rabbinic sages constructed a mechanism designed to prevent a political situation that might trigger war for Jewish political sovereignty over the Land of Israel. Second, it details how one community of modern Jewish religious activists and thinkers has dis- mantled that mechanism. Not only is the topic timely and of some importance for a better understanding of the current situation in the Middle East, it also provides a window onto the complex and often subtle processes of interpretation and change within religious systems. DIVINELY SANCTIONED WAR IN THE HEBREW BIBLE War as depicted in the Bible has been a popular topic of study ever since Julius Wellhausen pointed out its overwhelming significance in his Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel in 1885 (Niditch 1993, von Rad 1991, Wellhausen 1957). Various approaches and conclusions have been suggested, from Friedrich Schwally's coining of the term "holy war" (heilige Krieg) in his monograph of that name in 1901 (Schwally 1901) to Fritz Stolz's concept of "Yahweh war" seventy years later (Stolz 1972). 2 A book-length study of the revival of "holy war" in modern Judaism by this author is currently under review for publication. This content downloaded from 128.95.104.66 on Sat, 18 Aug 2018 15:51:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 956 ournal of theal~ra Ameican vj thc-A eAcademy icatricdeffy of oReligionC Publication continues apace on the subject of war in the Bible to this day, and as one can imagine, interest in the topic is motivated by religious and political inclination as well as scholarly goals (Armstrong 1988, Barrett 1987, Craigie 1978). This article treats not the biblical ideas themselves, but how postbiblical Judaism has struggled and continues to struggle with the meaning of divinely sanctioned or even commanded war. The exegetical process and its results have continued to evolve to this day, all strongly influenced by historical context. The Hebrew Bible contains many images of peace and longings for the cessation of war, to be sure (Isaiah 2:24M//icah 4:1-5, Isaiah 11:1-9, Psalm 34:12-1), but it is also packed with stories, references, and com- mands through which God sanctions mass violence against the enemies of Israel.3 Heroes such as Joshua, Gideon, Saul, David, and even Moses lead Israel into wars that devastate Israel's enemies. In some, God com- mands genocide against Israel's adversaries (Deut. 3:6, 7:2, 20:17; Josh. 6:17, 10:28-40). In others, God even engages in the fray himself (Exodus 15:3, Josh. 28:41, Ezek. 38-9). This is classical "holy war"; that is, war that is holy because it is authorized or even commanded directly by God (Firestone 1999: 14-6). Some of Israel's wars, such as David's wars against the Arameans of Aram Tzuba (2 Kings 10), are successfully initiated with no reference to God. In light of these cases, it is clear that not all wars depicted in the Bible are explicitly commanded or forbidden by God. Some simply "hap- pen" (under a broad understanding of divine providence), initiated with- out direct reference to the divine command. According to biblical historiography, however, Israel's wars were successful, whether divinely commanded or not, only when the people obeyed their God. We thus observe how Israel failed in its first collective attempt to fight its enemies because it did not listen to God (Num. 14:44-45//Deut. 1:42-44). All subsequent failures and defeats, as well as victories, were understood in biblical depictions as divinely determined, including even the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 586 BCE and the associated massacres and population transfers by the Babylonian armies (2 Kings 24:1-4; Jeremiah 37:27-31, 38:2-3, 39:15-17; 2 Chron. 36:11-21). According to both biblical and postbiblical traditional Jewish histori- ography, history moves exclusively by way of God's will, even if not 3 The traditional Jewish term, "Israel," is a shortened form of "the People of Israel" ('am yisra'el), not a reference to a modern nation-state. The actual name of the modern Jewish State is Medinat Yisrael, "the State of [the People of] Israel." In this article, I use the traditional vocabulary of "Israel" to refer to the Jewish people from the biblical to the modern periods. This content downloaded from 128.95.104.66 on Sat, 18 Aug 2018 15:51:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Firestone: Holy War in Modern Judaism? 957 always immediately apparent to mortals. The Persian King Cyrus is inspired, if not commanded directly, by the God of Israel to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple and bring the Judeans back from Babylonian captivity (Isaiah 24:26-25:5, Ezra 1:1-8, 2 Chron.
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