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The Ethics of War: Judaism

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The Ethics of War: Judaism THE ETHICS OF WAR: JUDAISM by Norman Solomon, Oxford, 20031 Definitions: Sources and How to Read Them 2 Rabbinic Readings of Scripture 4 Self-Defence and Proportionality 6 Accepting the “Yoke of the Nations” 7 Compassion 8 Environment 8 Arms Trade 9 Some Mediaeval Jewish Views 9 Maimonides 11 Naḥmanides 13 The Modern Period 15 From Mercenary to Patriot 16 The Jewish State 19 Secularism and Early Zionism 19 The Israel Defence Forces 21 Rabbinic debates in Modern Israel 22 Conclusion 24 Select English Bibliography 28 1 First published: 'The Ethics of War: Judaism', in The Ethics of War: Shared Problems in Different Traditions, ed. Richard Sorabji and David Rodin (Aldershot U.K.: Ashgate, 2006), 108-137. NS / Judaism: Ethics of War Definitions: Sources and How to Read Them Definitions: Sources and How to Read Them By “ethics” I mean “norms of behaviour”, whether they are formulated as laws, or as ethical or moral principles. “Judaism” is the religion of the Jews, more properly called “Rabbinic Judaism”. I shall not be offering you “Old Testament Theology,” nor an account of what Jews in general have said about war. My area of discourse is the Judaism of the rabbis. Judaism, like Christianity, has deep roots in the Hebrew scriptures (“Old Testament”), but it interprets those scriptures along lines classically formulated by the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud, completed shortly before the rise of Islam. The Talmud is a reference point rather than a definitive statement; Judaism has continued to develop right up to the present. To get some idea of how Judaism handles the ethics of war, we have to review sources from the earliest scriptures to rabbinic discussion in contemporary Israel, a period of three thousand years. The Hebrew Scriptures comprise a collection of books compiled over more than a millennium. The sections relevant to war describe wars waged by the Israelites against the Canaanites and other nations; they also encompass the vision that “nation shall not lift sword unto nation” (Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3). Jewish reading of biblical texts is guided by the Talmud and other works of the rabbis. For instance, the Bible reports (Genesis 34) that Jacob’s sons slaughtered the inhabitants of Shechem on account of the rape of their sister, Dinah. Are we to interpret this as a model of righteous zeal, or as a grave aberration? From the Bible itself we would not know. Later Jewish tradition, however, regarded the massacre as a crime, or at best as an act requiring exceptional justification2. Law must be distinguished from narrative. For instance, Deuteronomic legislation, rightly interpreted, is normative; the behaviour of, e.g., king David, is not, and may indeed be open to criticism in the light of Torah law. The legislation concerning warfare in Deuteronomy 20 is the starting point for rabbinic thinking about war, as it was to be amongst Christians. In form it is a “military oration,”3 concerned with jus in bello rather than jus ad bellum; it regulates conduct in war, but does not specify conditions under which it is appropriate to engage in war. It distinguishes between (a) the war directly mandated by God against the Canaanites and (b) other wars. This is something like the distinction made in early modern Europe between religious wars (wars of the Church) and wars of the Prince.4 War against the Canaanites is based on the ḥerem, or holy ban; it is a war of extermination that knows no bounds (verses 15-18). Justification—a sort of jus ad 2 Goren, 223-6. 3 Weinfeld, 45. 4 On this distinction see Johnson, Ideology, 53. Page 2 NS / Judaism: Ethics of War Definitions: Sources and How to Read Them bellum—is offered, on the grounds that these nations might teach Israel “abominations” and lead them to sin (verse 18)5. No restraints are indicated. However, “normal” war is subject to several restraints: The war is to be fought only by those who are courageous, possessing faith in God, and who do not have a commitment such as a new house, vineyard or wife (verses 1- 10). An offer of peace is to be made to any city which is besieged, conditional on the acceptance of terms of tribute (10, 11). Should the city refuse the offer of peace the males are put to the sword, the females and small children are taken captive, and the city plundered. Food trees may not be cut down in prosecution of the siege (19, 20). 21:10-14 offers some amelioration of the status of the female captive. Joshua 11:19 states, “No city submitted to the Israelites, save the Hivites who lived in Gibeon”; the rabbis infer from this that offers of peace were made to the Canaanites, too.6 As to jus ad bellum, many biblical passages indicate the need for a casus belli, though the Bible does not articulate principles from which we might judge whether a particular cause was justified. If God issued explicit instructions, that would constitute adequate justification. However, God conspicuously does not rely on divine fiat alone when he commands the Israelites to conquer the “promised land”, but justifies it with the claims that (a) He has condemned the Canaanites on account of their immorality7 and (b) if left, they might “contaminate” the Israelites. The Dominican theologian Franciscus de Victoria (1492-1546) supports his “natural law” arguments against war for religion by a direct appeal to the Hebrew scriptures: [E]ven in the Old Testament, where much was done by force of arms, the people of Israel never seized the land of unbelievers either because they were unbelievers or idolaters or 5 Compare Deuteronomy 9:5. Michael Walzer (‘Idea of Holy War,’ 215) aptly observes that no biblical author “undertakes to construct an argument on behalf of the seven Canaanite nations comparable to Abraham’s argument on behalf of the Canaanite cities of Sodom and Gomorrah”. 6 Jerusalem Talmud Shevi‘it 6:1. Noah Feldman (page ??) states that “by not stating that there is an exception for obligatory war [Maimonides] makes the phrase “against any man in the world” … apply the duty to sue for peace to all wars, whether obligatory or voluntary”. This is certainly what Maimonides means, but it is no innovation; his source is the passage in the Jerusalem Talmud. Whether, as Feldman asserts, Maimonides subverts the Hebrew hishlim (“make peace”) into an “Arabic-influenced quasi- neologism” is doubtful; I have translated the term in the citation from Joshua 11:19 as “submitted to” rather than “made peace with” on the basis of Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon 1023 s.v. SHLM. 7 “For the sin of the Amorites will not be total until then” (Genesis 15:16) is a justification of the Israelite conquest on the grounds that God would not have permitted the Canaanites to be destroyed unless and until their evil justified it. Page 3 NS / Judaism: Ethics of War because they were guilty of other sins … but because of either a special gift from God or because their enemies had hindered their passage or had attacked them.8 Two kings, Saul and Ahab, certainly challenged the ruthlessness of Deuteronomy, and it is unlikely that the war laws of Deuteronomy governed Israelite activities in the biblical period; one scholar has called them the “radicalism of the writing desk,” a retrojection by authors attempting to bolster the covenantal consciousness of Israel9. The rabbis dared not criticise Deuteronomy, for they regarded it as the direct word of God; rather, they expressed their unease by means of interpretation. They could not exonerate Saul for being remiss in destroying the Amalekites, since the Bible states that he deserved his punishment; but they retold the story in way that was sympathetic to Saul and expressed their own puzzlement at the command to destroy Amalek: “And he strove10 in the valley (1 Samuel 15:5).” Rabbi Mani says, “Concerning the inheritance11. For when the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Saul, “Go, smite Amalek …” (15:3) he said, Surely, if the Torah says that if someone kills even one person a calf’s neck must be broken12, how much more so for all these people, and if the adults have sinned, what about the children! A heavenly voice issued forth and said, “Do not be over-righteous” (Ecclesiastes 7:16).13 The “heavenly voice” here is put on the defensive; Saul’s moral reasoning is made to appear correct. Rabbinic Readings of Scripture By the time the Talmud was compiled Jews had lost political independence; rabbinic discussion of war lacks firm contact with contemporary reality. Their legislation on warfare is essentially an exposition of Deuteronomy 20; it is historical reconstruction or messianic speculation, not the operational law of an actual society. 8 De Indis, sect. II, 16, cited by Johnson, Ideology, 156/7. 9 Weinfeld compares Deuteronomy’s military orations with those to be found in Herodotus and Thucydides; they are “literary programmatic creations and do not convey the actual content of speeches delivered in concrete circumstances” (51). He attributes them to the scribes of Josiah’s Reform (158 f.). 10 Some English translations have “lay in wait”. 11 The Hebrew naḥal may be translated “valley” or “inheritance”; Rabbi Mani interprets the verse as hinting that Saul was troubled about the means by which he was to secure possession of the land for Israel. 12 The allusion is to the atonement ceremony to be performed by representatives of the town nearest to where a slain person was found (Deuteronomy 21:1-9, immediately following the section on war).
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