Fighting in National Armies 83
order to retrieve weapons needed for self defense.(Eruvin 45a). Building fortifications around a city or otherwise securing its defenses against future attack was discussed, including the levying of taxes for this purpose(B.B. 7b, 8a).
Considering the bulk of the Talmud , the limited discussion on these few pages demonstrates the scant halakhic interest in war during these centuries. No tractate of the Talmud or major section of this vast work dealt with either a theory of warfare or with the efforts to limit its effect on combatants and the bi-standers who have always been the main sufferers. There was no desire to elaborate on the biblical texts or to develop a full theological approach to warfare and all the problems which it brought.
The talmudic material was presented in a tightly organized form by Maimonides (1135-1204). He summarized that the conquest of the Land of Israel and its national defense was a mandated war and therefore obligatory upon the citizenry while the wars of the kings of Israel and Judea needed the approval of the Sanhedrin, the“Great Assembly.” For the former, war provisions, land for roads or fortifications could be requisitioned without recourse by the citizenry and the citizens were obligated to fight. Only in the latter type of war, the“discretionary” struggles could the laws of Deuteronomy about individual deferral from military service beinvoked. These pseudo-military decisions based upon discussions carried out in rabbinic academies through the centuries were, of course, purely theoretical and peripheral to the major concerns of these sages. They were based on vague scriptural citations which had never been fully developed into a theory of warfare and its ethical implications.
When we look to Jewish philosophical writings from Philo (ca. 40) through Saadiah(882-942) to the twentieth century, we find only the most incidental discussion of war. Levi ben Gerson ’s (Gersonides 1288-1344) Milhamot Adonai(Wars of God ) has a misleading title, from our perspective, as it did not deal with war.