152 Selected Responsa

planted a vineyard but has never harvested it? Let him go back to his him let he does in battle and another harvest it. Is there anyone who has paid the bride-price for a wife, but who has not yet married her? Let him go back to his home, let he dies in battle and other marry her.” The Official shall go on addressing the troops and say‘Is there anyone afraid and disheartened? Let him o back to his home, lest the courage of his comrades flag like his”(Deut 20:5-8). The later Mishnaic and Talmudic tradition elaborate slightly on these statements, but with no essential changes.

One of its statements deals with the disheartened may provide some guidance- that individual is not afraid, but has some other unknown reasons for not being willing to fight. He is not questioned further, but simply dismissed. To the best of my knowledge no interpretation in the past or the present has included conscientious objectors in this statement. Therefore individuals could be excused from military service for various reasons including fear(Deut 20:3 ff.), but nothing was said about a conscientious objection to a specific war.

Let us, however, also look at the possibility of pacifism within rabbinic Judaism and its view of the jurisdiction of a potential Jewish state. The rabbinic scholars made no statements against warfare an never condemned it outrightly. However, they made the decision 0 go to war, certainly for milkhamot reshut(discretionary war) SO difficult that by their standards it would have been impossible. On cannot give this the name of pacifism, but the practical result woul have been the same. Milkhamot reshut needed the assent of the king, a Sanhedrin(high court consisting of twenty-three), and consultation with the urim and tumim, i.e. divine permission. As none of these three conditions were possible after the destruction of the Temple an the fall of the last Jewish kingdom, such wars could not be declared.

According to rabbinic Judaism , matters were absolutely different with milkhamot mitzvah(mandated war) which meant th conquest and defense of the Land of Israel. There was no halakhi¢ way of being a pacifist when it came to this divinely commande conquest and defense of the Land of Israel. Those statements are precise and clear.